All about maintaining your pond year-round

Maintaining your pond is an important part if you want to continue to enjoy a clear and beautiful pond for a long time. Read our tips and you can take care yourself to restore and maintain optimal water quality.

pond maintenancePond maintenance annual plan
pond bacteriaPond Bacteria
Water testing pondPond water testing
Pond cleaningPond cleaning
Van der Velde Aquatic Plants organic pondWater parameters pond
Water hardness testingWater hardness

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Especially for you the most important do's and don'ts for maintaining your pond, in a handy e-book.

Request our free e-book.

Especially for you the most important do's and don'ts for maintaining your pond, in a handy e-book.

- 5 tips from Simon for pond maintenance -.

1. Pond plants against algae growth


To keep your pond maintenance to a minimum, we recommend not skimping on pond plants. This is because these plants help you keep the water clear, reducing the chance of algae growth. During the warmer months of the year, the water heats up mostly at the surface, an ideal situation for algae. Unless you have a nice mix of pond plants in place, in which case water lilies can certainly serve you. The beautiful bloomers grow on the surface of the water, keeping the heat and the chance of algae at bay.

2. This is how to get flowering aquatic plants


Do you have an aquatic plant that should show a beautiful flower but doesn't? Annoying, but there is something you can do about it. It has to do with the plant's nutrition. Right now, your pond plant can't get enough nutrition from the current soil. To remedy this, Simon recommends repotting the plant in fresh pond soil to which you add special pond plant food. If you then also re-pot the plant in a slightly shallower spot, your pond plant will have enough energy and sunlight to do bloom.

3. No pond without pond bacteria

 

We can't say it often enough; pond bacteria are indispensable for any pond. The small organisms know how to convert pollutants such as nitrite or nitrate into CO2. The CO2 they excrete into the pond water provides nutrition for the (plentiful) oxygen plants. Thus they help each other and together - especially if you also have a low pond substrate - they ensure that algae have virtually no chance to grow in the pond.

4. Tip for clear water

 

Outside influences such as precipitation or leaf fall also have their effect on your pond. A heavy rainfall adds water to your pond, and many pond stores then advise getting to work with water measurements and remedies. Not necessary, according to Simon, provided your pond meets some important conditions: pond substrate, sufficient and varied pond plants and the addition of pond bacteria. The latter you add to your existing pond twice a year, helping your pond maintain its biological balance despite the weather.

5. Do pruning in the pond, too

 

You give the plants in your garden a pruning every now and then. This is also what you do best with your aquatic plants. In a healthy pond, they grow nicely, but you want to prevent the whole pond from growing full or from growing so large that they pollute your pond. That's why you trim them once a year in the fall. This applies to oxygen plants that grow underwater, but equally to marsh plants and other species that grow above the water's surface. For example, parts of the water lily die off at the end of the season. To prevent them from sinking to the bottom and rotting, remove the dead leaves and flowers from the pond as soon as possible.

Pond maintenance tips

Read everything you need to know about maintaining a pond

Frequently asked questions about pond maintenance

There are two ways to clean the bottom of your pond:

  1. Pump out all of your pond, first offering any fish a safe temporary refuge and placing pond plants in buckets of pond plants. Once the pond is empty, remove silt from the bottom and rinse the pellets of pond substrate. Do not use soap or other chemicals. Then place all the pond components back in place step by step. Read how to do that.
  2. Another, less intense way is to clean the bottom with a pond vacuum cleaner. This works in such a way that pond animals are not disturbed. Just make sure that the suction nozzle is narrow enough so that pellets of pond substrate don't disappear into it. Learn more about cleaning your pond here.

Simon advises all of his customers to add a layer of pond substrate in both large and small ponds. The porous stone granules provide an ideal place for bacteria that help keep pond water crystal clear. You can also firmly place pond plants (with or without baskets) among the substrate.

March or April is a good time to clean your pond. We recommend cleaning your pond a maximum of twice a year, otherwise you will disturb the marine life and biological balance too much. A second cleaning can be done in the fall, for example in October. Read more pond maintenance tips by season.

Fallen leaves, branches and other plant parts floating on the water are best removed from the pond. This is conveniently done with a telescopic landing net, or a landing net with an extendable handle. With this you can catch leaves from the bank to far on the pond surface and fish them out of your pond. You can also prevent natural debris from getting into the pond; to do this in the fall - before the trees lose their leaves - stretch a fine-mesh net over your pond. It catches everything and once the trees are bare you can remove the net with the leaves. Simon recommends removing natural debris from the pond as soon as possible, otherwise it will sink to the bottom where it decays and forms a layer of silt. Your pond will then need a major cleaning much sooner.

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