As spring approaches you may be looking at your garden pond seeing the blanket weed growing or that your pond is starting to look dirty, so when is the best time in the year to do a clean of your pond.
Firstly any time of the year you can clean out your filter, This can be from using the self clean function that’s if your filter has this but the best way is opening the filter to clean all the components like the foam and medium, and also check your UV tube if you haven’t replaced it in a year I would recommend changing it. Then onto your pump take his out of the water and clean the cage of the pump of any debris.
It goes without saying opening the filter and taking the pump out of the water is with the power OFF
Doing the above even within a day will make a major difference in the clarity of your water, as cleaning the cage of the pump with any muck around it means more dirty water is getting into the filter, as debris around your pump can act as a kind of filter, so only cleaner water is going to the filter and you want your filter to hold that muck. But then on the opposite of that if you haven’t cleaned your filter for a while this means that there could be no more room for any more muck. So if you clean out the filter then can hold all the dirty stuff in the filter instead of your pond.
And if your UV isn’t working that means algae isn’t getting killed so your water is not as clear, so replacing your UV will then help clear the water.
You can easily tell by the colour of your pond water if your filter needs a clean or that your UV isn’t working, See my other article on this.
So now onto what time of year you can start doing a clean or service on your pond, well first my main job is doing a full service on your pond. Quick breakdown on what this entails is getting your water out into special vats then get your fish into the vats, get all the muck out, full pressure wash and even scrub the sides, cut back plants, fully empty again , then put water & fish back in. Also I do clean the filter, pump, waterfall, fountain, change UV etc.
But there are time of the year this is impossible to do this work if there are fish in your pond, you can either read on or watch my video below from my YouTube channel for these reasons.
The first reason is the temperature , as we know in the winter the temperatures get colder and this does affect your fish. If you have had a pond for a while you will have noticed that in the winter your fish aren’t moving around as much and they are also down more to the bottom of the pond.
Your fish in the winter does to the water temperature there metabolism slows down and can enter into a state of dormancy. This is why they move slower in the winter. They more go down to the bottom as the temperature is warmer the deeper the pond than on the surface.
As a full clean means the fish have to come out go from a warm temperature from below to what is a cooler water temperature in the vats that I have set up. Also you have to think about the air tempature as getting them out in a net means that they are going into what could be a very cold air temp. The change in the temperature can cause the fish to go into shock and in the long term may not be good for their overall health.
So when is the right temperature to do this kind of work, the advice that I can give after over 3 years of experience is I take the average morning temperature of a given week if that is below below 5 degrees. Then the service cannot be done, but if it is over that temperature for about 5 days in a row. Then this is when I can start doing them.
So what month can this be done? well as we all know the UK weather can be all over the place and also the seasons are changing slightly the average I around march time, again temperature dependent. Now we can have cold spells even after the temps may have gotten a of warmer but this isn’t them a problem as your fish metabolism will have got faster and they can then deal with any changes in temperature
So as you can see that this isn’t to do with me not wanting to work in the cold etc as I don’t really mind the cold , my first priority is your fish and any other wildlife you may have in you pond. There have even been times that I have worked in the snow and again the rain is not really a problem as due to the work I get wet anyway.
The above doesn’t really count if you don’t have fish in your pond as this can be done really anytime, Also if you have a major leak in your pond in the dead of winter then yes at that time the fish have to come out into the cold, but there are precautions I can take to help the fish due to the change of temp taking them out of the pond, but if you think of it this way and your pond is lossing water fast and you could wake up in a morning with no water in your pond your fish could die, so taking them out is the better option.
If you are in the West Midlands and are interesting in having your pond clean please get in touch through my contact page HERE