Homemade Weed Removal Tool for Pond - Removes hydrilla, milfoil, lily pads and more - Part 1 - S1:E1 

Absolutely. We'll price out shipping to see how much it would cost to get one to you. We're in Northern Indiana

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Your comment was a couple of years ago, Did you get a chance to do anything about your pond? We are loaded with pond lilies.

@@PleasantValleyOutdoors I’d like one priced out pls

how large were the tines on your apparatus? thinking to do that same with cattails in my pond

Glad you liked the video! You could make many different variations of this tool to work best on your shoreline. Even a smaller version of this that could be pulled by a small lawn tractor would work great. You may also want to check out our second video on this that shows a little bit more of the tool in action. Thanks for checking us out!

Thanks for watching

Thanks for watching

You, I have regressed from the fence piece and now use a metal hoop. Not a very big nor heavy steel hoop. Heavy enough that it will sink, yet light enough to throw. It is alot easier to pull through the water abd easier to clean once on land.

You’re absolutely right, cleaning the tool off is definitely the biggest job. We posted a follow up/part 2 video that shows us cleaning it off. Thanks for watching!

That'll work great!

I was thinking of using shiv blocks and trees then hooking to the 4 Wheel Drive pick up. Driving up the driveway.

It really did stink. Probably took a week to get it out of my nose

😂

Fortunately we haven't encountered that yet. This is the second year in a row that we've removed the weed growth and it seems that every time we remove the weeds fewer and fewer are returning.

how about a few catfish to help to eat the green algae ? I too use a wide rake to remove as much as I can

Pleasant Valley Outdoors l

I treated it this year with chemicals for the first time. Had pretty good luck. Still have some bladderwort that the Hydrothol didn’t kill. I’ll use something different next year. Thanks for watching

Much better than wrecking the water column with a drag over and over.

what were the chemicals you used....

Do you have to clean up the dead foilage after treating with chemicals?

Glad you liked it! We appreciate the comment!

@@PleasantValleyOutdoors you welcome

I don’t know if this would work fo you or not. The tool we made is 1 inch solid still with 3/8 dia rebar. If it’s just the shoreline you could use aquatic roundup which is called Rodeo. We have a new video coming out that talks about using chemicals. This is our 1st time using chemicals and we share info from the manufacturer.Don’t know if this helps or not. Thanks for watching

I like your thinking. I’ll run it by our R+D department. Thanks for watching

Glad it worked for you. Thanks for watching

I don’t know if a boat would pull it. Weeds get really heavy. In the last few years I’ve switched to chemicals to control weeds. Dragging worked good but it was really a back breaking job. Thanks for watching

They definitely do. The more tines there are the better. They catch weeds above the bottom surface and help to pull more out by the roots. When we pull it up on shore the weeds are wrapped around all the tines equally and you can’t tell the top of the drag from the bottom. Thanks for your comment

Hi Catherine, this will work great at pulling those lily pad roots out. There’s a chance that the lilly pad stalks won’t wrap around the tool; the roots may pull out and the lilly pad may just float on top of the water. If that is the case you may have to try raking the floating pads by hand after the tool pulls the roots out. The stalks should wrap around the teeth of the tool no problem though!

Pleasant Valley Outdoors Thank you, sounds good.

@@11012Boomer Your comment was a couple of years ago, Did you get a chance to do anything about your pond? We too have acres of lilie pads.

Awesome, glad you found this helpful!

Your comment was a couple of years ago, Did you get a chance to do anything about your pond?

It depends what type of weeds they are. The thicker the roots would require a heavier tool. Things like cattails probably wouldn’t work too well

Not really sure. The rope we used is 800 lbs test and it’s never broken but heavier is better just to be sure. Thanks for watching

We scooped up the debris with tractor loader and the water cleared up in a few days. The last few years I’ve switched to chemicals and I have a video on that. Thanks for watching. Controlling Pond Weeds ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE--vxWp8YnEOE.html

We're not too sure how these moved into the pond. It seems that natural ponds and those with soft bottoms like mud always have continual problems with these weeds. The pond on our property and surrounding woods were left untouched for years which allowed the weeds to completely take over. We now have a constant fight with new seeds from the submerged weeds every year. We've tried a pre-emergent/weed control granual as a way to kill the established weeds and prevent new seeds from taking hold, however, this never ended up working. The only thing we've found to manage the weeds year round is using our tool. Thanks for commenting!

@@PleasantValleyOutdoors how about grass carp that could eat some of these .. Do you have any fresh water coming in ? how about an aeration pump to help during the summer ?

@@geekia5216 We've definitely thought of this but we talked with a few landowners down the road from us with ponds that have grass carp and they are actually struggling a little more with weed growth in their ponds. I'm sure that ponds with isolated weed growth would do great with some grass carp but in our pond that could easily be completely solid with matted grass unfortunately that hasn't helped. We do have fresh water coming into the pond which has helped keep everything pretty aerated and the fish are really thriving in this small pond. Without this water supply I'm absolutely sure that we would lose most of our fish. Thank you!

Gee Kia grass carp won’t eat milfoil

@@PleasantValleyOutdoors the weeds are more likely what is keeping your pond oxygenated.

