The recent unaccustomed sunshine has produced a crop of blanket weed in the pond. Unfortunately, most of it is entangled with the water forget-me-not, and every single shoot of w-f-m-n has at least one newt's egg attached to it.

Is there any trouble free way of getting rid of it in the short term? (It'll disappear later in the season as nutrients get used up and as the lilies cover the pond surface)

Our local garden centre has
a) a bottle of blanket weed killer
b) spongy squares about 8in square and 1.5in thick that you stick in your filter and "work 4 ways" - including chemical
c) a bottle of "barley straw extract"

I'm uncertain about a and b as I know some of the fish-tank algae killers also kill snails, and I don't want to harm any of the rich insect, mollusc, oligochaete and amphibian life of the pond.

And at the suggested dose rate of c), it would cost £20-40 for the recommend 2 initial treatments.

Before I continue the search, does barley straw actually work on blanket weed? (as opposed to green soup). And does it have to be barley straw, rather than, say, wheat, oats or even couch?

I originally acquired the water-forget-me-not as a more attractive alternative to water cress for nutrient reduction, but the newts have decided it's ideal breeding material. Newts are a pain in the butt. If all you have is frogs, there's large parts of the year when you can heave out excess weed and leave it great piles on the side of the pond. But baby newts get into everything, and I'm not convinced that all of them will make it back into the pond from heaps left on the side, so everything has to be searched through.