When I pulled out my plants to feed them I decided they needed some more
'soil'. All I had on had was some white clay I was going to recycle from
pottery and thought what the hey - I should say I didn't think at all. Long
story short my pond now looks like milk and it has been quite a few days
with no signs of settling out. The fish could care less but I would like
something a little less... artificial looking. What can I add to the water
that will not hurt the fish and plants but that will help precipitate out
the silt? Donna

P.S. Nice to have the room back

On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:07:51 EDT, "DKat" wrote:

When I pulled out my plants to feed them I decided they needed some more
'soil'. All I had on had was some white clay I was going to recycle from
pottery and thought what the hey - I should say I didn't think at all. Long
story short my pond now looks like milk and it has been quite a few days
with no signs of settling out. The fish could care less but I would like
something a little less... artificial looking. What can I add to the water
that will not hurt the fish and plants but that will help precipitate out
the silt? Donna

P.S. Nice to have the room back

Water changes or you could use a flocculent, like AccuClear. Course if it
just settles to the bottom and isn't sucked out into a filter the fish will
most likely just stir it up again. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

~ jan wrote, On 04/06/2008 01:03:
On Tue, 3 Jun 2008 15:07:51 EDT, "DKat" wrote:

When I pulled out my plants to feed them I decided they needed some more
'soil'. All I had on had was some white clay I was going to recycle from
pottery and thought what the hey - I should say I didn't think at all. Long
story short my pond now looks like milk and it has been quite a few days
with no signs of settling out. The fish could care less but I would like
something a little less... artificial looking. What can I add to the water
that will not hurt the fish and plants but that will help precipitate out
the silt? Donna

P.S. Nice to have the room back

Water changes or you could use a flocculent, like AccuClear. Course if it
just settles to the bottom and isn't sucked out into a filter the fish will
most likely just stir it up again. ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

Our soil contains lots of clay and after a storm blew a few plants to
the bottom of the pond it turned cloudy. There was no chance of seeing
the fish unless they came to the surface. I solved our problem using
nylon filter wool. It comes in different thicknesses 8 - 30 mm I think,
but can also be layered up for a better effect. It cleared our water in
about two weeks. I've described it in an earlier post "Clearing algae
and silt loaded water".
Good luck with yours.

--
DavidM
www.djmorgan.org.uk

Bummer!
Mechanical filtration seems the most sensible to remove it.

Jim

A thanks to all who responded. I think the combination of ideas will fit
the bill. I had not known that AccuClear was a flocculent - I will try to
get some of that this weekend. I just have little mosquito fish in this
pond so I'm not worried about it getting stirred up once it settles. I did
a search for nylon-wool fiber and could find nothing of use. I then
thought - hmmm maybe that quilt padding I got for a bench might be the same
thing... I had a bit left over, which I wrapped around the end of the
output hose and that seems to be helping considerably. Of course the entire
pond is already lined with white clay... vacuum should work on that...but
then if I leave it and algae grows on it that would be good for the fish. I
keep my pump in a bucket of lava rock and that is my lazy man's
mechanical/bio filter. It works wonderfully for most things but this silt
was way to fine to be caught in it. Perhaps I should add some of the nylon
quilt stuffing to it?

Thanks again and again it is really nice to have this room back (but how did
the Confidence cassimere crap get through?). Donna

D Kat wrote, On 05/06/2008 04:15:
A thanks to all who responded. I think the combination of ideas will fit
the bill. I had not known that AccuClear was a flocculent - I will try to
get some of that this weekend. I just have little mosquito fish in this
pond so I'm not worried about it getting stirred up once it settles. I did
a search for nylon-wool fiber and could find nothing of use. I then
thought - hmmm maybe that quilt padding I got for a bench might be the same
thing... I had a bit left over, which I wrapped around the end of the
output hose and that seems to be helping considerably. Of course the entire
pond is already lined with white clay... vacuum should work on that...but
then if I leave it and algae grows on it that would be good for the fish. I
keep my pump in a bucket of lava rock and that is my lazy man's
mechanical/bio filter. It works wonderfully for most things but this silt
was way to fine to be caught in it. Perhaps I should add some of the nylon
quilt stuffing to it?

