On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 22:29:13 -0400, "Chris Tondreau"
wrote:

My parents have quite a large pond (probably a recreation size pond),
stocked with goldfish, frogs & a couple of turtles. This spring, after a
particuarily long & cold winter, some globs of nasty looking, almost
fluorescent green algae started floating to the top of the water. The frog
population seems OK, but there is a distinct lack of goldfish around. Could
the algae have something to do with this? What causes it? Any
comments/suggestions would be helpful.

Hmmm...normally algae doesn't float on top of the water unless the pond is
virtually dead. I hope you are talking about duckweed, which is controllable
by 2-3 ducks per acre. One of the harmful types of algae is stringy, and
usually suspended in the water. It can die and float up to form bubbly mats.
This is a sign of very poor pond health, and causes low oxygen and even
noxious gasses. Duckweed, on close examination, is a mass of tiny individual
flowering plants with distinctive leaves and roots. It's largely harmless
unless it covers most of the pond. Ducks love it, and the pond loves the
duck doo doo.

Bob