Hi guys
My pond has been established for 3 years now (600 gallon - 4 koi, 7 goldfish & 2 shubunkin) and the water was always crystal clear until now. I pulled out alot of the oxygenating plant about 3 weeks ago because it was starting to spread all over the surface. Since then the water has turned very murky and if any of the fish disturb something, a big cloud of looks like silt appears. Any suggestions?
I have changed my UV lamp, the water has been tested for ammonia, ph & nitrites etc and is fine, and the fish are all still active and healthy - as are the very young shubunkin fry swimming around.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Cheers
Thunder Road

I'm new at ponding, just got a big mouth. :lol: To me there's two ways to go. If you're the type that doesn't like dirt, you'll have to vac out the bottom. My preference is the dirt on the bottom so I would toss in some aquarium size rocks to cover the dirt. I did that in my 50 gal. pond and when I was moving things around, I had to clean out the bottom. I found earthworms living down there!!! At that point, same as you, my water was crystal clear. Occasionally the fish nudge the rocks around, but the silt is minimal.

Hi SadieMay thanks for the reply.
I thought about doing the vacuum thing and maybe that is the way to go. The only thing about that is I am just afraid I will suck up some of my baby shubunkins!
What I think the silt is, is the after effect of the blanket weed killer that I use - "Goodbye Blanket Weed". You drop a sachet in the filter once a week and it keeps the blanket weed right down to a minimum, but it turns it to silt, which does eventually disappear. I think at this moment in time I'd rather have the blanket weed.
Thunder Road

The cloud may be from dirt and debris that was trapped amongst the roots of the submerged plants that you removed. When you removed the plants, it could have stirred things up. It could also contain dead algae. Only a 100% cleaning would remove it all. Then, you'd use a shop vacuum or pond vacuum when working in the bottom. You'd have to hand sift out animals. See my story on cleaning my 153 gallon pond each year at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/myfish/clean.htm . You can do a vacuuming with water suction with the pond full of water but it may not work so well. Same thing with using a net. If the debris is organic (plant parts, algae and not dirt), then adding good bacteria and enzymes will help digest that.