Start fresh or leave it alone?

[SueAndHeZoo]

Hi. Will try to keep this short but accurate. I've had my pond for almost 20 years now (have had to replace the liner once) and it's been used for lots of different things. Started out as a koi pond, then added lots of great pond plants, then turned it into a turtle rescue pond, and now that the turtles are gone it's now a combination of fish pond/dog swimming pool! Here's my dilemma:

When it was a koi pond I was able to pretty much keep it crystal clear by doing general maintenance but never draining the pond.... I let the biosystem grow and do it's thing. When it became a turtle pond, obviously all the plants got eaten and the water was always disgusting so my husband would do frequent water changes, and that meant remove ALL the water, scrub the sides and bottom, and refill. Of course that meant it looked clean for a day or two and then was disgusting and green again. Now that it is a fish pond again, I am begging him to STOP draining the pond and let me go back to going the natural, eco-system route. I'm not sure if it will take years for that to establish again or if I can make it happen faster so looking for advice.

Should we drain it completely one more time and start with a squeaky clean pond and then leave it alone? Or should I just try to get some of the fall leaves and much out while keeping at least half of the old water in there?

It's been a long time since I first started this pond up so I need to do a lot of reading and refreshing, and I'm guessing there are probably new schools of thought since I first started this hobby. If I had to guess I'd say it's 12 feet by 12 feet, average depth of 24 inches.

Thoughts/suggestions, please? And thanks in advance.
Sue

 

[JRS]

By scrubbing the sides and bottom you are harming all the beneficial bacteria and other organic growth that helps the pond stay clear. A bit of short turf algae on the liner may look unsightly to some but it helps the water quality and the pond ecosystem. If there are large amounts of debris built up, by all means scoop it out. Best to do only partial water changes, especially if using tap water. I like to do my spring cleaning before a rain fall and let that fill the pond back up (using a downspout) since I live in a hard water area.

Consider adding a bog filter to your pond, basically a planted area of some type that water is circulated through containing a rooting medium like pea gravel that also acts as a biological filter and traps fine debris that the plants use as food. Bogs do wonders for eliminating green water. I built an undersized bog for my pond, and have had no further problems with green water once running and I have 3 adult turtles, 2 sliders and a cooter, in addition to the fish, in a system of about 1300 gallons total.

then turned it into a turtle rescue pond, and now that the turtles are gone

It would be interesting to hear more about your experience with the turtles. I have four rescues myself.

 

[SueAndHeZoo]

By scrubbing the sides and bottom you are harming all the beneficial bacteria and other organic growth that helps the pond stay clear. A bit of short turf algae on the liner may look unsightly to some but it helps the water quality and the pond ecosystem. If there are large amounts of debris built up, by all means scoop it out. Best to do only partial water changes, especially if using tap water. I like to do my spring cleaning before a rain fall and let that fill the pond back up (using a downspout) since I live in a hard water area.

Consider adding a bog filter to your pond, basically a planted area of some type that water is circulated through containing a rooting medium like pea gravel that also acts as a biological filter and traps fine debris that the plants use as food. Bogs do wonders for eliminating green water. I built an undersized bog for my pond, and have had no further problems with green water once running and I have 3 adult turtles, 2 sliders and a cooter, in addition to the fish, in a system of about 1300 gallons total.


It would be interesting to hear more about your experience with the turtles. I have four rescues myself.

Thanks for the reply, I pretty much thought he was destroying the beneficial bacterial system each time he devoted an entire weekend to "cleaning" it for me. Now that the turtles are gone I've asked him to let me go back to doing the maintenance which should be fairly easy once I get all the leaves out of the bottom.

I do have a waterfall and bog area, but with the dogs playing in the bog most of the plants get destroyed. Maybe I can throw some sort of plant in the filter overflow (the big square container that fills up before it spills over to the waterfall? How do you feel about barley, I've read some suggestions on that. I'm hoping to have a lot of underwater and surface plants in the pond to help with keeping it clear - isn't that as good as plants in the bog?

The turtles: I'm known around here for rescuing any injured or abandoned/unwanted animal, right now I have four newborn rabbits. A nearby city pond was drained by the city and hundreds (yes hundreds) of turtles were forced to leave and cross a very busy industrial road. I'm not exaggerating when I say me and a few other volunteers were trying to get the ones that were still alive and relocate them. I ended up with a bunch of them, and word of mouth had others bringing me their "too big for a tank" pets. I had 27 turtles at one point.

I'm not sure if I'll be be able to have a "pretty" pond again with three dogs who love water but I'm going to try. I'm torn between wanting it to look nice and wanting it to be a fun place for the pups!
Sue

 

[addy1]

Welcome to the forum!

Can you make a area for the pups? that keeps them out of the rest of the pond. The other area you could have plants etc.

 

[SueAndHeZoo]

Welcome to the forum!

Can you make a area for the pups? that keeps them out of the rest of the pond. The other area you could have plants etc.

Hmmm, interesting idea. There is one spot that the dog normally goes in and comes out, so I could try to focus the plants at the opposite end. But of course the side on which I had built a shelf into the pond (for bog plants) is the side she uses to go in and out. Plus, the other side doesn't get full sun, but I like the idea - I may be able to come up with something. Thanks!
Sue