[Ponds-Koi] Spring cleaning
I want to correct a mis-thought you are having. Just because you do a partial water change, you are not removing any of the “good” bacteria. They live on all of the surface areas of your pond but mostly in the filter media. As long as you are careful when cleaning your filters and do not over clean them, then you should never have a cycling problem with an established pond.
DO NOT do a 100% water change as the water in the pond should be much warmer than the above ground holding tank. The earth stays around 70F and is keeping the water warmer and more consistent than the above ground tank that does not benefit from geothermal heating/cooling.
You could move the fish temporarily to a kiddie pool but there is no reason to “clean the whole pond”, just vacuum up the muck on the bottom and keep your filters running to get any suspended detritus. Then top off the pond and do filter maintenance to get the detritus out of your filter. Then make sure the temperatures are the same and move the fish back. If the temps are more than 2F difference, then add some of the pond water to the kiddie pool, a little at a time, until both are the same and then move the fish.
Yes, you are correct that you should do pond maintenance in the fall (and a couple of times a year) so that the fish do not have to live in or over winter in a dirty pond. All of that “muck” (detritus) becomes a haven for bad bacteria which is why you need to get it out before the water starts warming up more as the bacteria will start multiplying as the water warms up.
I normally just use my wet-vac to vacuum stuff out the bottoms of my shallow ponds but a regular wet-vac may not have enough suction to vacuum a deeper pond.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
