Hello everyone. I'm thinking about trying something with my pond and I thought I'd see what you all think. I would like to improve water quality in my pond. I'm thinking about this fall draining some of the water out of the pond and letting it fill back over the winter. I think that by doing this I will get rid of more nutrients than if new water runs into the pond all winter. I think that by replacing a large amount of the old nutrient laden water with clean water I will get more benefint than diluting the water over the winter. I don't know if this makes sense or not but in an aquarium water "changes" have more impact on water quality than slowly adding clean water. Anyone see any potential problems with this?

Good idea if you get enough rain and you can draw water off the bottom. We do this as a management tool for the reasons you noted and for population management and adjustment and to do work around pond in the basin (like piers and structure and muck scraping with a box blade when real dry.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=7;t=000287;p=1#000000 See Dave Willis' post.

ewest, thanks for the link. When you scrap muck out of the pond do you do anything in particular with it? I was wondering if it could be used like top soil. I have some areas around my pond that the soil is very poor, being the dirt/clay that came out of the bottom of my pond when it was dug. I'm having a heck of a time getting grass established. I would think that the muck would be very high in nutrients and mabe I could till it into my clay and get some grass growing. Any thoughts on this? Thanks again.

Joe, a lot of what passes for muck is sand that suspended and washed in. Try to stay away from that stuff.

My muck will be tilled into a garden plot. i'm accumulating some now by hand and letting it air out. I'm mixing in dead aquatic weeds with it. when i first dig it, it smells (probably a sulfide type gas), but after it dries out, its beautiful organic rich stuff, fine sand and silt, drains well. I figure next year's tomatoes will love it. i've used it plenty over the years as part of my secret recipe potted plant mix, and never had bad results. guess its not a secret anymore...

We do 3 different things wrt pond areas that could be scraped. If sandy like DD1 said we leave it alone as that is left for the track hoe later. If rich dirt like DIED said we use it in holes or along roads and when it rains we put out rye grass seed on top of it. If rich and we decide to leave it in the pond until the next time then as soon as the water is off of it I put out rye grass seed directly on top of the wet muck. The rich muck whether on the road edges or left in the pond will grow rye grass very well and quickly (18in. in a mth.).