"Hal" wrote in message
...
On Sun, 17 Oct 2004 12:02:45 -0400, "Bill Stock"
wrote:

What's the scoop on Sting Algae, does it prefer cooler weather? I've
never
really had that much other years, but this year it's noxious. I went to
do a
pre-fall cleaning of the pond a few weeks ago and this stuff came out in
clumps. I can't say I noticed this stuff during the summer, but the pond
was
more or less on autopilot this year. The only thing different this year
was
the cooler weather and the Potassium I was adding for the plants.

I wish I could tell you I know exactly what causes it, but I can't.
I can tell you the year I had it very badly was the year I tried to
keep the general hardness and carbonate hardness up over 100ppm. At
the time I guessed the addition of baking soda and plaster of paris
must be creating the conditions right for the type of string algae I
was encountering and stopped adding them. I went back to a sock full
of garden lime to maintain KH, GH and pH, and reworked my plant pond.
I took the gravel (river pebbles) out and put in a line with holes to
send jets of water across the bottom and the string algae mostly went
away. I say mostly because I have a short clump on the side where
Goldie (gold colored comet.) rests occasionally, so I assume the
current of moving water isn't as strong at that spot, but it could be
the fish is hiding?? I can't say the moving water is the answer, nor
the high KH, GH, and pH the culprit, but those are the obvious things
I changed.

Not so obvious could be a number of things about the plant pond that
just went away. For one, there was a good bit of detritus among the
stones holding the underwater plants in place. most of the
underwater plants died, covered in string algae. I salvaged a bit of
anacharis, but two other types of underwater plants disappeared
completely.

I don't know how to get rid of it, but I wish you well.

Thanks,

I've just started getting into PMDD for the aquarium plants. Since I now
have enough micronutrients to last the millennium, I may experiment with the
pond next year. The pond plants did not do that well this year, although the
Potassium helped. I suspect there must be some other nutrient missing,
either Iron or Magnesium. I may end up with the healthiest Algae in NA, but
it's all about learning.