I have large pond in my back garden with mixture of koi fish. last year i bought a Bermuda filter with UV light and a pump. During the winter i turned the pump off, but recently i have noticed the pond is covered with blanket weed and the water has turned green. What could i do to keep the water fresh and clean as i don’t want to remove the fishes to clean the pond water out.
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5 Responses to “How To Keep Your Pond Water Clean From Algae And Blanket Weed?”
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There are a couple of methods that you can use in addition to your filter/light system.
Firstly, excellent ‘housekeeping’ helps prevent the conditions required for Algae to grow, and includes preventing run-off water from entering your pond from surrounding soil. This water is likely to contain the nutrients needed for Algae to grow. Keeping debris in your pond to a minium will also prevent this from decomposing down to the same nutrients – though we’d hope that the water filter will process most of the fish waste, ensure that fallen leaves etc don’t get a chance to enter or remain for long enough to become a source for Algea’s nutrient requirements.
Light is also needed by Algae to grow, so if any shading is given, this will restrict growth too. If you have surface plants, these will also compete with Algae for the nutrients, as well as restrict light from entering the pond, otherwise, consider other physical barriers.
Secondly, you can add products that are fish safe that will control Algae, including blanket weed. It’s always best to manually remove blanket weed if you, perhaps be twirling it around sticks etc. Otherwise it will decay, and provide nutrients to fuel further growth. The best product that I have used, which is a natural mix of enzymes, minerals etc, is called Blanket Answer, made by Cloverleaf , available from many aquatic supplies retailers – http://www.swelluk.com/pond/pond-treatme…
Otherwise, you can add liquid extract of Barley straw, which goes to work immediately, and is quicker and preferable to adding a bale of straw, in my opinion.
Other general Algae can also be controlled by additives, such as this, which I use, and is fish safe – http://www.koibitz.com/Scripts/prodView.…
So, keep your pond’s well being managed, and feel free to use natural Algae controls, in order to get fantastic looking water, safe fish, and an simpler life.
Hope this helps. Excellent luck! Rob
I had the same issue with my pond, koi, uv light, pump, and all. It really depends on the size of your pond, but I would do a water change, siphoning it with a hose. The green algae will be an issue, you may just have to take a net and scoop as much of it out as you can and let the pump do the rest. This is the best advice i can give you without having to empty the pond.
The best control I have found for blanket weed is barley straw. Toddle down to your local aquarium centre. You may have to change / replenish it every 4-6 months, but it really works. Give it a head start by removing as much as possible of the existing infestation. As for other green algae, reducing the amount of sunlight falling on the pond should help.
The lamps last approximately a year, so change your bulb if need be. Barley straw is excellent, but it takes about a month to rot down, and it doesn’t work until it is rotting. There are chemical compounds to get rid of the blanket weed, they make it clump and gather in the filter, so if you use one of these, ensure you clean the filters every few days to stop it really clogging up. Excellent luck!
Do you have a running filter? If you do, keep it running all the time. Get a few scavenger fishes who eat the algae and fish droppings. They keep the pond really clean and they are very resillient, so they live for years