We are currently looking into chemical treatment for this year. Hopefully we’ll get a video on that

I used Aquacide this spring, used the highest recommend doseage and it failed. I have watershield (sometimes wrongly called water lillie's) it just didn't do the job. Now I'm looking to try this before draining and getting the dozer almost certainly stuck in the pond again.

@@integr8er66 I’m going to try chemicals next week. Been doing lots of research and contacted manufacturer for additional advice. I’ll have a video out with my experience using it and results. Thanks for your comment

@@PleasantValleyOutdoors Another option besides chemicals, if you can get electric there or solar panels work well for it, for a small air compressor about the same size as fish tanks, essentially you have a pvc pipe down in the water with a oxygen rock at the bottom down inside, so it moves water, and oxygenates it, algae has a harder time growing and provides a little current. There is a swimming pond guy in europe that has tons of videos on this idea. He tested his water in his swimming pond and it was cleaner then his drinking water out of a the tap.

Use Rodeo for watershield

I've seen those, good idea. Typically our water will clear up but during times of heavy rain and cleaning the pond weeds out it definitely gets clouded up.

It should. We don’t have any lily pads in our pond but no reason it shouldn’t work. Thanks for watching

We thought about that but we’ve got just under 200 feet of rope which isn’t long enough and if we did it would probably have too much weeds to pull it out. It really gets loaded up and ways a ton. Thanks for watching

😂😂🤣

Yeah, the snatch block in some environments w/trees & obstacles in the way of tractor path, & could be helpful. When I was a kid, in Missouri, the most common type algae we has in our area, was very thin strands like hair, that was yet very thick & green in color, ( no leaves or beads or balls or flowers) Covering overall, that grew up from bottom to flat to be flush w/waterline, "Moss". I live in a different location 3 hrs away, & are 1/4 acre pond we just built got engulfed in like 3 different kinds of algae in less than 1 yr from the build. Primrose, Duckweed & another algae I forname of. Neighbors pond us small & never cared for, & I believe since his Overflow is our best water source across property lines, its likely all his establishment weeds that flourished in our new pond IMMEDIATELY. WE have been usin chemistry now for about a month, & have a long handled rake. We were told that all the Oak, maple, walnut, (& a few other's) trees massive amt if leaves that blew into the pond in the 1st Fall last yr in '21, contributed to the accelerated growth. Not sure if thats true, but the entire pond at less than a yr old had massive amt of dead brown/black leaves covering nearly every inch if floor as far out away from shore the water clarity will allow you to see. I did not anticipate this rather overwhelming leave problem when we built pond, as we took out several near buy trees during construction. We been looking for reviews of the 24" & 32" rakes advertised on various sites including Amazon. The type you are to throw into the water, ,& pull in by hand. So we found your video while looking for an actual use case of the ones we saw for sale. It tk me about 2 wks to develop the idea in my head, using our Polaris 1000cc ranger, or our tractor, to pull a larger that 2ft rake by hand. Had I found your video a month ago, it would have saved sone time as we arrived very similar conclusions as your already putting into practice. As a kid, we used a Queen size Box spring (for a mattress, with all fabric weathered off) to remove our Moss bk then, by hand, with 2 pple & a rope on ea side, pulling it in. It didn't work very well. The rake design seems to be the best real world design overall we have seen thus far. I suspect that as long as my neighbors pond flows into ours, & is completely overan with 3+ diffcalgae types. Both rakes & chemistry might be necessary to try to have ckear looking water in 60%/75% of the water. My wife wants fish, but reawants an attractive pond to look at. In 30 minutes yesterday afternoon, in the heat, we saw a baby ground hogg, & a fox, & a spotted fawn walking in the water. Drinking & eating w/its 4 feet in about 6" of water. Lil guy even pooped in water. Never seen that before. Took him for ever to releave him/her self, w/lil tail shaking while trying to go to the bathroom. We were resting in lawn chairs next to our Ranger when all the animcame around 1 by 1 in less than an hr. Where do we find pricing for your custom made rakes? & I suspect you offer a few sizes? Or just what ur clients order? Thx. Sorry or rambling. Im to soar today to do anything other than sit, from hrs of aquatic weed removal yesterday. Much of it dying or dead from chemicals we started using nearly a month ago. Regards, & thx for the video!

The video shows debris and weeds being pulled out towards the end of the video. Also, you can watch Part 2 to see more being pulled out.

I’ve never heard that before. I’ll do some research into it. Thanks for the tip

Thanks for your input and thanks for watching

I suspect not all owners of all ponds & lakes have the benefit of designing the ideal topography. In our case the lay of the land dictates some things. My neighbor capturing the majority of watershed up high, & then the other property owners at lower elevation, must contend with his naturally pollution of clean pond water with his lack of interest in keeping his pond clean, just to wster cattle w/a few months out if yr when rotating animals up to his highest elevation pasture that then drains into 2 other ponds & eventually a creek. Oh well. Play the cards your dealt. Thks everyone gor great input & a great video created by the content creators channel 👍👏

@@here_for_the Any site can be recontoured for a better habitat. You bring up a great point about upstream influence. Building a pond / lake within the natural stream channel will be a victim to upstream circumstances unless a by-pass is created. That can be pretty expensive at times.