Pond Cleaning Gadget

This is a short rave about a small gadget that I’m in love with.
After fighting with pond algae and scum all last year and into this year, I was at my wit’s end. I got a lot of scum out with the pool skimmer, but each scoop was very heavy and hard on my back, and the skimmer ripped from the weight of the algae. Also, the pool skimmer would disturb the algae and the whole pond would get murky with the scummy stuff. I would have to scoop, hold the skimmer for 30 seconds to let the water drain out, walk to the edge of the pond and dump it into a pail. Then, when the pail was full (and heavy), take it and dump it far from the pond (or make algae bricks with it).
This year I bought an 800 Watt grey water pump and used it for about 15 minutes. It was too slow, and the mesh tip kept getting clogged with leaves. I took the tip off, and the pump got clogged and stopped working. Bah!
So I bought the simple velocity pump above after I saw it advertised in my favorite DIY magazine: The Family Handyman. That little gadget sucks up muck, leaves and all (sometimes you have to pull a large clump of leaves off), and runs on the pressure from a water hose. No electricity. It also doesn’t disperse the algae into the rest of the water like the pond skimmer.
It’s going to take several days to vacuum up the whole pond bottom, but it’s doable. LOVE IT!

The trick to keeping my pond clean after it’s vacuumed will be to set up a bio-filtration system like they have on Savvy Practicality.