Fall / Winter Pond Maintenance
It's that time of the year again when the days are shorter and the nights are cooler. This is also a great time of the year to get our ponds ready for winter. As many of you know, we like doing our "major" yearly cleaning in the fall instead of the spring. The water is much warmer in the fall than the spring and the fish are still active and not as easily stressed.
The first thing we like to do is remove any leaves, waste or decaying plant material from the bottom of the pond. Since it is important to remove as much waste and decaying material from the bottom of the pond as possible, we like to use a pond vacuum. ( A few benefits of a pond vacuum include not having to remove fish or drain pond, it will remove algae, sludge, leaves, dead vegetation and any of the small pebbles that may have fallen out of your plant pots (up to 3/8" diameter).) If you decide not to use a pond vacuum, drain some of your pond water in a fish safe holding tank (cover and add aeration) and add your fish. This is a great time to really look at your fish closely and make sure all are well. Place your pump in the bottom of the pond and continue pumping water and cleaning at the same time. If we are cleaning behind any rocks, we use a hose nozzle instead of a pressure washer as to not lose too much beneficial bacteria. If your pond is not too dirty and you plan on cleaning in the spring, a skimmer net works great to remove any summer waste and decaying vegetation.
Once the debris has been removed from your pond, it's a great time to clean up the plants in your pond. Remove any dead or dying foliage. If you are removing over-grown healthy foliage be careful not to prune any "hollow-stemmed" plants below the water level as this will drown the plant. Move your hardy marginals and water lilies below the ice level in your pond. If you are planning to save your tropical marginals, now is a good time to start bring them in. They will need to be protected from freezing and kept moist and in a sunny location. We will discard any water hyacinth, water lettuce and tropical water lilies before the first hard freeze.
After we clean the inside of the pond, we move on to the skimmer and waterfall boxes. Remove any mats or baskets and clean well, as well as cleaning any debris that may be in the bottom of your boxes (especially waterfall boxes). If you had plants in your waterfall box, depending on the type of plant, place in pond, protect or discard. To clean a bio-filter, we will remove any plants, pull the bags of filter media, and clean any debris on the bottom of the filter. I quickly rinse off any heavy debris from my filter media and return back to the bio-filter. If we have not had a freeze yet, I will return some of the water hyacinth back to the bio-filter if that was the type of plant being used.
Start re-filling your pond if you drained any water and add de-chlorinator. If you removed your fish, add them back in when the water level allows and add the appropriate amount of beneficial bacteria. This time of the year we use the autumn or cold water bacteria to re-seed the bio-filters. Autumn bacteria helps accelerate the decomposition of leaves, sediment and other organic matter in the fall and winter to help jump start your pond to a healthier environment in the spring and continues to provide sustained biological activity even in water temperatures under 40 degrees F. If frozen, bacteria will remain effective after thawing out and effective in darker conditions (under snow & ice) as well as help to maintain a healthy immune system for your fish during the winter months.
We will cover the ponds with pond netting to keep any additional debris or leaves from entering the pond and remove the netting before the pond freezes for the season. If you are turning your waterfall off for the winter, clean your pump and place in the pond or a protected bucket of water for the winter season. This will keep your seals from drying out and cracking. After removing the pump we will add a pond heater or aerator to the pond. They will keep a hole open in our pond during the winter months. The fish still respire and are breathing out carbon dioxide. The open hole will allow the carbon dioxide to release into the atmosphere and keep it from building in the pond water and harming the fish.
The final step in winter time pond maintenance is to check your pond regularly. Make sure (depending on the heater used) there are no build-ups of snow on the heater blocking your hole. Check your ground fault to make sure it's working correctly (especially if we lost electricity during a storm). If you are using a aerator and an ice dome forms, pour hot water on the dome and carefully open it up. Violently opening ice will harm your fish's eardrums. Finally, enjoy how beautiful your pond will look this winter!
