big dirty smelly pond

[lady_tanksalot]

ok i've never dealt with ponds so don't want to jump in (so to speak) and do the wrong thing

my friend just bought a new house with a huge pond, about 15" x 6" we 're guessing about 3" deep

it belonged to an old lady who went into a home and apart from feeding the fish nothing has been done for about three years

its filthy and you can nly see the fish when they're right at the top, using a stick we judge there's about 1" of crap at the bottom

so far we've put in a new filter, fixed the pump and mended the little guy who pees into the pond from the rockery but what should we do now

we figured on getting the fish out, we have a big paddling pool we can fill with the old pond water, and try to clean the bottom, but we're worried about riping the liner.

also we thought about putting gravel in the bottom to show up the fish, but again will this rip the liner and how ould we clean it?

my friend bought the hows to modernise so will probably move on in a year or two so we don't want to make it too high maintenace for the next owners

sorry for waffling
didn't want to leave out any details

 

[ryan]

Do you have any idea how old the liner is? If it has been there for 10-15 years it may be a good idea to take the fish out and put them in a holding vat whilst re-lining the pond. If you decide not to re-line you can simply syphon out about 50-75% of the old water with the silt on the bottom and fill it back up with new water. Putting a substrate does help you see the fish better, personally I prefer fine gravel or sand.

 

[FB3333]

i've put some sand in my pond... i think it looks awful, but it can stay until the spring before i get it out again..