Whenever you think of plants and algae alway remember two things:

1. Your plant's or alage's growth is limited by the element that it needs
that is in the least supply. By element I mean nitrate, iron, boron, mag, or
anything it needs. This means that you could have all the nitrates, boron,
and mag in the world but your plants won't grow if you have no iron.
Likewise you could have all the iron in the world but without mag your
plants won't grow.

2. Plants and all the different kinds of algae you have all require
different types of elements from one another. Thus eliminating mag from your
water because algae X needs it might kill off algae X but algae C might not
care. Once algae X is gone C will likely take over. For instance in my fish
tank I had hair algae that grows on ther glass. I had this for a long time
without any other algae. I did what I needed to do to get rid of it but then
brush algae took it's place. I used to have a heavly planted tank with NO
nitrates traceable on a test kit. The plants would use them as they were
made. I also had the dreaded staghorn algae which flourish.

How do you keep your water clear? Easy, make sure all of your elements are
in the least supply as possible. Perhaps you'll get some algae but you wont
get as much as you would if your water was at 1000000PPM of nitrate. I've
also had luck in reversing the water. That means if your PH is normally
acidic at 6.5 make it basic at 8.5. If you usually have low KH add baking
soda and raise it to a high KH, etc, etc. Whatever water quality you have
reverse it. Algae tends to not fair well with quick changes. Also be careful
swinging your PH. Going from 6.5 to 8.5 might kill fish. Do it .5-1.0 per
day.

Sam



"*muffin*" wrote in message
...
so far I am cringing looking at my "new" pond, waiting for the big algae
bloom, so far, not too bad,, getting kinda gloomy,,,, but not horrid.
from all I have read, plants etc are the best way to stop all this....
BUT
when you are in the colder zones,, & plant places say they won't guarantee
things till after June 1st,, what do you do? (ok, so I do have some
hardies
out in the farm pond,, but to get cuttings I have to drain some water).
ALSO,, it is said when you have koi,, you do not put in plants ( as
several have agreed, on here, they just destroy them!) how are those ponds
kept clear?
I also read , it takes a few months for you bio-filter to start working
,,
uhh you have to go through this each spring?? I mean they do
diebacteria
in the winter, right? speaking of, do any of you 'run' a filter in the
winter in the frozen north?? or just a pond heater or water spray??
( I also must have been really lucky on our old pond,, it always froze
over for the winter, & we still had fish ,, ok in the spring)
I also read, ONCE you have an algae problem you can never clear it up.