Congrats Mogweed,
Yours is the first green water question of
2004! We ought to have a free gift for you...

Actually it is kind of nice to read about green water when all my pond is a
small opening for bird drinking in an expanse of
snow and ice in the NW US.

Algae grows when nothing else does. It is incredibly tough stuff. It even grows
in the artic. You should be very afraid... ;-)

I'm going to paste in my algae primer for you to look at. It should start you
on the path to enlightenment and humbleness. It should also give you an idea of
how to gear up for algae battle come spring.


Algae fighting tips
~ Nutrients for algae are sun, new water, fish waste, fertilized run off,
rotting plants, blown in dirt.
~ New ponds and spring ponds need time for plants to get established, algae is
quicker at getting going.
~ add plants, of any kind, in the pond. Especially underwater plants.
~ Shade is good - provided by lily pads, floating plants or artificial shade
for part of the day.
~ LOW fish stocking (20 gallons per goldfish, 100 per koi after starting with
1,000 gallons) and *not* overfeeding the fish. Too many fish and too much
feeding is probably responsible for most pea soup water.
~ adding a combination mechanical and biological filter to screen gunk and
convert fishy ammonia waste.
~ build a veggie filter, run water through plants, as easy as floating water
hyacinth in your filter.
~ clean up dead plant matter and screen for falling leaves
in the fall.
~ water movement, occasional water changes of 10%
~ add a sludge consumer, concentrated bacteria.
many rec.ponders use A
HREF="http://united-tech.com"http://united-tech.com/A
~ building ponds with bottom drains and skimmers.
~ do not use algaecides, they only make lots of suddenly dead algae
and that will feed the next algae bloom.
~ do not worry about algae that grows on things (substrate algae) this is good
for a pond
~ gently remove string algae
~ UV lights work on suspended algae - does cost some $$.
~ patience and time and more patience ;-)



ka30p
http://www.geocities.com/watergarden...dors/home.html