Pond Maintenance and cleaning.

Our most common inquiry is regarding a pond ‘clean’. Ideally a pond will, alongside regular and quad annual care, need a full top to toe service once every 2-3 years, and often we find it has been a lot longer than that!

I thought it might be useful for me to detail how I go about caring for your pond during a major overhaul, as I really believe there should be more to it that a pressure washer and a pump. It really is an essential first step to improve and maintain your aquatic ecosystems wellbeing.

• Lawn and garden protection installed.

• Water chemistry tested, this can tell you so much about a ponds health before the waders are even out of the van.

• Careful removal of fish and larger wildlife to filtrated/aerated holding tanks.

• Drain down of pond, reserving as much of the bacteria rich water as possible. This is very important as your existing water will be full of vital Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter bacteria, which are essential to the welfare of the pond and its inhabitants by ensuing the breakdown of ammonia and nitrites. It also reduces water use which minimises environmental impact and costs.

• Health check, prune, divide and repot aquatic planting as required. Fertiliser added as required to ensure strong growth and flowering. All repotting is into 100% recycled, soft plant pots. Not only are these environmentally friendly, but allow superior water transfer and happier plants! A vast improvement over the traditional hard plastic ones.

• Remove pump (if Fitted) and strip, service and refit.

• Fully clean all silt/detritus/muck and remaining water from the bottom of the pond. A combination of pumps and professional grade Oase vacuums are used. Its fantastic fertiliser so will be distributed to planting beds/compost ares. This is a messy job, not for the faint hearted. Call me weird, but I actually enjoy it!

• Hose/pressure wash liner. The method chosen will depend on the age, condition and quality of original install. Pressure wash coping/pond edging where applicable.

• Inspection, clean and service filtration. Clean filter media, again being mindful to safeguard bacterial colonisation. Reassemble filter with new gaskets/o-rings where needed. Inspect pipework and all connections, making good where needed.

• Inspect and replace UVC bulbs and sleeves, if required.

• Pond refilled with a mix of reserved original and carbon filtered/treated fresh water. Fish visually heath checked and returned to their nice clean home!

• 100% organic aerobic ‘pond bomb’ introduced to boost lost bacteria. Any seasonally relevant, preventative measures (such as blanket weed suppressant) will be suggested and added if required (charges may apply).

• A comprehensive pond survey is completed throughout the job and a full, complimentary, written report will be forwarded to you after completion. I can get pretty geeky talking about ponds and many customers find this useful for either future reference or just figuring out what heck I’ve been on about!