Washing up liquid in pond.

[mbridgett]

Hi,

Our lovely 8 year old decided to see what happens when he emptied half a bottle of washing up liquid in our (10 foot) pond. Apart from the obvious bubbles, the side effect will be the imminent demise of everything in the pond, including all the fish. Unfortunately I am working away from home so there is very little I can do remotely and apart from running a bath of water which would probably kill the fish anyway, we have no other recourse. Unfortunately we only have one pond and have no neighbours with ponds either. I have therefore reluctantly decided I'll have to clean the pond and re-stock from scratch.

I guess what I am looking for (apart from sympathy) is any advice on how to actually clean the pond. I was debating just emptying/syphoning off as much as possible, then refilling and just leaving it for 6 months or so. By that stage I'll know if the wildlife is beginning to recover and live in the pond again. I am kind of assuming that after 6 months the washing up liquid remaining will have been washed out. However, I have no idea what the (effective) half-life of washing up liquid is.

Any advice on the best approach? Google really didn't help much for once!

thanks
Mark