Pond keeping is more of an art than a science, and there are many ways to practice the art of ponding. In art there are always lots of opinions that are often conflicting, and there usually isn't a "right" answer.

That being said, here is my opinion:

Biofilter. If you had lots of fish relative to the size of your pond I would say you need a biofilter to control ammonia and nitrites, but you don't have that many fish, so I wouldn't worry about it.

Water changes. I wouldn't totally drain the pond on a regular basis, but doing a 20% water change two or three times a year will prevent an accumulation of unwanted things like unused nutrients. Plants will consume nutrients, but they won't necessarily consume all of them. I didn't see any mention of plants, but I am assuming you have some. Vacuuming once a year is probably a good idea, but I have to confess I haven't vacuumed in couple of years. This can be part of your water change since you will vacuum out a fair amount of water.

Pump/winter operation: I let my pump run all year, but I don't think it matters much. It might depend on the intensity of your winters. My winters are mild with only a little ice, so I find it best to keep the biofilter running. In severe winters it might not be possible to do this. With no biofilter I think you will be OK to just pull it out if you want.

Bacteria: I don't use it and don't see the need for it.

Cleaning: Some cleaning of the pond is essential, like netting out leaves and other dead plant material that ends up in the pond. I wouldn't go overboard with cleaning because you can upset the biological balance of your pond if you start scrubbing the liner, for example. In your case, your liner is functioning as your biofilter. Besides, cleaning isn't fun.

The above advice was perfect. Unless you have a large fish load or koi,the ponds natural bio filter will do the job just fine unless you let your maintenance crew scrub off your liner and remove your bio filtration or replace too much water too often.

You do not need an annual drain and clean. That is a way for pond companies to make big bucks.

My ten year old rock bottomed pond has been just wonderful without it. Still waiting for the dreaded problems with rocks on the bottom......

I don't live in your climate so don't know about winter operation.

Hi Leslie. I agree with the above advisers. I would add that the reason one stops and/or pulls their pump for the winter is to avoid ice dams on the waterfalls, which can divert water overnight and drain your pond. Not to mention icing over your yard. It's a nasty surprise you don't want to find. Shutting down the pump on the very coldest of weeks will avert the disaster. If your pond ices over you can keep an air bubbler hose in there which will keep a hole in the ice for gas exchange, protecting the fishes from asphyxiating.

My pump is an external one and I take it in in winter, from about November to as early as I can push it in March. I don't really have to, because circulating water won't freeze unless it gets super cold out, but the windows are closed and I can't hear the falls, so what's the point of running them? Cold water holds more oxygen than warm water, so the fish are respirating just fine without circulating the water through the air to add oxygen. And the biofilters are not active because it's too cold, so no point keeping freshly oxygenated water running through them.

If your pond were mine, I would rig a pump and hose to vaccuum the gunk off the bottom maybe every fall, removing about a third of the water in the process, and refill from a well. Maybe you could fashion a lingerie net over the intake to keep the gravel from wrecking the pump while still allowing gunk to pass. You don't need a crew to do this, but you could hire it out and supervise. Don't let those idjets scrub your liner of all its good algea and bacteria.

Thanks for the good questions.

-- Zinnia

Lesliew

There is some very good and very bad advise given here. First let me address the question of to clean or not to empty pond for cleaning. First I have seen no where that your pond has a bare liner anywhere, in fact you say you have a lot of gravel on the bottom. So I have to assume that the liner is covered with rock. If this is the case than you are building up debri in this rock that can not be removed by vacuuming. It normally can only be removed by emptying and pumping it out. Does this have to be removed? That depends on where you live and how you keep the pond in the winter. If you live somewhere the pond gets covered with ice than chances are that you will have a problem one winter. Can I tell you when this will happen? No that depends on a lot of different factors such as fish load, debri in pond, how a hole is kept in the ice, what state the debri in the pond is in, and how long the ice is on the pond. Is cleaning a pond hard on the pond? Yes but the killing of all the fish is harder on the owner.

Do you need to add bacteria to the pond? This answer is going to start a lot of debate but here goes. If you have a pond that is covered in rock than you should add it as the manufacture suggests. If you live some where that you get ice on the pond than it becomes more important. Than it also depends on how good you are at keeping debri out of the pond. The main purpose of added bacteria is to break down debri in the pond smaller so that the bacteria that naturally occurs in the pond break it down to a point where it is not a problem. It does this far quicker than the bacteria in the pond can do it. The real problem comes from what type of bacteria in the pond is breaking this debri down. If the bacteria isn't getting any O2 than the bacteria that breaks the debri down produces some very nasty gases. These gases are what will kill the fish.

