After a dip in your pond, you may notice that you picked up a few black wrigglers on your way out. The culprit? Leeches.
Now, you’re likely wondering how to get rid of leeches in a pond.
Fortunately, you’ll find several methods to control the bloodsuckers’ population, from cleaning the sludge out of your pond’s floor to incorporating a couple of leech traps.
Despite their unwelcome presence, leeches can offer multiple benefits to your pond’s ecosystem, such as aerating the bottom layer and releasing essential nutrients.
For this reason, you’ll want to use preventative measures if the parasite’s population gets out of hand. That said, stick around to learn more about getting rid of leeches.
Causes of Leeches in a Pond
Leeches aren’t a common sight in ponds, for the most part. Your pond can go leech-free for its lifetime. That said, these little blood-suckers usually come from external sources.
Subsequently, they travel by sticking to pond wildlife, such as waterfowl and amphibians, and detaching themselves into their new homes.
The parasites can attach themselves to these creatures in most stages of their lives, from egg to adult. They can also strap a ride on your new pet pond fish.
Alternatively, leeches may come from pond plants you introduce to the water landscape.
For this reason, you’ll want to quarantine these new members for two to four weeks and keep a watchful eye for any wiggly appearances.
Methods to Get Rid of Leeches in a Pond
Eliminating a leech infestation calls for several methods. Subsequently, you’ll want to implement more than one way of extermination for the cleanest results. Check them out below.
Method #1: Clean the Muck at the Bottom of the Pond
In most cases, the leeches infesting your pond may not be the blood-sucking kind. Instead, they’re likely sludge-eaters.
When your pond grows an excess of nutrients, fish waste, decomposed debris, and foliage, it settles underwater into a muck later.
Leeches enjoy chowing down on that muck. Subsequently, clearing it out will gradually control the parasite population.
You can clean the layer using a pond rake or vacuum. Additionally, you can resort to beneficial bacteria that can break down the muck.
Method #2: Set a Leech Trap
In this method, you’ll be trapping the leeches. You can either DIY the trap or buy a commercial one. For the prior’s case, here’s how to create it.
Step #1: Create the Trap Chamber
Grab a coffee or aluminum can container. Next, use a steak knife to cut holes about two to five millimeters wide.
Keep the lid on the chamber to prevent the leeches from escaping. Then, add the bait. You can use raw kidneys, liver, or any sort of meat to attract the blood-sucking variety.
Once they consume the meat’s nutrients, they’ll expand and size. It’ll make it more challenging for them to escape through the entry holes.
Step #2: Lay Out the Trap
You can either set a floating or sinking trap. For the prior, you can position the container with a net. The leeches will swim up as they sense the meat.
Meanwhile, add a few stones under the bait if you want to sink it. Leave the trap for a day before moving on to the following step.
Step #3: Assess the Trap
After one day, you should have collected a handful of leeches in your container. Dispose of the creepy crawlies by drowning them in an alcohol solution.
Add a different kind of bait if the container remains empty. Keep in mind that leeches might not be the only creatures you capture.
If you find other aquatic insects jumbled in the mix, you can release them back into the pond.
Method #3: Incorporate Leech-Eating Fish
Rather than do all the dirty work, you can enlist a couple of leech-eating fish to do it for you. Some species, such as bass and sunfish, enjoy munching on these wigglers.
Nonetheless, clear out the muck on the pond bed to keep the parasites exposed to their predators.
Method #4: Detach Leeches from Your Pond Fish
In addition to the leeches wriggling in the sludge layer underneath, you’ll also need to look out for the ones attached to your fish.
You’ll likely find them clinging to your fish’s gills. Leeches may also hide under your fish’s fins and stomachs for easier access to their meal.
For small fish, like goldfish, you can use a pond net to move them upward. As for larger species, a fitting sock net will be more suitable.
Once the swimmer is up and reachable, carefully inspect their bodies and remove any leeches found using tweezers.
After setting the fish back in the pond, pour in an antibacterial infection control solution. They’ll allow your swimmers’ open wounds to heal promptly.
Next, monitor the fish’s recovery for the next couple of days. In addition, continue to examine their bodies for any other signs of leeches.
How to Prevent a Leech Infestation in Your Pond
The three primary methods of leech prevention involve quarantine, pond maintenance, and waste limitation. Here’s how you can successfully implement each.
Quarantine
New pond fish or plants are one of the most common entryways of leeches. For this reason, keeping them out of your pond and inspecting them for at least two weeks is essential.
Waiting this long will allow you to reveal newly hatched eggs that were barely visible at first glance.
For new pond fish, you can house them in a small pond or tank. Inspect the fish every day and look out for any leech signs.
If you notice one, you can detach the suckers with tweezers and allow the fish to recover before introducing it to your pond.
You can similarly keep your pond plant in a quarantine tank.
Maintenance
Keeping your pond sludge-free is critical to leech prevention. This method won’t work for blood-sucking leeches.
You can add an aeration or filtration system to clean the bottom muck. That sludge can harm your pond’s ecosystem, so you’ll be killing two birds with one stone.
Avoid Waste
Fish waste plays a contributing role in sludge accumulation. For this purpose, you’ll need to avoid overfeeding them.
Uneaten food will also settle underwater and lump into the growing brown underwater layer.
You can ease off on the fish feeding during winter to once daily. Meanwhile, during summer, two to three times daily will suffice.
Are Leeches Good for a Pond?
Leeches are contributing members of a balanced ecosystem despite their bad reputation. They prey on invasive aquatic insects, algae, and plants.
Additionally, the parasites help break down the pond’s sludge bottom layer.
They release essential nutrients into the pond needed by other pond residents by decomposing the decaying foliage and animals.
On top of that, leeches oxygenate the bottom layer of the pond, providing an enhanced aeration system to the water feature’s quality.
Can Pond Leeches Live Out of Water?
In most cases, leeches prefer a moist environment. They usually stay in pond waters. Nonetheless, the freshwater wrigglers can withstand dry periods.
They do so by burrowing in moisture-rich muddy terrains near the pond banks. Besides that, the worm-like creatures tend to avoid sunlight.
Leeches are significantly susceptible to dehydration. It’s why one of their many remedies is salt. Luckily, you can add 1 to 2.5 pounds of the mineral for every 100 gallons of water to your pond.
Be sure to add the amount gradually. That way, you won’t shock your fish and plants.
Final Thoughts
Just mentioning leeches can be enough to make your skin crawl. The good news is that getting rid of them involves regular pond upkeep and using simple DIY traps to exterminate them.
Besides that, you can implement other biological methods to eliminate the population, such as releasing their natural predators.
After following natural prevention methods, your pond will be leech-free in no time.
Ben has a bachelor’s degree in construction engineering. When not constructing or remodeling X-Ray Rooms, Cardiovascular Labs, and Pharmacies, you can find him at home with wife and two daughters. Outside of family, He loves grilling and barbequing on his Big Green Egg and Blackstone Griddle, as well as working on projects around the house.
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