Oase Pondovac Start FREE Gloves + P&P

Background: We have an established 1000 gallon pond that over the years has been home to several large water lilly plants and at one time fifty plus fish and multiple frogs!. The pond has a 24/7 operation water recirculation pump with Green2Clean filter and UV lamp (though the UV lamp had failed last winter). The pond water is recirculated via a small ''waterfall'' to maintain oxygen levels in the pond. The header pool for the waterfall is regularly used by birds to ''bathe'' in so the pond also gets a fair number of wild bird feathers. This was our first cleaning session after at least two years of inattention so we anticipated a major cleaning session.

Acquisition and delivery: Purchased this Pondovac Start from pondkeeper.co.uk and it arrived by courier on the day indicated at the time the order was placed. Excellent service from pondkeeper! Score 5/5

Assemby: The content of the printed instructions ''in the box'' were not so clear; for example there is no explanation of what to do with the black cap or bung shown as a ''nozzle'' in the printed instruction! Also as this was our first pond cleaner there were no visual aids on how to set up, where to position the Pondovac and how to use it, but watching the You Tube videos accessible from the pondkeeper web site realy helped. Score 4/5

Operation: Once the video was viewed, setting up and using the Pondovac Start was easy. One interesting point is that the printed instructions indicate that the Pondovac should be placed seven feet away from the pond, whilst the video shows the Pondovac at the pond side. We followed the advice in the video and we are very pleased with the operation; though the tank quickly fills up, the auto empty and restart works well. We had a lot of leaves at the bottom of the pond and these quickly clogged up the inlet on the pond bottom nozzle, a good indication that the slot size restricter works. Once we had dealt with the leaves then the cleaning process continued without problem. Cleaning the pond surface of floating debris was more tricky, the unit has a powerful motor and the suction has a tendancy to draw the nozzel deeper into the pond, so a firm grip is required to ''skim'' the pond surface.
The transparent section of the suction inlet tube is brilliant because you can see what is being removed from the pond. It is amazing how much ''debris'' collects at the bottom of the pond. The transparent tube is also a good visual indicator of the suction rate or water flow into the Pondovac. Score 5/5
Tank Discharge: We found it better to discharge the tank directly into the garden rather than back into the pond. We had a lot of debris and sludge in our pond and the ''capture net'' soon became full so that when the discharge occured back into the pond, a great deal of ''murky'' fine particles were emptied back into the pond; switching to discharging directly into the garden solved that and watered the garden. I expect that once we get the pond fully clean then we should be able to change the process we currently have adopted.
Also, because we have a pond containing a great deal of ''debris and sludge'', we took the capture net off the discharge hose because it clogged up too quickly.
Last point is that it is worth considering buying a spare filter because, on a ''dirty'' pond, stopping to clean the filter impacts the pond cleaning process. As previously mention we have a 1000 gallon pond and as this was our first cleaning session after at least two years of inattention, regular cleaning of the filter was required to maintain the power of the suction. Inclusion of a spare filter would have been useful as a ''package price''.
We spent about 2 hours in our first session with PondoVac Start, though we took frequent 5 minute breaks to allow the Pondovac motor to cool. I could find no reference to prolonged operation in the instructons so thought it prudent to let the motor cool off at 10- 15 minute intervals. Score 5/5
Outcomes: I also replaced the UV lamp in the Green2clean filter (also purchased from pondkeeper.co.uk at the same time) and the day after we used our Pondovac Start our pond looks 100% clearer and we can now see the places we missed in our first session. Time for another session to clean the other end of the pond!

Conclusion: Using the Pondovac Start has made a significant improvement to the condition of our pond and the fish seem a lot happier and more active. On the basis of our initial experience I/we have no hestitation in recommending the product subject to the caveats already explained.
Final score 5/5