My pump slowed way down so I pulled it up to check it out. It had sweet potato vine roots plugging it. Pulled them out and it worked fine.

The pump is in a milk crate covered with plastic mesh with a flip top for easy access. It sits on top of an old black plastic filter/pump box with holes in the top to get it up out of the water in case it accidentally starts to drain the pond it can only drain it so far and not kill all my fish.

Surprisingly when I pulled the pump cage I went ahead and pulled the black pump/filter box to give it quick spray off and it was full of fish muck. It seems that with the pump action above the box, muck is somehow sucked into the old filter box. I dumped it around some hydrangeas and hope they will be happy with fish fertilizer. This has kept the bottom of my pond cleaner.

I will pay attention and empty it more frequently now that I know what is happening.

I am sure there is a scientific explanation for why this happened and maybe it can be helpful to other ponders out there to keep their ponds a little cleaner.