My pond is an old clay pit and we are surrounded by oaks and other trees. The pond gets a lot of dead leaves settled to the bottom. clarity is good, but I would like to try to rid of the settled leaves and debris. What are my options?

I’ll follow along on this one, as my pond is surrounded by oaks and hickories also. It seems like there are tons of them coming down. Quite often the wind will push them all against one end. Later evaluation it doesn’t seem like there’s that many leaves there. I’ve sampled the bottom in various places, and I’m not finding that much build up of leaves. Actually, I was thinking I needed aeration to help break up all the leaves. My pond is only 3.5 yrs old, so it hasn’t had a lot of time to build up, but I’m just not thinking the problem is as bad as I originally suspected.

curious if the Natural Pond Cleaner is effective as well

I’m loaded with oaks around mine and in thr water shed. I’ve never done anything but that may not be the right alternative.

Derek,
I don't know how big your pond is so that would change everything. Large ponds require automated equipment, large suction barges etc to dredge or remove debris from the bottom.

I have a tiny pond and I have had lots of great ideas but I haven't put many of them to the test as I don't have the time or the equipment.

1. I imagine a trashpump with a weighted suction end could vacuum the bottom. The outflow would have to go into a 'dewatering bag' or something where water would return to pond and debris stay out, or pump into a nearby woods or something.

2. A bigger pond could easily use the prop wash of a motor boat or a jetski to at least agitate and swirl up the debris till the bottom was clear. This way at least the stuff is somewhat suspended, aerated and then you could use aeration to help break it down. Breaking down debris and organic matter is nearly impossible if you can't get under it and stir it all up. Aeration and agitation will really speed up the process.

3. In my smaller round pond I wanted to try to use a stationary jet ski or large pump to get a 'whirlpool' effect going. This would at least swirl the leaves from the shallow into one pile in the middle of the pond. That would save a lot of handraking which is what I do now.

I figure I hand rake a couple hundred pounds of leaves, sticks and old algae from the 4-5 feet of shallows that I can reach. It leaves a nice sandy area and I feel like I'm making a little dent in the nutrient load.

But I agree with SetterGuy and others that for how many leaves actually came down in the fall till now, it seems like I must have crayfish or other critters helping break down the total burden of leaves and I do aerate from about June 1 to Sept when the heat breaks.

I use both methods but I set up an above ground pool and use a 3"trash pump to suck the muck from the bottom pump it to the pool and let it settle then drain the clear water back to my rearing pond. Then I open a valve on a 4" pipe that goes to a pit where I dump horse manure and compost. Let it work then use it in the garden and orchard great stuff. I have one device 10' long with holes drilled in it and a piece of flat bar behind it attached to the flexible hose.also a t shaped pipe with holes in the bottom of the t. I also have a jet ski with a 45 degree bend on the jet pointed down. It will push the surface water down to the bottom of my 30' deep pond.

cb100, can you explain your setups in a little more detail or post pictures?

1. When you trash pump into the above ground pool, the water just goes through the soil back to your rearing pond? How do you get the muck through this 4" pipe that you were talking about? Do you use some type of pump to pump the solid debris into your manure pit?

2. This 10' device with holes, can you explain that plus the flat bar. The flat bar is iron to weight the end down? The flexible hose is to suction and the 10' end is the suction end so you can suction a 10' wide swath?

3. The t shaped pipe with holes, same idea, you are trying to suction off the bottom?

The jet ski adapter is brilliant and it is great to know that it does reach the bottom even of deep ponds.

Our kids for fun will use a short water ski tow rope (maybe 5')and hook up to the back luggage rack of our quad. They will then get pulled in a circle around the pond edge and they will wake board in the shallows. Just moving water in a circle at maybe 15 mph is enough to allow the sand that has silted in the 1" stone beds to wash away and all the stones look like the day I put them down. It clears the leaves very nicely.

If you had a gas powered trash pump on a cart with a rigid discharge hose in the shallows pointing towards the middle and washing 'down the slope' you could walk around the perimeter of the pond and probably wash out 3-4' of shallows quite easily.

I have posted pictures before I will try again. But I have not had much luck lately.

I posted it as"hydro dozer" before but I can't seem to be able to get it.

I can search and see if I can help you post it here again.

I found this old post, but there is one picture. Did you have other pictures or did you start another post where you explained how it works or how you built it?

Old hydrodozer link

Thanks for finding that. I guess I am to old to be tech savvy. There was another pic that shows both devices. The pipe has holes drilled in it to suck up muck it is attached to unistrut the flat plate behind it is to scrape the muck and keep it by the pipe. There is a yoke attached then a rope. You hook the flexible hose to the intake of the pump set the device in the pond and slowly pull it across the sweep of the hose if your muck is really deep it will work its way down I then pull it enough to get it back to the top of the muck and let it work back down.

Canyon. To answer your other questions. I have the discharge from the pump going to the pool and the rearing pond when I fill the pool I close the valve to the pond fill the pool then let the muck settle to the bottom then drain the clear water back to the rearing pond. I have a 4" pipe at the bottom of the pool that goes to the pit. The muck is pretty fluid so it goes to the pit it allows the excess water to go away. The other pipe has holes in it but you need to be in the water with it I put on a mask and fins and work it down into the muck. My muck is about 5' deep so I can remove quite a bit in the area that the hose will reach.

The 10' device will remove all of the muck if it is about 12" or less deep if you work it slowly.it is a fair amount of work but I guess anything that will get rid of it is worth doing

This is an old thread but a great read about ridding leaves and it dabbles in the topic of using beneficial bacteria or even using Channel Cats as tools to rid yourself of muck.

I know that esshup is doing some experiments in his client's ponds over the past year with good bacteria and having good results.

beneficial bacteria link

thanks! I actually found this thread while searching and read through it. good valuable info.

My pond is about 1/2 acre or so and is an old clay pit. It reaches about 25 foot deep. I am surrounded by woods so it gets a bit of leaf debris that is settled on the bottom. We just moved there 2 years ago. The water is clear, but this year for the first time I am getting FA. Not usre why, my best guess is extra nutrients from the debris etc. Id like to try some bacteria to see if it helps. It is not aerated.

focus on air first, bacteria last. Air alone works great and has many other benefits (provides better support for the whole food chain). Bacteria probably adds a little bit to aeration, but not able to work as well by itself. Also not sure how bacteria would work at the 25 foot depth just setting on top of the debris either.

I don't necessarily have a muck problem, but do have many leaves along the shallows and shores that I would like to reduce as those areas that collect the most leaves have the most muck. Aeration is a tough one without electricity available.

Scuds lots and lots of scuds. They love leaves and will eat them all up for you as well as they multiply they will be food for your young fish.

Cheers Don.

Waht is a scud?

Derek
The link in the bottow of my post is a good post with tons of information. About 4 posts down in the below link Bill Cody has a bunch of links for you. Scuds are small invertebrates that are a favorite forage source for smaller fish but also in themselves do good things to help break down your debris.

They usually are considered a big group in the Gammarus Genus and have many common names. Some pondmeisters are lucky to have ponds teeming with them naturally and some web sites sell them to lovers of ducks for them to stock in their wetlands as ducks love to forage in the leaves and eat them.

Scuds

Awesome Thanks!!!

although looking at it, without thicker vegetation (acutally none to speak of) the scuds may just be an expensive feeding for my blugill...

That is quite possible. Let me run out to the shop and get a few pictures of ours. I have two tanks that were set up with them and one you can see the amount of leaf matter they have eaten.

The tanks on the right has a bunch of adults and the tank on the left their off spring. The right tanks had the same amount of leafs in it in February. The leafs look like paper skeletons now.

I stirred them up and tried to take a picture of them but suck at it. Will keep trying.

Hello.

Can we buy gammarus eggs.

A+

I don't know. I bought ours from and aquarium hobbyist.

There are so many different ones. I would like to get larger ones myself. The ones we have get to a max size of 5mm.

This is where I have learned most of what I know about scuds. Now with our own experience with just a few you can make millions over time.

Ordered 200 adult size on Ebay Friday, $30 free shipping. Been planting underwater plants for cover for bluegill fry. Also, using "Muck Away" tablets and aeration, with good effect on oak leaves. Maybe the scrubs can save me money on bacteria infusions and provide more live food.

I’ve got a decent population of grass/glass shrimp, but no grass or hardly any vegetation in my pond. I guess the shrimp are feeding on my leaves. Hopefully they can keep them in check. As mentioned before, they (the leaves, not the shrimp) seem to pile up on one end or the other due to wind. Hoping I don’t have too many in the deeper areas.

Hey all,
Came across this thread and now I am obsessed with determining if my pond has scuds, and if not, trying to get a population going.

I have a 3 acre pond in the Atlanta burbs and I believe scuds are a common fly used in the nearby Chattahoochee. The Hooch is fed by lake Lanier and the water coming out of the dam is quite cold, would scuds survive in a warmer pond environment like mine? There is quite a bit of alligator weed that seems like ideal hiding/feeding ground for them. I tossed a piece of Zucchini in my crayfish trap next to it this morning to see if they are already established. Has anybody had luck establishing scuds in the warmer regions? I see a lot of posts from guys up north and wonder if this is a fools errand for my pond. Ultimately my goal is to decrease a lot of the muck caused by falling leaves etc. and also providing an additional food source for my Bream and Bass. Any advice is welcome!
Lando

Thanks for this link. This particular variety appears to be adapted to warmer climates and are cultured in Texas. The webpage didn't mention the species or their origin. Would anyone here know what species they are and whether one might also find them occurring naturally in Texas?

Have to wonder if this is Hyalella_Azteca which has wide distribution in Texas ... and North and Central America for that matter.

Do scuds live primarily on the pond floor or do they need some kind of vegetation to thrive in?

I've seen the cool water scuds associated with FA and other vegetation. I've seen some that used rock as cover where you could lift a rock and find scuds beneath. They can eat algae like FA and diatoms as well as detritus. So they can be benthic if the need arises but vegetation, IMHO, provides cover and will help to support greater numbers (particularly if Gammarus).

On the other hand, Hyalella Azteca is described by as a sediment dweller by Wikipedia and I presume that pond vegetation though a benefit wouldn't be required: