As long as your keeping ducks your always gonna have a never ending
problem with various algae. I have a natural ponf of 1.65 million
gal, and the impact on that pond was noticeable from just 6
mallards...I fought algae bloom after algae bloom.........


One or two things that does help is to reduce the DOC, and burn up the
nutreints. Get some potassium permanganate and does the pond to
oxidize all the junk in it. I seem to belive that adding dye in the
hopes of eliminating an algae problem is wishfull thinking, as until
you get ahold of the soource of the high nutrients, its not gonna go
away. You have a concentrated nutrient source, and as other have noted
dyed water will become a bit warmer than undyed water will, it could
just lead to a bigger outbreak of more algae. I know, I know, been
there done that, folks are gonna sayaa get rid of the ducks if you
want clean water and for the most part it is true, there are ways
around it. Dosing a few times a year with potassium permanganate,
using Baraclear P80, which effectively locks up phosphates which is a
major contributor to algae blooms. You will finds trying to keep water
clean and clear with ducks or other fowl is going to be more costly
and labor intensive than doing the same fish........but it can be
done. The pond dyes are all safe for any aquatic inhabitants.
On 19 Mar 2006 07:59:33 -0800, "
wrote:
Hey guys, I'm working on a project to solve an phytoplankton problem in
a fairly sizable pond (10,000+ gallons). It has no fish, only birds in
it. The pond currently has 4 sandfilters on it and no UV sterlization
though that is an option. It has virtually no surface coverage and
there has been attempts to use plants before, but that has resulted in
them being torn to shreds by ducks. Water flow and overturn are good
as well and there is plenty of surface tension to keep the water
aerated. I came across this product that is an Aquarium
Pharmaceuticals pond dye that is supposed to dye the water blue-green
and suppress algal growth. I still have to find out if it is safe for
the animals obviously, but was just wandering if anyone had tried it
and whether or not it actually worked.

The other things that I may try to use are phosphate absorbers (though
I'm not sure if they work as well in freshwater as they do in salt,
I've really only used them in sal****er), barley extract (the barley
straw is just to messy), and though I know it's probably not feasible,
sometype of filtration that can skim the phytoplankton out like a
diatom filter. Does anyone even know if they make diatom filters for a
volume this large? I know it would have to be huge, use a vast amount
of diatomaceous earth, problem take forever to filter and get clogged,
extremely easy , but would clear the heck out of the water. I'm just
curious about that one and whether or not it would be possible to build
such a thing.

If ya'll know of any plants that ducks won't tear the crap out of I
would welcome those suggestions as well.

Thanks for any help

Ethan Barr

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