I’ve only got a small one, about 450 gals. I last cleared it about 3/4 years ago. Emptied it completely, removed all plants, removed all roots dangling down from the pond rim, dug out every atom of silt and scrubbed the entire liner. I split my water lilies and potted up just one, replacing it in the centre of the pond. Unable to find takers, I threw the rest away (about 6 plants, but Murphy’s law later found me three people who ‘if they’d only known….’), then I added 6 stems of basic oxygenating weed, refilled the pond (450gals) and treated this with a watersafe treatment to make it safe for fish. I bought 6 goldfish, four gold and two common (black back with true gold, as opposed to orange, coloured flanks), and introduced them with great success. Two years ago I reduced the oxygenating weed by about 50% as it was starting to occupy every inch of the pond (at £1.50 a stem in my pet shop, I must have chucked away a few hundred quid!), and introduced a single bullrush at one end of the pond. One of my ‘common’ fish turned completely orange, the heron took two (I’m sacking my artificial deterrent heron for sleeping on the job), and the remaining fish bred. I now have now just hacked my way through the bullrushes, cleared about 50% of the oxygenating weed again (annual event), removed about 50% of the lily pads to expose some water surface and fed around 70 fish! Most of the fish are commons but, as I found out before, this is not entirely reliable as they can suddenly colour up when 2/3 years older. The pond is too small for so many fish, so if anyone wants to come and catch some youngsters for their own pond – be my guest! Planning a major attack on the pond in August to reduce the lilies again and cull some bullrushes too, so if anyone wants any, let me know!_________________
*Boudicca – Gets REALLY stroppy after a pint!*