I am frustrated. I have seven medium sized fish in a home made fish pond. I
have two pumps, and plants.

Gets green every spring and cant see the fish until December.

What to do?

Thanks.

"GE is ME" wrote in message
thlink.net...
I am frustrated. I have seven medium sized fish in a home made fish
pond. I have two pumps, and plants.

Gets green every spring and cant see the fish until December.

What to do?

Thanks.

We have two ~7000 gallon ponds that flow one into the other with two
active waterfalls (800+GPH circulating pumps), so all of the water in
the pond is circulated through two filters (one on the ingress and one
on the egress) about once every 10 hours. The ponds have Koi, a couple
of turtles and some serious bull frogs.

We get algae blooms (at the waterfall end) around this time of year.

The only thing that works for me is to clean the filter media
(completely remove it and hose it clean thoroughly once a year). This
seems to keep the blooms to a minimum until about this time a year
from now. Algae never is allowed to take over very much of the pond.

I have heard barley straw works (not tried it). I have heard that UV
light filters work (not tried them).

you get the algae for a few reasons

1- too much nitrogen in the water - you need more plants or less fish
2 - too much sun light - more plants - water lillies in particular or near
by plants to shade
3 - the barley straw works but who wants that - basically this does a
composting type thing and burns up the nitrogen in the water so the algae
dies off.

Put impatients in the water - they will suck up the nitrogen like no ones
business.

What truly eats algae is water daphnae - basically fish babies but unless
your fish are breeding you do not have them and you can not buy them.

Also a waterfall helps stirs up the oxyegen so it can combine with the
nitrogen - create a bowl in the water fall and put the impatients in that
bowl and they will filter the nitrogen out.

build a deeper pond - the pond is getting too warm as well.

Good luck

Tomatolord


"me" wrote in message news:NqHKh.8039$B7.3857@bigfe9...

"GE is ME" wrote in message
thlink.net...
I am frustrated. I have seven medium sized fish in a home made fish pond.
I have two pumps, and plants.

Gets green every spring and cant see the fish until December.

What to do?

Thanks.

We have two ~7000 gallon ponds that flow one into the other with two
active waterfalls (800+GPH circulating pumps), so all of the water in the
pond is circulated through two filters (one on the ingress and one on the
egress) about once every 10 hours. The ponds have Koi, a couple of turtles
and some serious bull frogs.

We get algae blooms (at the waterfall end) around this time of year.

The only thing that works for me is to clean the filter media (completely
remove it and hose it clean thoroughly once a year). This seems to keep
the blooms to a minimum until about this time a year from now. Algae never
is allowed to take over very much of the pond.

I have heard barley straw works (not tried it). I have heard that UV light
filters work (not tried them).

wrote in message
...
you get the algae for a few reasons

1- too much nitrogen in the water - you need more plants or less
fish
2 - too much sun light - more plants - water lillies in particular
or near by plants to shade
3 - the barley straw works but who wants that - basically this does
a composting type thing and burns up the nitrogen in the water so
the algae dies off.

Put impatients in the water - they will suck up the nitrogen like no
ones business.

What truly eats algae is water daphnae - basically fish babies but
unless your fish are breeding you do not have them and you can not
buy them.

Also a waterfall helps stirs up the oxyegen so it can combine with
the nitrogen - create a bowl in the water fall and put the
impatients in that bowl and they will filter the nitrogen out.

build a deeper pond - the pond is getting too warm as well.


Good suggestions, thank you.

The upper pond is pretty deep. the lower pond is twice the surface
area but shallower. Not much I can do without major reconstruction.

I have a good amount of Water lilies. Impatiens sound like a possible
idea. I will wait until the last frost day and put them in.

:

What truly eats algae is water daphnae - basically fish babies but
unless your fish are breeding you do not have them and you can not
buy them.

I tried googling daphnae and nothing comes up. I think you mean Daphnia.
Daphnia are not fish babies they are crustaceans. I raise them for fish
food and if anyone wants some, I have plenty. They survive just fine
outdoors. Mine have lived outside through the winter so they are already
aclimated and they love algae.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=daphnia
--
Mac Cool

"Mac Cool" wrote in message
...
:

What truly eats algae is water daphnae - basically fish babies but
unless your fish are breeding you do not have them and you can not
buy them.

I tried googling daphnae and nothing comes up. I think you mean
Daphnia.
Daphnia are not fish babies they are crustaceans. I raise them for
fish
food and if anyone wants some, I have plenty. They survive just fine
outdoors. Mine have lived outside through the winter so they are
already
aclimated and they love algae.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=daphnia
--
Mac Cool

Hey, Thank you.

I would like to try some in my ponds. Is there a down side to these
crustaceans? Is there any possibility of disease? Do they get along
with Koi? (I have both Koi and local goldfish/carp in my ponds). Can
they be controlled simply by the fish in the pond?

me:
I would like to try some in my ponds. Is there a down side to these
crustaceans? Is there any possibility of disease? Do they get along
with Koi? (I have both Koi and local goldfish/carp in my ponds). Can
they be controlled simply by the fish in the pond?

There is no downside I'm aware of. Daphnia have a number of natural
predators such as carnivorus fish (including goldfish), dragonflys and
hydra. Daphnia eat algae, bacteria and a few other micro critters. They
are just tiny little critters, maybe a millimeter across, your Koi might
eat them but if you have enough plants in your pond they should find
plenty of hiding spaces. They are sort of like freshwater plankton.

Daphnia captured in the wild could transmit disease but I believe mine
are disease free, I got them from another person raising them for fish
food. I have been using them as food for months will no ill effects. You
could do what I did before introducing them into my aquarium... I raised
them in a container with water from my tank. After a week or two I
started adding them to my aquarium as food and my fish enjoy them.
Actually they are tough little critters you could just grab a bucket of
your pond water (with algae) and pour them in and they would thrive.

Daphnia really need only three things to thrive... food (algae, yeast),
calcium (to form their shell) and a little sunlight. Daphnia are an
early warning indicator for bad water conditions. If water quality goes
bad they will turn red then the colony will abruptly die.

I live in Garner, if you want a starter of daphnia send me an email:

--
Mac Cool

Daphnia are basically 'water fleas' and make good food for small water predators such as food for baby fish!