wrote:

dkat wrote:

Vinegar and time. You would not want fish in your pond until plants
had been in it for a bit anyway. The soap is alkaline (use to be
made of lye) -

Nah. Liquid hand dishwashing "soap" isn't really soap. It's near
neutral pH.

Here are the pHs of some popular "soaps":

Soap pH
Camay 9.5
Dial 9.5
Dove 7.0
Irish Spring 9.5
Ivory 9.5
Lever 2000 9.0
Palmolive 10.0
Zest 10.0

I think all liquid products are detergents. Soaps have the same
structures and work in the same way. The only real difference between
soap and detergent is that soap is made from natural materials, animal
fat and sodium hydroxide (lye).

The pH of a 1% solution of Joy Detergent is 8 based upon their MSDS.
http://www.pgbrands.com/pages/cleane...Detergent_.pdf

You can always get the MSDS of whatever product was used in the pond.
--
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18,000 gallon (17'x 47'x 2-4') lily pond garden in Zone 6
Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA