Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations What’s the easiest way to get rid of leaves

Without manually digging or sucking them out?

Tía

Stop them from getting into the pond in the first place. Put 24" tall snow fence all the way around the pond to stop them from blowing in. Other than that, there is no "easy" way to get them out - just like there is no easy way to get them off of your lawn. (unless your tractor has a tow behind leaf blower).

Pay in time and work to keep them out or pay to get them sucked out. Pay the price for putting a pond in the woods that is a problematic decision. Tree leaves in a pond are bad for the water quality especially a swimming pond. Contact this place in Dearborn MI. A swim pond in a woods with lots of leaf input would probably need to be leaves removed every 3 to 5 years. I have known ponds in a woods that get up to 1 foot of leaves each year.
https://sedimentremovalsystem.com/

This.

I do it on the south side of my hatchery pond to keep the oak leaves out.

Pay attention to what Bill said. We did a two year test at a customers place that had 4 ponds, all in the woods, all about the same size and same depth. We aerated one with a grid based aeration system, aerated one with a grid based aeration system and threw in bacteria, just threw in bacteria with no aeration and left one alone with no aeration and no bacteria.

We found that compared to the pond that we left alone:

The pond with grid based aeration had 4" less muck build up.

The pond with grid based aeration and bacteria had 6" less muck build up.

The pond with bacteria and no aeration had 2" less muck build up.

The pond that we left alone had roughly 8"-10" muck build up over the 2 year test.

If you don't want to or can't put up a fence, leave tall grass or tall dense marginal plants grow up around the pond to trap the leaves before they get into the pond. Then rake the leaves away or burn the whole pond bank in late winter before things start growing.

Thanks for this

Is there any bacteria’s you can recommend that will get rid of the leaves? Something we can toss in every few weeks?

Thank you

What is your budget? And how much of the leaf reduction per year do you expect to achieve with the bacteria?

If the pond does not have bottom aeration, then all regular specialized pond bacteria will not work very well because most of the best, fasting working decomposing bacteria thrive in well oxygenated warm environments. Ponds without bottom aeration develop during the warm season cool anoxic (no oxygen) sediments that kill all the good aerobic bacteria leaving behind anaerobic bacteria that work very very slowly - 20-30 times slower. Mixing the sediments in all areas of the pond bottom when aerobic bacteria are added will result in the fastest decomp of the leaves and organic sediments.

A clear water swimming pond goal that receives lots annual tree leaf input is a problematic mess. Even swimming pools under trees receive lots of leaves that causes lots of extra work and extra filtration effort Both IMO, are bad situations.

Thank you

My budget is up to a 1000 dollars if something works and i would like to have a couple feet of leaves removed each season

A couple of inches per year? yes. A couple of feet per year? Unless you mechanically dredge it, that's not going to happen, and $1,000.00 isn't a big enough budget for that. Using bacteria you can't undo in a year or two what took decades to accumulate.

Call that place in Dearborn, MI. that Bill linked to and get a quote from them. You might be better off doing nothing, banking that $1,000 every year until you have enough saved up to get it dredged. Then once it's dredged, install bottom diffused aeration and start fresh.

Sorry for the bad news, but I am not "politically correct" and don't tell people what they want to hear. I tell them what to expect in real life.

I had a discussion with a customer 2 days ago about him renting a dredge to suck out feet of accumulated muck/peat from his pond. His budget for that was 100x of yours. It turns out that he's only got enough water in the pond to run the dredge for 18 hours before it pumps all the water out. (3,000 gpm is what the dredge moves) Then what? Now we are looking at plan B.

Thanks for this

The pond is only 3 years old though?

Wanted to see if if any of the bacteria’s work?


Thank you

See my post #566339 above.

I'd like to piggyback off this!

My scenario might be a little easier. My pond now shows up on satellite images, so size estimation is ~1/8 acre. ~1/3 of it is 11' deep, majority of the rest is 4-6' deep, with a shallow cove about 2' deep. I do have 20 acres of woods. Pond is almost 2 years old, I've been aerating a hour every morning with a double diffuser head since the pond was about 6 months old from April - Novemberish. Bill hooked me up with a great double extending net that I walk around the perimeter and net out leaves in the fall as much as I can. The pond is right beside my house, so access is easy. I've been looking into aesthetically pleasing bushes to get around in some areas as a block, but on to questions:

A). Would beneficial bacteria in my situation be of benefit to help break down the inevitable leaves that are missed? And if so, what is the preferred product?

B). I've seen them make products for ocean trash clean up that essentially float around sucking in water to skim it for trash. Is there any experience with any such type of product here? I see limitations mainly being holding capacity of the bin/basket/bag. Certainly this would not be the sole management plan, but I thought something like this might be beneficial to help scoop up leaves/debris that might have otherwise been missed. I did find a 5ft wide floating manual pull skimmer I'm keeping in the back of my mind as a back up plan, but a leaf-eating floating robot skimmer would be pretty cool!

Thank you for all help and expertise on this!

Thank you for this


Are there any grid based aeration systems you can recommend?


Thank you

We sell Vertex systems. PM me your address, where electricity is and the general depths of the pond and I can design a system for your pond.

If you have aeration and add bacteria, but no flow through, aren’t all those nutrients just getting into the water column? Then what? Trading one problem for another such as algae growth.

It is probably worth it to keep the leaves out in the first place, even knocking down the nearby offending trees as that will be cheaper in the long run.

I tried the snow fence idea, but it became pointless when all the ash trees died that were producing the leaves.

Question, do crayfish help break up organics on the bottom to reduce muck? I’m noticing a distinct reduction in leaves this year that are left intact since adding papershell crayfish. But that could be anything including a couple of extreme wind events.

liquidsquid has the bacterial decomposition correct. ""If you have aeration and add bacteria, but no flow through, aren’t all those nutrients just getting into the water column? Then what? Trading one problem for another - such as algae or some form of more plant growth.

Nutrients are trapped and will accumulate in a basin to grow some form of plant life. Where will all the added nutrients go??? It is a law of nature. More fertility = more plants. Fertilize your lawn grass, garden, or any crop and more plants will grow. Decomposing leaves adds or releases the nutrients bound up in the leaves.