Pond Algae Solutions Blog

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A Simple Pond Tool To Monitor Seasonal Changes

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Watch the short video below where I cover one of the simplest but most useful pond care tools to use during the fall, winter, and spring.

It’s such a simple thing, but a pond thermometer will help you keep tabs on where your pond stands as the weather get’s colder. Actually it’s good any time of year, because in the summer, it’s nice to know just how warm things are getting too.

But in the fall, the most notable temperatures to track are around 50 degrees, which is when you’ll normally see fish slow down on their feeding and most warm weather bacteria will stop working.

You’ll find the pond thermometer featured in the video on the fall products page of our website, it’s the second item from the bottom of the page.

Treating A Pond With Green Or Murky Water With A Flocculent

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One of the most common problems we hear about when pond owners call in during the summer months has to do with water clarity.

Green or murky and cloudy water tend to show up as the pond warms up and the degree of coloration can vary from a light tinting to a full blown green or brown where you can’t see your fish any longer.

Many times a good filtration system will help a lot in smaller ponds with this type of problem because depending on the color, the issue could be an actual algae issue, or it could come from a lot of suspended material in the water. As long as the filter is adequate and the particules or algae cells are big enough, they’ll get filtered out in good order. The problem is, not every filter is equal to the task, and to make matters worse, some of these cells and particles are pretty darned small. Sometimes they’re so little that they can pass right through the filter without being taken out. And when this happens you won’t see much of a change in your water quality.

If you’ve watched several of our videos on dealing with green water algae, you know that one of the useful tools for dealing with the problem is uv or ultra violet light. This device emits light which radiates the algae that passes in front of it and this damaged the algae cells to the point where they either die off and/or become damaged and clump together in larger masses which ultimately leads to better filtering.
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Shallow Pond Aeration Is Possible

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It’s a fact that every single pond will benefit from increased aeration and oxygenation. Some ponds, however, have certain characteristics that can limit just how useful aeration can be, and the major consideration is the depth of the pond.

Simply put, the general rule of thumb is the deeper the better.

Depths of 10 feet or greater allow for greater coverage in a pond. What I mean by this is a single diffuser (or the part of the system that sits at the bottom of the pond and releases the air bubbles) can effectively treat up to about one acre of surface area if you have 10 to 12 feet of depth or more.

Conversely if the pond is more shallow than this, you would need multiple diffusers to treat the same surface area. Ultimately any aeration is probably better than none at all, but the goal is to increase or stabilize dissolved oxygen levels at 5 mg/L or greater. (Here’s a simple DO test kit if you’re wondering just where your pond stands). This DO level will ensure that fish are protected from oxygen deprivation, particularly in very hot and still days during the summer.

Over the years, I’ve always considered surface fountains to be somewhat helpful in shallow ponds. They don’t help as much in deeper water because they only affect the upper few feet of a pond, but again, they were usually better than no aeration at all.
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Oops, My Fish Are Dead…Chlorine Kills

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If I had to summarize the topic this week it would simply be that “chlorine kills fish”.

Not a happy topic to be sure but it’s a reality that sometimes mistakes happen.

If you have a fish pond you’re likely well aware that municipal tap water is not ideally suited to fish health.

Most tap water contains disinfecting chlorine and chloramines, both of which are quite toxic to fish, so when you refill a pond or add water to replace losses from evaporation, it’s a common practice to use dechlorinating tablets or liquids to neutralize these substances.

But not everyone may be aware of this fact or remember to use them.

A long time customer wrote a few weeks ago that she had a friend helping to take care of her pond during a time when she was unable to do so. She got a call one day from her friend that her fish were not looking very well and within a few days, all of her fish were dead.

In the end, she discovered that her friend had added water to the pond but did so without using any dechlorinator whatsoever and as a result, some very large, beautiful, and vibrant koi were lost. It was simply heartbreaking to hear about this and no less devastating to experience it.

Which leads me to an important reminder: Be diligent, not only in your own routine chores and processes as you manage your pond (because we all can make a mistake now and then), but also be thorough in training and guiding someone who’s offered to help you care for your pond. Don’t assume that they understand the various aspects of pond and fish care…it’s simply too risky.

How To Avoid Chlorine Contamination

After hearing about my friend’s loss, we traded emails in which she asked about a way to avoid something like this in the future. It then came to mind for me to suggest the use of a dechlorinating filter which goes on a standard garden hose. Of course she asked if we carried one and I sadly had to say no. But this led me down a path of researching the possibilities to find a good supplier who could produce a great, easy to use filter, at a reasonable price.

