While caring for a pond might seem difficult, learning how to clean a pond doesn’t have to be complicated. At Healthy Ponds, we offer several products that can help you keep pond water clean and healthy throughout the year. Using these products combined with a few other tactics can make pond maintenance easy.
Small Water Features
Healthy Ponds sells products for just about every size water feature, from fish tanks to ponds with more than one million gallons of water. If you have a small decorative garden pond or a koi pond, one of our all-purpose water cleaners or our AquaSpherePRO® can provide the pond with a dose of beneficial bacteria.
Using beneficial bacteria for ponds can be an easy, natural way to keep your pond water healthy, as these bacteria consume excess nutrients in the pond, which improves oxygen levels and can prevent issues such as the formation of pond sludge and floating green organic matter.
To determine which of our products to use, you simply need to calculate the approximate number of gallons of water in your pond. Just multiply the average length by the average width by the average depth times 7.48 to determine approximately how many gallons of water are in your pond. You also can use our handy pond calculator tool at https://healthyponds.com/pond-calculator.
Each of our small AquaSpherePRO® spheres treats up to 1,000 gallons of water for 30 days. Our AquaLily® Water Cleaner Dispenser also treats up to 1,000 gallons. For larger water features, you can use our Pond Water Cleaner Dispenser, which treats up to 2,500 gallons of water or simply add multiple AquaSpherePRO® spheres to your pond.
With beneficial bacteria, it’s always best to add a bit more bacteria than you need. You cannot overtreat the water with beneficial bacteria, but you can undertreat, so having a bit more bacteria than you need is better than undertreating, which may not provide desired results.
With these small water features, a bit of daily pond maintenance also can go a long way toward helping pond owners avoid common issues such as the buildup of sludge and the growth of floating green organic matter. Skimming your pond every day takes just a few minutes and it can remove leaves and other debris that eventually sink and decay at the bottom of your pond.
Installing an aeration system can help circulate the water, reducing water temperature and helping to disperse our beneficial bacteria products more efficiently. A filtration system also can reduce the amount of fish waste and animal waste in your pond, which can improve oxygen levels in your water.
If you have a pond that already has a thick sludge layer, you might be tempted to just drain the pond and start from scratch, however, this usually isn’t the best option. Removing all of the water can destroy the ecosystem and remove any beneficial bacteria already present in the water.
Instead, invest in a pond vacuum and a pond net and remove as much of the sludge as possible. Once the sludge from the bottom and the debris from the top have been removed and you have a working aeration system, you can add some beneficial bacteria to improve the water quality and clarity.
If your pond contains 2,500 gallons or more, you also can add our product Natural Blast® to your water. Natural Blast® is an all-natural beneficial bacteria product that can be used in conjunction with the AquaSpherePRO® or any of our other pond cleaners.
Natural Blast® provides an additional dose of beneficial bacteria and this can be a good step to take if you have a thick sludge layer or your pond has floating green organic matter on the surface of the pond. We also recommend adding Natural Blast® in the spring as the water temperatures begin to climb as this product can provide your pond with a healthy dose of beneficial bacteria to start the warm season.
Natural Blast®, AquaSpherePRO®, the AquaLily® and our other beneficial bacteria dispensers are all-natural and contain no chemicals. These products are veterinarian-approved and safe for a fish pond as well as safe for wildlife, pets and people.
Larger Ponds
For larger ponds, it can be tempting to use chemical products to solve common pond issues, but if you prefer to learn how to clean pond water naturally, our AquaSpherePRO® can be an excellent, all-natural monthly maintenance treatment. The AquaSpherePRO® spheres come in a variety of sizes to treat anywhere from 1,000 gallons up to 2 million gallons.
As with some small water features, larger ponds and small lakes also can be treated with additional doses of Natural Blast®. Just as with a small pond, we recommend treating larger ponds with Natural Blast® at the beginning of the warm season to provide a bit of a “jumpstart” and get the water in good shape so that there are plenty of beneficial bacteria on hand as water temperatures begin to climb.
Natural Blast® also can be added to your larger pond any time there is a spike in temperatures or after a large rain event. This product also should be added any time you notice floating green organic matter beginning to form on the surface of your pond. This floating organic matter is a sign that there are too many nutrients in your pond and that oxygen levels may have dropped and Natural Blast® used in conjunction with AquaSpherePRO® can help improve conditions in your water by consuming these excess nutrients.
With a larger pond, we strongly recommended that you add a bottom diffusion aerator to your pond. This circulates the water and helps keep temperatures lower and more efficiently spreads our beneficial bacteria products throughout the water, which can speed up the decomposition of sludge and floating green organic matter. This aerator should be powerful enough to completely circulate the number of gallons in your water at least twice in 24 hours.
In some cases, learning how to clean a pond means you have to call in a professional to help. If your large pond has a thick layer of pond muck, it might be time to think about having your pond dredged. While this can be expensive, it can be the easiest way to remove thick sludge and once you’ve removed the sludge, you may be able to prevent sludge from reforming with a combination of proper aeration and proper treatment with beneficial bacteria.
Skimming leaves and debris out of the pond also can help prevent a sludge layer from forming again. Bag up grass clippings and autumn leaves or use these dead leaves and grass to create a compost heap. Either way, it is essential to prevent plant matter from entering your pond where it sinks to the bottom and decays.
Got Questions? Contact Healthy Ponds!
We hope this helped you learn a bit about how to clean a pond and how to clean pond water naturally. With proper aeration and our easy-to-use pond treatment products, maintaining the water quality and clarity can be simple. If you have any questions about our products or need help solving any pond water issues, contact the team at Healthy Ponds at any time.
