Pond maintenance

It has been awhile since I've cleaned my little pond.  Well, actually, I've never cleaned it.  I have drained the water a few times, some intentionally and some not but I've never broken it down and cleaned it until yesterday.  I had not seem my fish in awhile except when the pump became clogged and the fish came to the surface gasping for air.  The algae had become too thick this year for the pump to handle the problem.

  in years past the small pond would run clear or almost clear even without a UV sterilizer but this year it just keep getting greener and greener.  I think I lost the battle late last year and the pond was getting green when I shut it down for the winter.

    I removed ninety percent of the Iris, scrubbed the scum from the sides of the liner cleaned the pump, and refilled with clean fresh water.   I added a declorinator and stress coat mix to the water and put my fish back in.  I began with 27 feeder goldfish and now have 27 rather large goldfish in varying colors of orange and white.  I have a couple that are solid orange and one that is solid white.

I broke off a large rhizome from my water lily (from the large pond) and cut it into 5 sections.  Each section is larger than the original plant.  I put two section in the small pond and three in the large pond.  Hopefully the lilies will spread and cover a lot of the surface area helping   keep the algae at bay.  Seventy percent of the surface should be covered by plants  and I've neglected to do that.

In the past I've used water hyacinth and water lettuce for coverage but by the time that stuff multiplied the water had already turned green.  Year before last I used UV sterilizers and that did a wonderful job but last year the sterilizers malfunctioned and with no surface cover and too many fish my ponds became too green to fast.

I'm giving a few of my goldfish to a friend, and if I can find homes for my carp, I'll put my goldfish in the big pond and stock the small pond with feeder fish.  I may have some fry soon as the goldfish, in appreciation for me cleaning their home, were swimming on the surface two by two singing "I'll soon have a baby for you."  Well, they were not actually singing but they were spawning.

Anyone need some fish?