Phyllis and Jim wrote, On 31/05/2008 01:39:
Congratulations, David!

Your post should be kept as an example of follow through with algae!
Now, lots of plants to continue grabbing nutrients and you will not
need the UV. You might try that out in a short while. We needed ours
at the start of the season for a number of years. This year, we have
not bothered as the water has been clear throughout.

Jim

Thanks Jim. I think half the fun on ponding is overcoming these kind of
challenges, it gives a real sense of achievement. The trouble is, I'll
now find different things in the pond to focus on, that will probably
cause new problems

For the first few years our pond was crammed full of plants and the
algae was less of a pest. That seemed to introduced it's own problems
though, such as filters clogging up with partly decomposed plant and
trapped material rotting in the pond. I'm pretty sure that a bad fish
infection was due to organic pollution in the water. I removed most of
the plants a couple of years ago, and now try to keep them to their baskets.

Now that the algae has been removed, the small veggie filter is
overflowing with water cress and mint. The large iris in baskets are
also doing very well. Like you say, the aim is to turn off the UV soon
and hopefully let the plants starve out the algae. I expect it will take
a while to get the balance just right. Do you allow water to flow
through the until UV unit all year, or do you divert it. I'm not sure
how much damage will be done to the glass pipes inside.


--
DavidM
www.djmorgan.org.uk