Thanks again and again it is really nice to have this room back (but how did
the Confidence cassimere crap get through?). Donna

Your quilt padding is probably exactly the same material as my nylon
filter wool. But if you want to see exactly what I used, it was
purchased form here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RVS-Aquatics
It clogs pretty quickly. That's why it does a good job at taking out
fine particles, so you probably don't want to wrap it around the pump or
somewhere it might cause overflows.
I once used a chemical flocculant and it cleared the pond overnight.
However I tried it a year later and nothing happened. These things seem
to be very pH dependent, they cause very subtle surface changes to the
suspended material and require that your pond meets the exact conditions
on the label.
Hope it clears soon.

--
DavidM
www.djmorgan.org.uk

Thanks for posting the link. That sure looks like what I have (and yes it
did fill up with silt quickly). I wonder what it is called here (U.S.)? A
web search did nothing for me and the quilt batting search came up with it
all listed as polyester. Could U.S. and U.K use different words for
polyester and nylon? Oh, well - this is just curiosity at this point. What
I have works and looks like what you call nylon wool. So Americans take
note - synthetic quilt batting makes for a nice emergency filter for super
fine particles. The water is still a tiny milky but I like it as it is so I
will not be disappointed if the deflocculated does nothing.

Donna

Your quilt padding is probably exactly the same material as my nylon
filter wool. But if you want to see exactly what I used, it was purchased
form here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RVS-Aquatics
It clogs pretty quickly. That's why it does a good job at taking out fine
particles, so you probably don't want to wrap it around the pump or
somewhere it might cause overflows.
I once used a chemical flocculant and it cleared the pond overnight.
However I tried it a year later and nothing happened. These things seem to
be very pH dependent, they cause very subtle surface changes to the
suspended material and require that your pond meets the exact conditions
on the label.
Hope it clears soon.

--
DavidM
www.djmorgan.org.uk

On Thu, 5 Jun 2008 08:50:38 EDT, DavidM
wrote:

Your quilt padding is probably exactly the same material as my nylon
filter wool. But if you want to see exactly what I used, it was
purchased form here http://stores.ebay.co.uk/RVS-Aquatics

That looks a lot like what we call poly fiber. We see the word wool and we
thing sheep wool, which I believe is not good to use in a pond. ;-) ~ jan
------------
Zone 7a, SE Washington State
Ponds: www.jjspond.us

http://tinyurl.com/3v4thx
"Agricultural grade gypsum (hydrated calcium sulfate), available from mos
t fertilizer
dealers, can clear colloidal clay problems temporarily. It should be scat
tered evenly
over the surface of the pond at 12 pounds per 1,000 cubic feet of water o
r 525 pounds
per acre-foot of water. An acre-foot is 43,560 cubic feet. To calculate t
he pond’s
volume in acre-feet, the surface area of the pond should be measured in s
quare feet
and multiplied by the average depth of the pond in feet. This figure is t
hen divided
by 43,560. Some ponds built with Natural Resources Conservation Service a
ssistance
have acre-feet volumes calculated and on file. If the pond does not clear
within four
weeks and there is no other source of turbidity, one-quarter the original
amount of
gypsum should be added.

Another material that can be used to clear clay turbidity is aluminum sul
fate (filter
alum). This material will cause the clay to flocculate and settle out. An
application
of about 50 pounds per acre-foot of water will clear most turbid ponds wi
thin a week.
Alum should be dissolved in water and then quickly sprayed over the entir
e surface of
the pond on a calm day since wave action will break up the floc so it wil
l not settle
out. Alum as an acid reaction with the water. If the pond is acidic (low
pH) or has
very soft water, about 20 pounds of hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide) sho
uld first be
added per acre-foot of water. Sometimes this liming will cause the clay t
o settle
out. "

On Wed, 4 Jun 2008 23:15:51 EDT, "D Kat" wrote:

A thanks to all who responded. I think the combination of ideas will fi
t
the bill. I had not known that AccuClear was a flocculent - I will try
to
get some of that this weekend. I just have little mosquito fish in this

pond so I'm not worried about it getting stirred up once it settles. I
did
a search for nylon-wool fiber and could find nothing of use. I then
thought - hmmm maybe that quilt padding I got for a bench might be the
same
thing... I had a bit left over, which I wrapped around the end of the
output hose and that seems to be helping considerably. Of course the en
tire
pond is already lined with white clay... vacuum should work on that...b
ut
then if I leave it and algae grows on it that would be good for the fish
.. I
keep my pump in a bucket of lava rock and that is my lazy man's
mechanical/bio filter. It works wonderfully for most things but this si
lt
was way to fine to be caught in it. Perhaps I should add some of the ny
lon
quilt stuffing to it?

Thanks again and again it is really nice to have this room back (but how
did
the Confidence cassimere crap get through?). Donna