How does one keep a duck pond clean???

[BellLisamo]

my water looks radioactive again, time to chiffon it out .....

 

[jjdward]

Quote:
This sounds great. Anybody ever used these?

 

[Wifezilla]

The large container on the left is basically a skippy filter.

The water feeds in to the bottom. It is filled with cut up pieces of bio-degradable furnace filter (looks a lot like the mini skippy filter). There is supposed to be duckweed floating on the top, but mine froze

I need to buy more.

Bacteria forms on the filter pieces and this beneficial bacteria is what helps keep the water clean. Duckweed also pulls nutrients out of the water and can be fed back to the ducks. I haven't perfected the system yet, but it is working better than I thought it would

 

[sweetshoplady]

Wifezilla, thanks for those links. That sounds like a great solution.

Your pond looks great.

 

[Wifezilla]

It is a work in progress, but I think it is coming along. I want to plant more stuff around it, but I have to find things Bungie doesn't think of as snack food

He is the bravest of the ducks when it comes to tasting things to see if they are yummy. Maybe because he is a boy

My only ongoing issue is sediment. That will never change with the fuzz butts jumping in there and floating things on the water to see if pond water makes them taste better. Since the sediment is great fertilizer, I guess I can't complain.

 

[MamacatPatch]

Ok, we've set up a kiddie pool for our three ducks. We manage to dump the whole thing [which is NOT easy!], hose it out and put in fresh water about once a week .... SO FAR.

That skippy pump looks like something made for a REAL pond, not for a small kiddie pool. Wish I had a real pond, but I don't.

Anyway, is there anything that can be added to the 'pond' to help keep it clean naturally and won't harm my duckies? Like, uh.....baking soda? Apple cider vinegar? Orange cleaner? Hydrogen peroxide? Right now when it gets to the green stage, it's a mosquito heaven!!! YIPES. UGH. UGH.

The only OTHER option I can think of 'might' be a pump/filter thingie that runs continually, but if it's too costly or troublesome, I would probably resort to plan A again!

Ideas? Experiences? Links?

Thanks!

 

[chickensioux]

When my ducks are locked up in the duck area, they have a 30 gal. horse trough and when they are loose, they have a kiddie pool both of which we clean on a 3-4 day basis. That's really all you can do. They love to swim so we provide it and we clean it....often. It doesn't always have to be spotless. If you think about lakes and such, they swim in their own poop, fish poop, etc.

 

[kawonu]

We change water everyday. Have a couple kiddie pools and all of the tubs in the breeder pens.

 

[pattyjean73]

Nice pond... I love it!

 

[Sunny Side Up]

You don't have to break your backs, or the edges of your kiddy pools, by lifting them to dump out the water. Not only are you going to damage your body and/or the plastic, it also makes the whole area around the pool turn into a bog.

Instead, take a hose and siphon out the water so it flows far away and preferably into a hungry garden bed. It will work as long as the end of the hose is lower than the bottom of the pool. Stretch out the hose where you want it, place one end into the duck water. Holding it under the surface, take another hose and get water flowing into the siphon and out its other end. Once you get the water flowing, remove the fresh-water hose and keep the siphon hose in the pool. You may have to hold it down on the bottom with a brick.

Another way to empty a pool is to attatch a bulkhead fitting to the bottom edge of the pool. You cut a hole in the pool and screw this fitting into it, then you can attatch a faucet & a hose fitting on the outside. And then attatch a hose to it and drain the pool through it. Again, it works if the end of the hose is lower than the bottom of the pool.

I try to empty my ducks' pools every 2-3 days, give the bottom a swipe with a brush to get most of the crud out, and refill. Every few months I'll try to empty them out, let them dry & air out in the sun, maybe even spray some clorine bleach on the bottom. Then rinse, refill with water, & let the birds refill them with poop...