Everyone loves that brand new look that pressure washing can give an old pond. But nobody wants to wake up to floating fish, which can be a side affect of this approach to pond cleaning. Here are few pros and cons to pressure washing.
Pros:
Cons:
- Loss of healthy bio bed in rocks
- Ammonia spike causing loss of fish
- Excessive stress on fish
- moving fish can cause abrasions leading to infections
- poorly ventilated holding containers can lead to suffocation
- small holding containers can over heat in the summer causing heat stroke
- holding containers tend to be poorly filtered and over crowded which can cause ammonia burn leading to death
- Stress of any kind can lead to weakened immune system and vulnerability to parasites and infections (bacterial and fungal)
The safest approach to pond maintenance is keeping the water quality low in nitrates and having a healthy bio bed. The low nitrates will prevent algae growth. Having water plants like lilies will help keep nitrates low along with water changes. There are a few cold water algae eaters too that will help keep algae on rocks short and not overgrown.
