'Summerizing' your pond!

Once again, it's time to Summerize! No, we don't mean summarize; if getting ready for winter means winterizing, then getting ready for summer should be? Yup. Spring has sprung in the southern portions of North America, and it won't be long for everyone up north either. So, what does this mean for your Koi Ponds? The countdown to pond season is upon us and it's time to get ready! It isn't necessarily spring cleaning, because everyone here read our winterizing article last fall and has a nice clean pond to start with this spring, right?

When you start to spring clean the yard (regardless of the temperature), focus on the area around the pond. Pick up everything, sticks, leaves, and, ahem, anything your pets may have left in the yard, under the snow... Next, if you left your net on over the winter, it's time to remove that too. Those of us who get ice on our ponds should have gotten that done last fall, after leaves but before ice, which will ravage a net. After the place is cleaned up a bit, start paying attention to the temperature in your pond. Many of us don't have ponds that freeze over, but for those that do, once it has melted, you should start to regularly take temperatures. We recommend doing this in the morning, which is when the temps will be coldest. Once the pond temps stay over 40 for a week it's time to get busy.

If you used a leaf net last fall and did a good job of winterizing, the next steps are going to be when you reap the rewards. It's time to get everything out of the pond that doesn't belong there: leaves, sticks, baseballs, dead plants or whatever else might be down there, it's time to remove it and there shouldn't be much. For what is there, we suggest using a net, though you could just use your hands but unless your pond is very small and very shallow, that is going to be a cold and miserable undertaking. It's also time to remove algae, and if you're lucky enough not to have ice over the winter, you probably have algae right now. A pool brush and a submersible pump can make this job go much quicker, and the pumps outlet can just go through a 5-micron filter sock, sending the water right back to the pond without the debris and algae. This is especially handy if you don't have water hoses de-winterized yet. We've even seen people use wet/dry vacuums, but this is not recommended unless you're attempting to go viral for pond cleaning fails.

Have a look at your plants. They should be mostly dormant still, and assuming you trimmed and split whatever you wanted to this should be pretty easy. Remove anything that has died over the winter and trim anything that needs trimming. In colder climates, it's common practice to move some plants into deeper water during the winter to protect them, and now it's time to undo it if you practice it. Potted plants should be pulled and inspected to see if they are rootbound; repot anything that is. It is also time to replenish any fertilized medium you plant in if it is depleted. If you overwinter stock inside, start making a schedule for moving your tropical plants (and fish) back outside based on their individual temperature needs. There is no cut and dried time to get this job done, google each species individually, and bring them out when their minimum temperature is reached and stabilized for a week.

Now that the dust has settled from the algae removal, repotting and trimming, it's water change time. Now, if you removed a ton of water with the algae removal, maybe you've already gotten this step out of the way. Aim for replacing 20-25% of the total volume of your pond. Everyone who has their own well can just pump water and sludge out of the pond and then fill the pond up with a hose. If you live anywhere with a municipal water system, this water will have to be dechlorinated before it goes in. We recommend using a clean, “Brute” style garbage can(s). Just fill these up with as much water as you need and treat the water. We recommend Dr. Tim's Aqua-Cleanse.

As a side note on sludge, if your pond has more than an inch or so of buildup, you'll need to remove the fish before siphoning it out. A lot of decomposition can go on down there and this can build up an array of gasses (as well as ammonia and nitrites) that aren't good for fish, and in temperatures this cold, the gasses are very soluble in water. Remove fish, then pump out all the sludge and water. Add new water back, but don't clean the filters at that time as you'll need them to be as bacterially active as possible to maintain filtration capacity. If your pond is too big to do a complete water change, start removing sludge in small portions as part of a series of water changes. Try not to disturb the sludge that remains between changes. If you're having this much gunk build up, something is amiss with how the pond is being maintained. Either too many leaves are getting in, or you're feeding way too much, or skipping out on either spring or fall maintenance (or both)! Take some steps to reduce the amount of stuff that gets in there. You can also utilize Dr. Tim's Sludge Buster as part of your sludge reduction plan, which works really well, and can be dosed slowly over the course of the summer months.

After the water change, your next maintenance should be focused on your mechanicals. The pond skimmer needs to be cleared of leaves, grass and whatever else that got stuck in there over the winter. Plug in filters, pumps and waterfalls and make sure they work. If you've done a complete water change, wait a couple days before cleaning the filter pads and media, otherwise, go ahead and get that done now (if your system utilizes them). Clean the sleeves on your UV sterilizer, if you've got one, and we recommend you all running a UV sterilizer. These sleeves are very fragile, so be careful and follow your manufacturer's instructions carefully. If your UV bulbs are due, replace them now too. It wouldn't hurt to leave the UV stuff off for the next couple weeks as you re-establish the bacterial colonies you need in your pond and filters but get them on before your pond gets up to 60 or so or face the algae outbreak season unprepared!

Now your system is running happily along, so it's time to start doing your water testing. Make sure you don't have any ammonia and nitrite, and that the nitrates are under 20ppm. Our goal should be 5ppm, but depending on what you have in your pond, a little leeway there is warranted. If you have ammonia, nitrite or nitrates over 20ppm, do another large water change, and think about adding a bacterial kick-starter, like Dr. Tim's One & Only. Give it a day to settle down again, then re-test.

After this, you have a bit of a waiting game happening. Water will have to get warm enough for fish to need food. As cold-blooded critters, their metabolisms are dependent on their environment. Once water gets up to the 50s, start feeding low protein winter food, but do so very cautiously. They don't need much and excess food here will just turn into nutrient spikes and sludge (and later algae). When the pond gets into the 60s you can ramp this up to maybe every other day. Activity level should be quite a bit higher than winter levels. Still monitor feeding closely and stop feeding when the fish start slowing down. We've touched on overfeeding your pond many times in previous columns, and that's warranted. It's probably the biggest single problem for most people's ponds, and these problems nearly always start in the spring when the fish need less food, and people want to feed them more.

If your pond is focused on Koi, spring is a great time to add water lettuce. It's a durable species that free floats and the Koi can graze on it as they like to help get them food as they need it. It can help control nitrates, and its roots are great for bacterial colonization. It takes some maintenance and should never be allowed to escape your pond as it is very invasive. You will likely have to cull it over time. Do not let it cover the pond.

That's pretty much it, you've earned a cold bevy, (or maybe a warm one depending on how cold it is, and how soaked you are!). So, pull up a chair and listen to your waterfall feature burble away while you make plans for summer stocking! Check back with us this summer and we'll talk about that too! Happy Ponding!