Sparkling clean water!

[Tricia]

What a joy it is to see my fish through clear water once more . I had my pond professionally cleaned out and all the plants divided and repotted this week - also a new box filter was installed in place of the pressure filter. It took James all day to do the work - a great guy who didn't even stop for lunch!
It's four years since Gordon and I dug out and reconstructed my pond and for the last two years I haven't been able to see the fish except when they come up to feed because the water was so murky.
Gordon is 85 now and still helps a lot in the garden, but cleaning the pond on his own - I can't even walk properly or stand for long since my knee operation three months ago,( but that's another story!) - was simply no longer possible.
The pond was very overstocked so I offered about 30 goldfish on Freecycle along with quite a lot of plants. I had a great response and it was lovely to see the excitement of the lady's two children when they came to pick them up. They wanted to give each of them a name .
Today I offered the pressure filter on Freecycle, had seven responses within a very short time and a phone call within a minute of emailing the first lady who answered. Maybe I should have told her the filter is full of sludge and needs cleaning, but she seemed so happy to be offered it for her husband who is making a pond in their new home - that I'm sure she will get him to clean it without any problem. She said they were sad to have to leave their pond in their old home, but they are looking forward to making the new one.
My new filter box should be easier for me to keep clean - it's a Yamitsu with a UV alongside. I'm hoping it will function better than the pressure filter, which was always such a bother to keep clean.
James divided all my water lilies - which hasn't worried them one bit as one of the buds has opened today!

[dampflippers]

It's so nice when you can see what's in your pond, isn't it?

Did anyone see Countryfile. It backed up what I and other people have been saying about using daphnia to help clear a pond.
They were talking about the broads. Water quality had got very murky, so their solution was to remove all the fish which eat the daphnia and other pond life. The result is after a couple of years that the water is really clear, and the number of water organisms like daphnia is much increased.

That reminds me- I must phone up to see if my nearest aquarium shop has any in. My newest pond (which isn't fully stabilised yet) needs some. The newts keep eating them.

Talking of newts, I have been surprised this last week and again today to find female palmate newts in my ponds. I thought I only had smooth newts. I've yet to see a male one, but I'll keep my eyes open. How nice it would be if some GCNs turned up too!

[kaz]

Glad you got help with clearing the pond Tricia... also thanks for the reminder about freecycle.

Lucky you to have newts Damp... my ones never returned once the old pond was filled in and the big one dug.

[alison]

Same with me about the newts. I had some with my first pond but they never returned with the following ponds.
I feel I could do with my pond being professionally cleaned as it gets so murky. My UV it turned out wasn't working so I am off to buy a new bulb this afternoon along with a new UV casing as my son broke it yesterday so a bit more expense. But maybe in a day or two I will be able to see the fish again. I cleaned all the filterbox out. It was quite grungy.
I am glad to hear about the daphnia. I am going to buy some today as the little pond just has tadpoles in. I will put some in there and hope they don't eat them all. It might keep the pond from getting bad as it doesn't have a pump in it.

[alison]

Even with a new UV bulb the pond hasn't cleared but I guess that is becuase it isn't really green water etc. I think the water is clear enough it is just the silt on the bottom that makes it look dirty as it gets churned up. I invested in a pack of white fluffy pond filter stuff and my mother in law gave me her old filterbox so I now have two filters working. I use the one with the UV in and put the clean water pipe from that into the new filterbox with the white padding. The water coming from that box looks really clean so maybe in a few weeks the pond will have filtered out the murky bits and I will be able to see the fish again.