I’m now happy to say we’ve found one that makes removing chlorine very easy.

This dechlorinating filter removes all detectable traces of chlorine and chloramines, as well as heavy metals, and a number of other undesirable substances that you might find in tap water. (It works great on well water too). By using this filter routinely when you refill a pond or add water to a pond in the summer, you virtually eliminate the risk of chlorine toxicity (and other contaminants) from entering your pond…and that’s very good for your fish.

To learn more about this filter simply watch the video below or click here for more information.

Pond Muck Is Not A Problem

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[youtube width=”425″ height=”355″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ffOtKuBjRk&feature=youtube_gdata_player[/youtube]

One of the greatest challenges for a large pond owner is choosing how you’re going to deal with the inevitable build up of organic material in the pond. Things like leaves, grass clippings, dead algae and more will eventually accumulate at the bottom of the pond.

This pond muck is very rich in nutrients and I often compare it to compost in a garden. Want your plants to grow well? Be sure to mix in some compost with your soil. And the same thing happens in a pond.

As this sludge slowly decays, it releases a lot of things that algae likes…and it’s one of the major reasons why a pond might have unwanted growth including string algae and a number of pond weeds.

One of the very best things that can be done is to work with an ongoing plan to reduce and eliminate much of this mucky build up. In an earlier tip I talked about the new PondBiotixME pellets which are made up of a very concentated blend of beneficial bacteria. These are combined with a barley straw binder and they’re designed to sink into the muck and begin to eat it away.

The pellets work best in combination with an ongoing biological treatment program and as we’ve often suggested, they should not be used with most chemical algaecides or herbicides. Most commonly used algaecides actually contain copper and copper is toxic to most bacteria, which disables it’s ability to clean up a pond.

Unfortuantely, there are some ponds, and pond owners, who simply respond better to the use of chemical treatments and in fact, most aquatic weeds need to be dealt with using some type of targeted herbicide. However simply killing off the plant is the first step but you still want to work on the dead plant material at the bottom.

This has always been the catch-22 of using chemicals. You might clean the surface and the pond will look better for a little while, but as the top get’s cleaner, the bottom develops more sludge…and this will cause problems in the long run.

What’s been needed is a way to continue the breakdown of this muck, even if someone needs to use chemicals…and now you can.

We’ve just added the PondBiotixMDC formula which can actually be blended with many chemicals and it will work quite well. MDC is a muck decaying catalyst made up of specially formulated enzymes which are actually the natural tools that break down organic material. And because it doesn’t rely exclusively on bacteria to stimulate the work, it will still help in the important bioremediation work in a large pond.

MDC comes in one gallon containers and the concentrate is mixed with water and then sprayed topically on the surface of the pond. The same mixture can be used with appropriate amounts of EarthTec algaecide or aquatic herbicides as well. So now, you can kill the surface algae or weeds, and once they sink and die, there is now a catalyst waiting to help speed up their breakdown!

Learn more about the PondBiotixMDC.

Muck Decaying Catalyst – What’s That?

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There has always been a problem for large pond owners that either choose to, or have to use chemical herbicides or algaecides to keep their pond looking good.

Without question there are better ways to clean a pond up from a variety of unwanted issues and beneficial pond bacteria is our top choice for this important work. Still there are ponds where bacteria or other natural options may not work as well and this becomes more notable where aquatic weeds are concerned.

In many cases, using a chemical to control algae or a weed is effective at clearing the growth…that’s usually a given. But what really hurts a pond and it’s overall health is the fact that this dead plant matter will sink to the bottom. It will sit there and decay over time and it’s this slow, ongoing decay (and build up if repeated treatments are needed) that causes issues such as subsequent algae growth for example.

If a pond system can’t assimilate this muck quickly enough, it will grow deeper and more concentrated and it literally can make a pond sickly over time. To add to this when you use something like a copper algaecide, copper can build up low in the pond and knock down much of the natural pond cleaning bacteria. When you lose this, you lose the ability to keep a pond balanced.

This “good bacteria decimation” has always been one of the biggest issues of repeated use of chemicals.

Now however, a new product has been developed that can help. It’s called PondBiotixMDC and it uses enzymes more directly to break down organics in a pond. It can be mixed with most algaecides and herbicides or used independently of them and will sink down deep in the pond and speed up the breakdown of things like dead algae, weeds, leaf debris and grass clippings.

This is a revolutionary tool because nothing has really been able to work in this difficult setting and continue to reduce this mucky build up…and believe me, as a pond owner, you’ll want to get rid of this stuff at every opportunity!

Stop by our website to learn more about PondBiotixMDC.