Well, I made a mistake last fall. You know, the kind of mistake that is the result of saying, “Ehh, I’ll worry about it later.” My procrastination, or should I say mistake, caused me a lot more work this spring because this pond is located directly under a huge oak tree. To say I had a lot of leaves in the pond was an understatement. Had I taken the time to buy a net to place over the pond last fall, I could’ve prevented a lot of work for myself.
All winter long, the leaves sat in the pond. The resulting smell alone from the decaying leaves, worms and the newly established algae was enough to knock you down from a standing position. I didn’t house any fish in the pond which is why my negligence for this situation happened. If I had fish in the pond, I would’ve taken the time to clean it. I do value their little lives.
What’s the moral to this story? Maybe this will motivate all of you to not procrastinate like I did. But in the meantime, if you’re faced with this same situation, here’s some food for thought:
- Skim out as many leaves as you can with a net. I actually purchased a pool net from a local hardware store. This made the job a lot easier.
- I then proceeded to drain the pond with a pump. I actually don’t have a sump pump so I used the actual pond pump and just attached an old hose to the top of the outlet. It’s not the best scenario, but the pump is strong enough to pump out the water at a decent rate.
- Clean/replace your filters and proceed to refill your pond. It’s wise to check and clean your filter more periodically than normal because of the extra contaminates in the pond. Don’t forget to add any supplemental watering treatments to your water before are adding fish to your pond.
And by the way, I don’t plan do that again this fall! Because, I do plan to add fish to the pond this season. Hopefully I will have some beautiful pictures of fish to show you throughout the year. Happy spring cleaning to all of you!
