Small pond vaccums???

[Melott]

Hello!!
Well I seem to have finally gotten my green pea soup pond to finally clear up. Know that I can see my fish, I have noticed I have a build up of algae on my pond walls, so I was wondering about small pond vaccums cleaners and what you guys think about them? I don't want to remove all but I wanna clean it up. I'm kind of thinking maybe a battery operated one for under $50. Any suggestions or strong feelings about one or any kind of cleaner?

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Don't know if small battery powered pond vacuums are even available.
Keep in mind when "cleaning up" that any reduction in the attached algae growth on your pond walls will also reduce the amount of available Oxygen in the pond's water column.

 

[Mmathis]

The algae that you see on the liner is a good thing, and you shouldn't remove it. As @Meyer Jordan mentioned, the algae is not only contributing to the oxygen, but is also (like the "pea soup" algae) utilizing the ammonia, etc. produced by fish waste. I assume you have fish? Because the fish also snack on it and it's nutritious for them. If you did want to remove it anyway, you almost have to scrub or "power wash" it off -- I don't think a vac will remove it.

I was watching one of my goldfish the other day. It was making these odd, jerking motions next to the liner for quite a while and I was beginning to think it was having seizures -- really, I was becoming concerned and was about to go for the net to fish it out! But I watched just a little longer, and darn, that fish was literally tearing algae off a fold in the liner! Little guy was putting some big effort into the yanking. ....just to illustrate how important the algae layer is.

 

[davidmeher]

Hello!!
Well I seem to have finally gotten my green pea soup pond to finally clear up. Know that I can see my fish, I have noticed I have a build up of algae on my pond walls, so I was wondering about small pond vaccums cleaners and what you guys think about them? I don't want to remove all but I wanna clean it up. I'm kind of thinking maybe a battery operated one for under $50. Any suggestions or strong feelings about one or any kind of cleaner?

I use wet/dry shopvac for my 2,000 gallon pond. Though have to empty bucket frequently...good for garden plants.
And algae, as others have said is natural.

 

[Lisak1]

The only algae I ever remove from my pond is the kind that is free floating and can be removed by hand. The stuff growing on the liner is part of the landscape!

 

[davidmeher]

I built a Skippy filter. 3 years, never clean filter, water is clear, but with algae on walls. Looks natural.

W/D shopvac works fine to suck bottom debris . . . But have to frequently dump bucket of sucked-up water.