# cleaning out a pond



## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

ok, so i have a 150 gallon pond in my front yard. it has a 5 gallon bucket bio filter we built ourselves. so pretty much every spring for the past 3 years we have taken down one side of the pond (it's an above-ground) and completely emptied ot out (we put the fish in a large rubbermaid container) scrubbed it, rinsed all the rocks on the bottom, etc. then we fill it back up and dump the fish back in when it's the same temp as the water they're in. now that i've learned about cycling, i wonder if this is really bad for the fish  we've never lost one after cleaning the pond like this, and they all act normally and eat and seem fine. we never wash out the bio filter, so there's still all the good bacteria in there. and yes, when we first set up the filter, we let it cycle with a couple goldfish that first time before adding more fish (one of which is still alive, the other got stuck in the pre-filter and died). 

so basically, is this method of washing out the pond harmful to the fish? the reason we do this is because over the fall and winter lots of leaf litter falls into the pond and rots and makes it really murkey and dark. it seems like the only way to clear it out is to do a 100% water change and scrub all the rocks and the sides and everything


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

I have a mesh skimmer for a pool that I only use on my pond to remove leaves and such in the fall and those pesky helicoptor seeds and such in the spring. 

I just aim the fountain out into the garden and drain it a bit then refill it with fresh water.


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## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

we've tried partial water changes....doesn't help. we have to actually climb into the pond barefoot and scrub everything. there's a lot of setiment and rotting leaves in the bottom that we flush out and we scrub the algae off the sides as well. probably doesn't help that the pond is actually right under our maple tree.....


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## fish_doc (Jan 31, 2005)

as long as you dont clean the bio filter at the same time I think you should be ok.


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## Celeste (May 13, 2005)

there's also this basin full of rocks and water cress. we never clean that out either, and i'm sure there's a TON of beneficial bacteria in there. the roots of the watercress act as another filter as well. and we always dechlorinate the water and bring it to the same temp as the fish are used to, so we don't shock them.


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