Ahhh spring, with all of it's beauty, and all of it's work
All the fish survived the cold winter...we had a deicer on the surface of the fish pond.
We drained the lower pond with the fish in it...and found about 3" of sludge at the bottom. We'd had two 4" rains within a week during the winter, and the mulch and mud had gotten into both ponds. I honestly don't know how the koi survived all of that. In fact, we found two of the fish in the mud, still alive and kickin'...
we got all of the sludge out, washed off all of the rocks in the bottom, and refashioned the ledges in each pond. We put all of the rocks from the bottom around the edges, building up the edges so we can avoid any further issues with mud.
None of my marginal plants survived, since I left them out of the water. My two lily pad plants did survive, since they were in the bottom of the pond, and they are really taking off this year.
My husband put a net over the fish pond so as to keep the herons and racoons out. We had a male and female mallard duck that thought the pond was their swimming hole. We put a fake owl out next to the pond, and they haven't been back since.
We put some new plants and grasses around the ponds...some of which have already been destroyed by the blasted rabbits. It's a learning process...
We do have a UV filter that we're using this year, and we bought an 11 ft. wide umbrella to protect the ponds from the afternoon sun. It's shaded by a large tree in the a.m.
I'm using an algae reducing liquid a couple of times a month, so I hope it doesn't get too bad this year. The sides are kind of wierd this spring, and I'm trying to figure out how to keep them clean. That's the challenge now. Any advice would be helpful!!
Thanks for all the info!