When should I turn the filter back on??

[HeatherB]

When should I turn back on the filter in the pond? It has finally all dethawed, and it is supposed to be up to or over 60 degrees here over the weekend.

I know it would be a while till I can feed the fish and everything- but now that the freezing is over shoudl I turn the filters on?

And how should I go about cleaning the pond this spring? Like, sucking out all the detris?
In the summer, before I learned about barley pads, I drained the pond, removed the fish, then sprayed it down with the hose, drained that, and then used the shopvac to suck up the sludge and dispose. Then refill, let run for remainder of day, add dechlor and add fish once the temp was what it had been. Should I invest in a pond python?

[smaug]

I run my pump year round since I enlarged the pond but when it was smaller I tore down the filter in the fall and started it back up once the water temp started hitting 50 deg for a week.For other start up procedure start with a good skimmer net and get all the junk out that you can,do this one day,2 days or so later take a med scrub brush and lightly go over the liner,don't remove everything,just half of it.Let that settle for a day then skim it again then do a 50% water change.After that start the filter and do small 20% water changes 3 more times.There is a huge amount of toxins in the water from the winter its gotta go.I also use bacter lift spring start up booster which helps quite a bit.Start feeding after you do all this but only with wheat germ feed until the water temp is at least 60 deg for a week,then do a 50% wheat germ and normal feed for another week,then go to summer food.Doing this method the fishes system will start slowly and the waste they produce will be low density and more easily handled by the bio filter that is slowly building .Remember to actually take the temp of the water.

[HeatherB]

I have seen wheat germ sticks, but the goldfish are still small (though they have grown alot) do they make wheat germ flake food?

[smaug]

I have seen wheat germ sticks, but the goldfish are still small (though they have grown alot) do they make wheat germ flake food?
The mini version of this may be small enough.How big are your goldys?

[HeatherB]

The largest is MAYBE like, 3-4 inches (last I saw him- around early Fall/late Summer) last year.

[smaug]

The mini pellet should be ok for them if they are under 1/8th".