First -- welcome to Pond Boss.
If you are going to rent a small excavator, that may be all you will need. Assuming you do, I don't believe you will need to remove all of the water -- just enough to reasonably see and work the areas needing help.
You should be able to get the majority of vegetation with the excavator. Small excavators are real heavy and do a great job of compacting clay with their tracks. They usually have a small dozer blade for doing final grading.
As for the algae -- that lawn looks extremely green, so I assume it has been heavily fertilized. That is probably the cause of the algae. Somehow you need to stop those nutrients from getting into the pond. If there is one main source where most of the water enters the pond, use the excavator to dig a small pond that can act as a filtering wetland. Put lots of waterplants in it to suck up the nutrients.
Ken
One more thought. If you rent an excavator, get them to put their widest bucket on it. You woolly be digging soft material, and being wider will allow for smoother cleaned up shore line. To keep future weeds down, dig the edges with at least a 3:1 slope, but not so steep and deep that a person, or even a deer wouldn't be able to safely get out.
Last edited by catmandoo; 04/04/12 07:28 AM.
