Clear Pond Water, Blanketweed and Sludge

From: Kira Schofield

Mr. Roocroft,

I subscribe to your newsletter and find them very informative, thanks.

I have some pond problems I have not been able to solve by reading any books or online resources.

I live in USA, in Ohio.

We have 6,000 gal pond with Biofilter and goldfish who are doing fine, multiplying, no diseases, and fend for themselves, I almost never feed them. Do they eat plants or algae?

Why spend money on fish food?

Pond was built about 3 years ago. Water is always clear, never green or murky, we have not had any suspended algae, and you can see the 3 foot bottom. We do have string algae, which i remove by hand. Viresco did not do anything. Short of using poisonous algicides in large doses nothing works on them, which I do not want to do, especially because of the fish. And then they come back anyway. Is Viresco the only solution?

Pond was built with gravel lining it all around. It now has quite a bit of sludge, even though I clean what I can by hand and use clarifying bacteria. Any idea how we could clean it, with all that gravel? Will an "overdose" of clarifiers work?

Thank you for your time.

Kira Schofield

Kira

Thanks for the email. Do I understand correctly? … the liner is covered with small layer of sand type particles? Or is the bottom of the pond covered with gravel?

If the bottom of pond is covered with gravel there is no way you can clean the gravel other than removing it. An organic digester will help but will not remove all the build up. In practice the sludge will get deeper and deeper and start to pose more and more of a problem.

If the liner is coated with small gravel the sludge build up should be a minor problem.

Blanketweed versus murky ponds … ponds with blanketweed rarely suffer from murky water because the blanketweed is a more “greedy” consumer of nutrients than suspended algae which is thus kept in check.

Viresco works well and if it doesn’t work in a particular enviroment it really means it needs more to be added. Some ponds react well to the normal dosage others require more or a second addition.

Viresco is also a product that does not act overnight. It takes time for the bacteria levels to build up and slowly reduce the nitrate content

Not feeding fish goes to prove that fish are quite able to sustain themselves on the various aquatic creatures that live in all ponds. No doubt fish are overfed in ornamental ponds but they are pets after all.

Regards

Tony