Pond Spring Cleaning

Why is it that we don’t have a word for “Summerize”? (Yes, autocorrect hates this, for good reason.) Think about it, every fall we get everything ready for winter, yards, tires, clothes, cars and especially our ponds and we call it “Winterizing” but in the spring we need to get all these things ready for summer again and we don’t have a word for it. Spring Cleaning is about as close as I can think of. Well, regardless of what you call it, we are counting down to the oncoming pond season and we need to start thinking about getting ready!

The right time to start thinking spring with your pond is once the ice has melted and the temps have risen to 40 degrees and held there for at least a week. If you followed our guide for winterizing your pond, you’re going to have much less work to do now than everyone who got lazy last fall.

You should start with cleaning up the area around the pond. Rake up leaves, sticks and anything else your pets may have left beneath the snow. If you used netting to prevent leaves and invaders, and left it on throughout the winter now is the time to remove it. We recommend not overwintering your net, removing after leaves are done and before ice will vastly increase the number of service years you get out of the net.

The next job is to remove debris from the pond; you can use a net or a pump, or your hands (but this option is going to be cold.) If you used a leaf net, and did a good job of cleanup last fall, you should have little in there in the way of debris. If you have a lot of algae growth, which our pond keepers in the more temperate regions often experience, a long brush and pump can make quick work of it.

Most of your plants got trimmed/split last fall, some will need to be trimmed/split now and some need that later in the summer based on species and timing. It is still time to inspect everything, so have a look at all your plants. Remove all the dead material, trim the stuff that needs trimming. It’s time to place things where you want them, any plants that were moved deeper for overwintering should be placed back in their proper location. Plants that were potted should be checked to see if they need repotting, if you use a fertilized medium in your pots, now is the time to replace it. If you overwintered tropical plants inside, it might still be a bit early for moving them back out. Spend some time googling the different species of plants that you have in your pond and treat them as individuals.

The next steps are where proper winterizing is going to make a huge difference in how much work you have to do because it’s water change time. If your pond doesn’t have much in the way of debris and sludge, you should do a 20%-25% water change. For those of you using municipal water supplies, use a garbage can or other large container to treat your water with a dechlorinator, we recommend Dr. Tim’s Aqua-Cleanse. If you have a small amount of sludge build up, it can be pumped/siphoned out as a part of the water change. If there is more than an inch or so of buildup, you’re going to need to remove all your fish and do a complete water change. We’ll go through full-pond water changes in another article. Disturbing that much sludge can release a lot of gasses as well as trapped ammonia; doing so while your fish are in the pond can be very harmful to them. If your pond is too large for a complete water change, do sludge removal gradually in small sections as a part of many water changes over time. Moving forward, take preventative steps around keeping sludge out of the pond: feed less, scoop leaves that fall in, and consider dosing Dr. Tim’s Sludge Buster slowly throughout the warm months.

Next it’s time to take some mechanicals into consideration. If you use a pond skimmer, make sure the skimmer basket is clear of debris. It’s time to remove the aeration stone or the de-icer and plug your filters, pumps and waterfalls back in. Replace filter pads and media if you use it. Keep an eye on overnight temperatures, if it looks like it’s going to freeze hard for a few days, turn the waterfalls back off until that danger clears. For those of you with UV sterilizers on your ponds it’s time for a sleeve cleaning. Follow your manufacturer's instructions on this carefully. The glass sleeves in UV sterilizers are notoriously fragile. Spring is also a good time to replace UV bulbs. Wait a couple days before you turn the UV filter back on as we’re trying to kick start spring bacteria, and we don’t want the UV wiping them out!

Now that the water has settled down from your water change and all your filters are running, do a series of water tests. Free ammonia and nitrite should be zero, and Nitrates should be very low, if they are higher than 5ppm, do another water change. Repeat this on a daily basis (or as often as humanly possible) until the nitrates drop to an acceptable level.

Soon you’ll have to start feeding again. Once water temps get up into the 50-degree Fahrenheit range, you can feed your low protein winter food once weekly, but do so lightly. At this point, your fish do not have high metabolic demands and too much food will turn directly into nutrient spikes and later into algae blooms. Once the water temperature is consistently in the mid-60s, you can start to feed every other day. Watch your fish for slowdowns in their eating and then stop. Over feeding is the biggest cause of pond problems, and these problems are always exacerbated in the spring, when feeding is slow, and less calories are needed

Once the weather is nice and your pond temps stay over 65, it’s time to start thinking about adding your less cold tolerant fish and plants (the ones you overwintered in your garage/basement etc.). Obviously, this is species dependent, make sure you’ve done your research about what species can be added to what temps successfully. Make sure to match the temperature they are coming from, and the temperature they are going to, as closely as possible. Bag floating fish, or moving water from pond to container slowly can help you equalize temperatures and avoid unnecessary shock.

Now you’re ready to have a cold beverage and enjoy your pond! Check back in with us as the weather warms and we’ll talk stocking and troubleshooting! Happy Pond Keeping from all of us here at Aquatropic!