"Gareee©" wrote in message
...
"Reel McKoi" wrote in message
...
Make sure the sleeve the bulb is protected by is CLEAN. Even a light
film will keep it from working properly.
Yeah it's clean, I checked the waterflow amount, and I think the problem
is too much sun, and never enough plants. I bought about $70 worth of pont
plants last year,and I can never get more then 20-30% coverage. Someone
sent me water lettuce late in the season year before last, and that did
ok, but still never grew enough to give me enough coverage to reduge the
algae.
There are very few stores here that carry any pond supplied, and I've
never been able to get enough fast growing cover foliage.. the fish
gobb;le it up faster then it can propagate.
Might try a uncovered filter this year, with some water lettuce in it, if
I can find any.
I might just plant the waterfall area with plants, instead of dicking
around with it this year.
=========================
There are a few things you can try. First is to thin out the fish
drastically. Keep only a handful of the prettiest fish with the nicest fins
and sell or give away the rest. Make sure all the detritus is netted off
the bottom and removed. For cover nothing beats the water lily. If water
lettuce and water hyacinth doesn't grow well you can try adding some
potassium to the water. I buy it at a garden center and use 1 heaping
tablespoon per 800 to 1000 gallons. I learned about this on rec.ponds. My
koi will eat the roots off these floaters but the goldfish don't touch them.
They're a good hiding place if you don't net your pond and they soak up the
nutrients and help starve the algae.
I have one inground 150g pond that I clear up rapidly with a major water
change in the spring, then use Potassium Permanganate, do a 50% water change
and that's it. It stays clear until the following spring. It's home to about
6 goldfish - they're culled every year to keep the population stable. It's
the only un-netted pond we have.
If the large ponds don't clear on their own I use the UV lights. They work
every time.
--
RM....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
rec.ponder since late 1996.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Zone 6. USA
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