How to Choose Pond Maintenance Products.
You have spent months designing the layout and landscaping features, coming up with a planting plan and researching pumps, filters and fittings, weeks of back breaking toil to excavate and make the plans a physical reality. The final touch of adding a batch of fish to populate the new home you have provided for them has just been completed and you sit back with a beer or a G & T relaxed in contemplation of the beautiful feature you have created. It would be a shame to waste all that effort but unless a plan for maintenance is put into place that beautiful garden pond in which you have so far invested a great deal of time and effort, can turn into an unsightly, smelly quagmire.

There are a number of useful tools that will assist you in carrying out essential maintenance tasks. Some of these are very simple and inexpensive and some might be considered the deluxe option, some are only suitable for the smaller garden pond and some only for the larger.

Pond Net.
A hand held pond net is definitely a tool in the simple and inexpensive category and is something that every pond keeper must have. They are useful for netting out un-eaten food and leaves before they can decay and also for removing the occasional fishy casualty to its final resting place. Use fine nets to gently trawl through the water, especially after carrying out other maintenance tasks, to remove finer material that has been stirred up.

Pond Vacuum – Hand or Water Pressure Activated.
These use either human hand power or mains water pressure to effect a vacuum suction. Suitable for removing only fairly light debris they should be used on a very regular basis, perhaps every two weeks on average to help prevent the build up of sludge and algae. Most have a brush head to gently scrub surfaces and can, via an attached discharge pipe, remove water to effect a partial water change. Alternatively a strainer bag can be fitted to the pipe to collect debris but allow the water to be returned to the pond.

Pond Vacuum – Electric.
These are more like traditional wet / dry vacuum’s with a large capacity tank, long telescopic poles attached to a flexible pipe and terminating in a brush head. Often supplied with a number of accessories they can hoover up larger waste material and operate at greater depths than the hand or water powered ones described above. They can also be used to remove water or strain out debris whilst returning the water to the pond.

Sludge Busters.
Even with meticulous and regular maintenance there is inevitably a build up of waste mulm or sludge on the bottom of the pond. A Waste Controller or “Sludge Buster” although not a tool in the sense of the items above, is a useful assistant in the maintenance of a pond. They are a blend of microorganisms that specifically target Organic waste, breaking down and consuming the sludge layer. These should be used on a regular basis, every two, three or four weeks depending on the variety, as the process of sludge reduction is gradual and continuous throughout the season. Start to add a waste controller when the average water temperature is 10 to 12 Centigrade (50 to 55 Fahrenheit).

Maintenance should be carried out on both a regular basis and at key seasonal times as described below.

Spring Pond Maintenance.
Springtime sees the environment around and in the pond waking up from a long period of inactivity and steps taken to maintain and manage the pond during early spring will reap rewards during the coming seasons. If this task was not done at the end of the previous season, (sometime during October), you can now strip and clean your biological filter, ultra-violet steriliser and pump. Bio-foams and other media can be thoroughly hosed clean (only use a hose at this time, any bio-media cleaned during the season must be washed in waste pond water not tap water to ensure beneficial bacteria are retained). Replace foams with new if they do not spring back to shape when squeezed. Clean the U.V. quartz sleeve of deposits with methylated spirit (careful, the sleeve is very fragile and expensive to replace). Discard old u.v. tube and replace with new at this time. Check all cables for wear or damage (see also more maintenance details in “Information Helping You to Choose a Pond Filter – Pond Pump – Ultra-violet Steriliser”, on the website.)

Lift potted marginal plants and re-pot using new hessian or porous long life basket liner and new aquatic compost. Add slow release fertiliser tabs and top off with inert pea gravel to about ½” to ¾” depth. Water thoroughly, away from the pond, with gentle hose or watering can prior to putting back into pond (so trapped air does not lift soil). Water lilies are best re-potted every 2 to 3 years although they should be fertilised at this time. Be careful not to remove too many of the submerged oxygenators as, although they may look a tangled, disorganised mass, they perform a vital function and the more of them there are the better.

Using a pond vac, (available on the website) or large bore pipe as siphon, hoover over and remove leaves and organic sludge deposits on pond bottom. In well-established ponds, in order to preserve wildlife, have a large bucket of pond water to hand in which you can place netted frogs, newts, etc. A separate bucket will also be required for any fish in the pond. Cover the buckets to keep them in and the local cat out. It is neither necessary nor desirable to remove all the material contained on the bottom of an ornamental garden pond. Aim to reduce the deposits. Unless the pond has been badly neglected, necessitating a complete strip down, only remove a maximum of 15-20% of the water. Add a water conditioner to remove harmful chlorines and metals and top up with freshwater. If maintenance has caused the water to be cloudy, settle out suspended particles with a flocculating agent. A long handled pond net with fine mesh is useful for netting out material suspended in the water.

Return wildlife and fish to pond, switch on the pump and filter system. When average water temperature is around 10-12° C (50-55° F) add a biological starter, available in liquid or powder form, which will seed the pond and filter with beneficial bacteria ensuring the filter is brought up to maximum operating efficiency in the shortest possible time. Keep u.v. switched off for two weeks at this time otherwise it will kill the bacteria being added.

On-going Maintenance.
Always net out any un-eaten fish food after feeding. Remove dead plant material before it has a chance to decay and trim back pond plants that are becoming overgrown. Net out leaves and other material blown into the pond from surrounding garden areas. Clean static surfaces with the brush head of a vacuum device and also use this to limit but not eliminate the accumulation of a bottom silt layer.

Winter Pond Maintenance.
It is essential to fit a pond net to prevent leaves from falling into the pond during the autumn months and net any out that may find their way past this barrier. Prior to fitting the net marginal plants should be cut back as the foliage deteriorates and failing lily leaves should be removed. Pond and bog plants sensitive to frost should be protected with straw or fleece, or removed to a frost-free area such as a greenhouse to over-winter. When the water temperature reaches around 50F (10C) the biological activity in a pond filter reduces considerably. This is the time to disconnect filters and ultra violet sterilisers, until the temperature rises in early spring when they can be put back into service. Any filtration equipment left outside during the winter should be lagged and protected from the worst of the winter weather. (See - 'Information Helping you to Choose a Pond Filter' , 'Information Helping you to Choose an Ultra Violet Steriliser' and ‘Information Helping You Choose Products for winter’ for more details.)

If maintenance is carried out a little at a time as is required and not neglected then the pond will thrive and always be a great looking garden feature. Planned, preventative maintenance will not be a chore and always produce better results than that carried out spasmodically and reactively.