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Your water feature will be drained with our clean-out pumps. We have dedicated pumps and 200 feet of 2” clean-out hose in order to get the water away from the area as far as possible. If this is not far enough, special arrangements will need to be worked out ahead of time. We will use the initial 400 gallons of the cleanest water from your pond to fill up our fish holding tank, where we will house your fish in their own water with aeration, until the time comes to acclimate them into the newly-cleaned pond. The remaining pond-water will be pumped down to a level of about 6” before we begin capturing the fish to keep the process as simple and stress-free as possible. It is most helpful if you can tell us how many fish there are so that we can be sure not to leave hiding fish undetected in their holes during the cleaning process. This is quite stressful on your finny friends! Once they are caught and put into the holding tank we can begin the cleaning process.
We will remove all filter pads and media, clean them (or replace if we were so instructed), and set them aside for re-installation at the end of the cleaning process.
All dormant plant material in the pond will be cleaned and cut back in preparation for the new spring growth. All potted plants will be given fertilizer tablets and then be relocated into their positions in the feature.
We will check all lights, clean all lenses, and power up the lighting system to be sure it is working properly before the feature is refilled. If we were instructed by the pond owners, we will replace all lamps in the submersible light fixtures.
We will then pressure wash the feature starting from the top and working our way down to the bottom. The large clean-out pump will be used to flush debris quickly to the bottom and then out. It is important for you to know that our goal is to remove sludge from the pond in order to prepare it for spring. This will give you a great head start on your maintenance program and make the feature much easier to keep sparkling clean throughout the year! We are not attempting to “sterilize” the ecosystem, only to remove large debris, like leaves and sticks, and pressure wash out the excess algae, muck and sludge.
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