You've your pond up and running, but the pump went belly up and the fountain's down to a trickle....what the hec?

Does this sound familiar? Check your pond everyday for maintenance problems that pop up from time to time. Ponding can be the most relaxing experience in the world, but like all leisure pasttimes, you have to sometimes mix work and pleasure.

Keeping your pond a clean environment for those plants and fish isn't a difficult task. However, it has to be done. Save yourself from potential disasters before hot weather arrives by cleaning your pond as soon as possible after winter passes. If leaves and other debris have found their way into your pond during the winter, a pond cleaning is in order for you. If you have an inch of silt, thick black water, and/or a foul odor to your pond when the water is stirred.....it's time to clean! If your fish spend the winter in the house, just roll up your sleeves, get out that ice cream pale and start bailing the old slimmy water out. Don't use soap to clean out your pond, you could leave behind harmful residue. If you kept your fish in the pond over winter, you can follow this procedure:

Assemble the following: clean holding tank for fish; stiff brush; pump/tubing; bucket; fish net; netting to cover holding tank; outdoor extension cord if necessary; pond thermometer.

1. Start by setting up a holding tank for your fish in a shaded area. Clean plastic trash cans, tubs or aged children's wading pools are all good choices. Provide aeration with a submersible pump.

2. Fill the holding tank with original pool water.

3. Pump water out of your pond. Be careful not to flood your neighbor's yard!

4. When only a few inches of water remain, remove the fish to aerated holding tank. Cover tank with netting to prevent fish from jumping out of the holder.

5. Remove and cover plants with wet newspaper or burlap and keep them in the shade.

6. Bail out the water using a pail or shop water vac.

7. Using clean water, scrub the pool floor with a stiffbrush. Do not remove the beneficial moss-like algae which grows on the sides of the pool.

8. Rinse the pool and drain.

9. Fill your pond with fresh water.

10. Add AquaSafe NH/CL or DeCHLOR if your water is treated with chloramine.

11. Add new, treated pond water to holding tank until its water temperature's within 3 degrees of the new pond water.

12. Release your fish and scavengers into the pond.

13. Divide and repot plants if necessary and put them back in the pond.

14. Clean pump and filter and replace them in the pool. Now is also the time to replace plastic tubing, reroute tubing, add that new fountainhead etc.

Clean your pump's impeller every two months by removing the screw from the plastic volute and washing it and the impeller it will expose. Do not break the seal of the motor housing! Be sure to operate your pump on a Ground Fault Interrupter.

Be sure to check your filter pads daily, or you'll get the surprise of a fountain trickle instead of a fountain gurgle *G* Rinse the filters atleast twice a week. This very important maintenance step will save your pump and help keep your water garden as clean as possible.

If you have a waterfall or fountain and you notice that the flow is reduced from what you usually see, check your filter pads or pump screen. They are probably clogged and are weakening your pump.

NOW let's have that little chat on P-O-N-D S-C-U-M

Yup, all ponds are bothered, more often than not, with "that awful green stuff". As spring appears all over your garden in the form budding flowers and trees, it appears in your water garden in the form of algae.

It is an unfortunate truth of nature, that the first aquatic plant to appear after winter's cold is the simple algae.

Algae grows when there are nutrients present in the water, and the sun is both warm enough and bright enough to encourage new growth.

Time rids your pond of most of the green water as your other plants mature, consuming nutrients and/or blocking sunlight from the water.

The 'green water' algae is not harmful, just ugly looking. However, there is another type of algae, the filamentous algae which resembles long, dense clumps of stringy green horse hair. This type of algae prefers cooler water, making it most prolific in the spring and fall. These plants can be harmful to your plants by blocking the sun as their green scummy mats cover the pond's surface. they can wind themselves around your lilies and other plants and form cloudy masses on the sides of the pond.

Algicides do not make much impact on this tenacious strain of algae, but do slow it's growth, but do not prevent its eventual return. Finally, there is the option to remove the stringy algae by hand.

The hand removal is not a popular chore, but here is one way to go about it. Using a PVC pipe, cut the end into strips almost like a fork. Put this roughened end into the pond and twirl the other end between your hands. The algae will wind onto the pipe like spaghetti onto a fork.

There is no mystery to green water, no algae gremlin disrupting your pond. It's simply nature's calling card telling you spring is here and your pond is coming back to life. Nutrients are thriving in your pond and so too will your favorite pond plants.

So you say your Goldfish would like to become parents....say what?

You can enjoy this happy event in your own garden pond this spring with the spawning of baby goldfish or koi. Here's what to do.....

1. have plenty of submerged plants or better yet, spawning mats.

2. Prepare a 100 plus gallon "nursery" pool at least a week before water termperatures reach the 60's.

3. Watch for a fish or two to get quite fat, and to begin searching around the submerged plants or spawning mat. This curious fish is the female.

4. Other fish soon begin to chase her relentlessly. These are the males, anxious to fertilize her eggs.

5. A spawning mat is her preferred nesting place. her second choice is your submerged plants. As soon as the eggs are deposited, the males fertilize them. You are now ready to remove the egg-laden mat or plants from the pool and place them in the "nursery".

6. With 6 days the eggs hatch into schools of tiny fish, which are about 1/4 inch long.

7. Your baby fish will enjoy crumbled flake food as they grow rapidly, and gradually turn gold, some the first season, some later, some never.

8. After 2 or 3 months of special care, return your babies to their parents in the "big pool" where they will continue to grow and become ever more colorful.

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Last Updated July 10, 1998