On 23/05/2017 22:28, Chris Hogg wrote:
On Tue, 23 May 2017 21:26:30 +0100 (BST), "Rodney Pont"
wrote:

On Tue, 23 May 2017 19:21:40 +0100, Bertie Doe wrote:

"Charlie Pridham" wrote in message news
Its our old pond but this year has a new problem, for the first time in
over 30 years we are getting large quantities of blanket weed, not added
anything to the pond in years nor applied any fertilizer to the bed behind
so I am at a bit of a loss as to why, but perhaps more importantly what to
do to get rid of it or at least reduce the amount.

At the moment I am pulling out large quantities every other day, do I just
keep going and hope I eventually reduce the nutrient levels or is there a
quicker and easier method

You can see a picture of the pond here
http://www.pushingtheborders.com/php....php?f=4&t=787

You need to starve the blanket weed from it's food source - algae.

If you can bury some electric cable to run a small pump with a UV lamp
inside.

Blagdon is a name you're familiar with :-

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B006IRMV...ing=UTF8&psc=1

Bottom of (above) page gives the various litreages. I wouldn't bother with
the spray outlets :-)

Blanket weed doesn't eat algae, it is an algae. A UV will do exactly
nothing to it, they only kill what goes through them. The blanket weed
is living off excess nutrients and the only way of getting rid of them
is with more plants. Keep pulling the blanketweed out and don't do any
water changes. You get more nutrients from the tap than anywhere else.

+1 to all that. Green soup and blanket weed are symptoms of too much
nitrogen in the water. Algae are just another form of plant life,
(although a rather special one), and like most plants, thrive on a bit
of nitrogen

Having said all of that we have blanket weed this year and we don't
usually get any to speak of so it may just be something environmental
this year. Dust from the Sahara? Maybe because it's been dryer we've
been topping the pond up with tapwater more and there has been more sun
than usual.

Oddly enough, although I usually get a little blanket weed, we've got
none this year. We have fish (or rather, we used to have fish. I saw a
few small ones earlier this year but none recently. There has been a
heron in the area...) but we've never ever fed them, in order to keep
the nitrogen levels down.


Thats the really odd thing, the water as usual is gin clear, no fish
(heron had them years ago) so I am struggling to see where the
additional nitrogen came from as I have not needed to top the pond up at
all since last summer.

Would disturbing the sediment to remove pickeral have caused it? but if
so why no green water?

--
Charlie Pridham
Gardening in Cornwall
www.roselandhouse.co.uk