Cleaning pond found lizards/amphibians

[Todayissunny]

We've got a funny little pond thing in our garden put in by previous owners. It is dirty and stinks so I planned to clean it out and put a pump in it. Scooping out the sludge at the bottom I discovered a few lizards.
I leftvthe rest of the sludge and put some water back in but I'm worried I'm going to find them dead tomorrow.
If they do survive how should I continue cleaning?

This suggests Autumn is the best time & to use a holding tank for fish (or lizards in your case)

www.pond-planet.co.uk/blog/clean-garden-pond/

Newts?

If you're in the U.K. they will be newts, which are wonderful things, a real treasure to have in the garden. You can protect them and still have a non-stinky pond, you'll just need to time your clean up better and read up on keeping your pond attractive to amphibians.

Thanks. Not in the uk - Central europe. I've just had a look and they do look like newts.
I've got so far with cleaning I'm not sure I can go back now. I'll have a look at the website.

In hope you didn't fill it with tap water

Well, just by chance I had a container standing in the garden with rainwater in it so I used that. We dripped tapwater into the pond the whole of last summer. Our water isn't chlorinated so I'm not sure it would be harmful. If I had known we had newts before I started I wouldntv have touched it before checking what to do.

Lizards are reptiles and land based Newts are amphibians - they hunt on land but return to water for breeding and their larvae live in the water and have gills. The "amphi" bit means "both", referring to the dual habitat of water and land.

The problem with tap water is it tends to be high nutrient and encourage algae blooms, not that it's directly poisonous to the newts. You won't have hurt them.

Thanks @meredintofPandiculation for the info. I grew up in the uk countryside but, despite searching for them, newts were something I only read about in books. Waters were too polluted then to support them. So I guess I didn't know much about them.
Thrilled to have them in my garden.
It's going to be -3 here tonight so I hope I put enough water back in to keep them well protected.