Should I clean the pond with the fish in it? This depends on weather or not you have the bacteria that is producing these nasty gases and how fast you clean it. If you stir up this debri so that the gases are released faster than the pond can expell these gases thru the surface of the pond then the fish will be affected by these gases.

Do I need a biological filter? Again this depends on several factors. Natural lakes and ponds don't have additional filters and they don't have problems. But that isn't quite true. Yes they do not have additional filters on them but nature keeps the fish load to what the body of water with the addition of fresh water can support. This is done by the amount of food that is available, concretations of natural chemicals that the fish put in the water gets high enough they stop reproducing and growing, and if all else fails fish kill offs. In the normal garden ponds these are controled. Fish are fed and water is changed so the fish load can quickly get higher than what the pond can support. Than what happens? Very simply you have fish die offs.

I am sorry to be so windy but I waded into this thread not because of your situtation but because of other people that may read this thread and get some bad information. From what you have written you probably would not have a problem following the advise given on this thread but another ponder could have some very bad problems following it.
Mike

I live in Utah, zone 5. Temps get down for weeks on end around 0 degrees...sometimes sub-zero. Lots of snow on ground. My pond is 1,000 gallons, with 2 streams and waterfalls that feed into it. Max depth is 30 inches.

I run pump 24/7 all year long. The ice in the stream s and waterfalls freeze over and water runs under it, just like streams in the wild. Looks beautiful, espcially at night with the pond lights. I run the pump to keep water aerated, to keep water moving through stream, waterfall and pond. I use a small heater by the skimmer opening to keep water open so it doesn't totally freeze across the entire pond. It's enough to keep the water flowing. Fish survive every winter, and the submerged plants do, too. Ice freezes to about 3 inches in depth, and that's it. During warm spells in the winter, ice melts and I turn off the heater till the next cold wave.

I am sold on Microbe Lift products. I use them all year long (they're a bacteria product), and they do a wonderful job of keeping water clear, along with the UV lights which I also use year round. I attribute the ML products for the clean, clean rock bottom I have in the pond. No debris, not junk build-up. I use ML's Sludge Away (again, a bacteria product), which removes that. I don't use any other products in the pond.

I have never, ever changed water. Granted, I don't feed the fish every day -- a couple of times a week in the summer. More in the spring and fall as they get ready for hibernation or come out of it. I do add water because evaporation requires that....add water all year long. Even in the coldest of winters, I have to add water at least once a month...the water freezes into ice, ice dams, so needs to be replenished. I have lots of plants in the streams and pond, and I rarely add fertilizer for them because I don't want to compromise the water. But everything is flourishing.

I agree with the above posters that every pond is different, depending upon its unique factors. But this is general info and may help you decide.

Man it's way too late for me to dig into this.

Here's an analogy that will tell you how to proceed. Do you go to the Dentist once a year? Or do you go when you have a problem? Insert your Car for your Teeth and it's the same thing.

Pay me now or pay me later. Annual Maintenance of some Major sort is essential to the Average Pond's Healthy Life. It will not prevent ALL problems, but as someone said, Mother Nature fixes things, but usually not the way we would like.

If the Manufacturer of your pond system recommends Annual Clean Outs, then DO THEM. Yes you might get away without it for 3 years, but usually it's the 3-4th year that things crash.

I would recommend reading the Manufacturer's guidelines (presumably Aquascapes, and they are online), and Follow them.

If you want some sort of custom Owners Manual, I'd love to write you one, but I'd have to see the pond, and that would be Advertising.

The Pond Doctor, by Helen Nash has a nice season by season program, and I'm sure that there are other books.

I'm very sorry if you got sold a "No Maintenance" pond system, cause that is just BS in almost all cases.

And folks if you want to start a discussion on Bacteria or maintenance, let's start another thread, so that this pond can get the attention it deserves. We can argue somewhere else.

Greg

Oh, oh, oh! is it too late to suggest a little test? I hate under gravel filters in aquariums. They trap stuff and turn it into muck and methane. It is miserable to wind up with sick fishies and a room that smells bad. The rocks in the pond would act the same way so I never intended to put rock on the bottom. The test I would do is to turn off the pump for a few minutes and then move a little bit of that rock around. If bubbles come up you need to vacumn the bottom really well because those bubbles are methane. By the time you get all the gunk out you will have done a complete water change two or three times or even more. Good luck whit whatever you decide to do. Sandy