How to Keep Your Pond Pump from Clogging this Fall

Your pond pump is an essential part of what keeps your favorite ecosystem functioning. During the fall, it has to work extra hard to try to combat all the leaves, sticks and other falling debris bombarding your pond on a daily basis.

Because of all the falling debris, your pump would probably need to be cleaned out daily just to keep the water flowing. Not only is that a time-consuming process, but it can really disturb the ecosystem you’ve worked so hard to create.

Since your pond pump takes care of your fish and pond plants, what can you do to take care of it during this strenuous season?

You can change the size of your filter screen, but if you have a significant amount of debris coming off the trees around your pond, it’s unlikely that this will make much of a difference. A better idea is to get in there and give your pump an extra hand. Instead of waiting for it to filter everything, you can manually clear out the leaves and other material a couple times a week.

Using a pond skimmer can get things on the surface, but you can even go a step further and remove matter from the pond floor using a swimming pool leaf-raking net, or some other similar device. This will cloud the water temporarily, so you may want to follow it by exchanging out some of the pond water.

If you find that this isn’t enough to combat all the crazy debris falling off the trees and plants in your backyard, you may even want to consider redirecting your pond pump system outside of your pond to an external basin. Sink your basin of choice into the ground a few feet away from your pond. You can connect it to your pond either with an underground pipe, or an aboveground PVC pipe. By placing your pond pump inside this basin, the water will be drawn into it, and the accompanying debris will be trapped.

Take care of your pond pump this fall, and it will take care of you. For more tips on how to stay on top of pond maintenance for this busy season, contact a pond supplies professional today.

*Image provided by Wonderlane on Flickr.