My parents have quite a large pond (probably a recreation size pond),
stocked with goldfish, frogs & a couple of turtles. This spring, after a
particuarily long & cold winter, some globs of nasty looking, almost
fluorescent green algae started floating to the top of the water. The frog
population seems OK, but there is a distinct lack of goldfish around. Could
the algae have something to do with this? What causes it? Any
comments/suggestions would be helpful.

TIA

Jacqui

On Tue, 10 Jun 2003 22:29:13 -0400, "Chris Tondreau"
wrote:

My parents have quite a large pond (probably a recreation size pond),
stocked with goldfish, frogs & a couple of turtles. This spring, after a
particuarily long & cold winter, some globs of nasty looking, almost
fluorescent green algae started floating to the top of the water. The frog
population seems OK, but there is a distinct lack of goldfish around. Could
the algae have something to do with this? What causes it? Any
comments/suggestions would be helpful.

Hmmm...normally algae doesn't float on top of the water unless the pond is
virtually dead. I hope you are talking about duckweed, which is controllable
by 2-3 ducks per acre. One of the harmful types of algae is stringy, and
usually suspended in the water. It can die and float up to form bubbly mats.
This is a sign of very poor pond health, and causes low oxygen and even
noxious gasses. Duckweed, on close examination, is a mass of tiny individual
flowering plants with distinctive leaves and roots. It's largely harmless
unless it covers most of the pond. Ducks love it, and the pond loves the
duck doo doo.

Bob

I did a search for floating mats of algae and came up with blue-green algae
over and over. I suggest you look in that direction.


k30a

Thank you, yes that is what it appears to be, not the nice harmless duckweed
as the other poster suggested. Drat!! Will do some more research on
methods to get rid of the stuff & revitalize the pond.

Jacqui

"K30a" wrote in message
...

I did a search for floating mats of algae and came up with blue-green
algae
over and over. I suggest you look in that direction.


k30a

Many filamentous algae, including green and bluegreen, float atop the
water, for various reasons. Death of the algae is not the most common
cause. More often, oxygen bubbles (produced by photosynthesis)
trapped in subsurface mats lends buoyancy, which is frequently
substantial enough to break mats from substrates and result in the
floating messes everyone seems to be so fond to find in their ponds.
If the floating mat is bright green, it is likely a green algae, such
as Spirogyra or Mougeotia. If it is dark green, it is most likely a
bluegreen algae, such as Lyngbya or Anabaena. If it is brown, it is
probably dead, and carbon dioxide, not oxygen, is causing flotation.


"Chris Tondreau" wrote:

Thank you, yes that is what it appears to be, not the nice harmless duckweed
as the other poster suggested. Drat!! Will do some more research on
methods to get rid of the stuff & revitalize the pond.

Jacqui

"K30a" wrote in message
...

I did a search for floating mats of algae and came up with blue-green
algae
over and over. I suggest you look in that direction.


k30a