Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Algae Control

Before tilapia
03-20-12


After tilapia
04-18-12






Don't know how much water temp changes occured during storms that may have effected algae but do know rains had no physical effect.
We observed rapid algae deline after tilapia stocing.

That's alot of FA gone in a month. How many Tilapia, and what size were stocked George?

James, 10lbs various sizes tilapia in 1/4 acre pond of - stocked in the dark so didn't pay much attention to size - I trust my supplier.
Normally stock 5lbs all male but Todd thought we should kick it up a notch since this was worse algae ever in this pond.

Great pics and keep them posted, this is about the same size pond I have, or at least one of them, gives me an idea how much to stock.

What other fish did you say were in here again?

~1/4 acre pond - ~18 ft deep.
CNBG - few HSB - 1 huge BC to control overpopulation - recently change goals from forage pond to brood pond with Overton's pure certified Florida LMB.
No aeration and occasional hand feeding only.
Pond 8 years old - never a fish kill.
Caught this 4.5lb HSB from this pond this morning - transferred to main pond to get some groceries...

George, was any of the floating FA flushed out of the pond with the heavy rains?

Scott, since syphon system spillway system takes water from bottom of pond don't believe that could happen?

Generally the mat algae, which pulls loose from the bottom and starts floating to begin with from decay gas bubbles, in a heavy rain will get all the trapped gas popped and sink. If this was what happened, as it usually does after a big rain event, much of the free floating algae that sunk could have been sucked out of a bottom draw siphon.

Thanks, sure hope the syphon sucked all that junk from pond.
Just checked the first photo (03-20-12) and water at full pool a couple of weeks after series of storms - algae still present and had not sunk.
Stocked tilapia 03-27-12 and son Jeff reported algae begining to go away soon after - maybe combination effect.

We'll be finding out here shortly how well they work too George. I think the cold spells are gone and the water is warming up.

So are we concluding that the FA in George's pond was not primarily reduced by tilapia but by weather storms and the bottom draw siphon?.

That is partially my conclusion, but I believe it was a combination of water property imbalance caused by “bottom draw syphon”, water temperature change, and tilapia.

I have many years experience with tilapia and have experienced the effect of hard downpour rain causing FA disappearance that Rex describes. This effect is overnight disappearance of algae. My reduction was a couple of weeks after three days of continuous steady rainfall.

Another thought???
This ¼ acre pond had not “flushed” for many years due to drought and low water conditions. It was almost at full pool w/o spillway draining when 3 days of continuous 6 inches of steady rain occurred. The syphon spillway kept up with new water in - bad water out.
Could reduction of nutrients aided FA reduction?

I don’t know about Blue Tilapia, but I have experienced rapid disappearance of FA with Mozambique Tilapia.

George - flushing of nutrients out of the pond would not have a quick affect on removing lots of biomass floating algae. Loss of nutrients would stiffle new FA growth occurring on the bottom but notthat stuff floating. It either went down, some sucked out and some got eaten.

Thanks Bill, this discussion is interesting and appreciated.

Tilapia for FA control is a proven effective pond mmanagement tool.
We owe a thanks to Larry Hartley (ML) as the first PondBosser that I recall to experiment with Mozambique tilapia in our area, some nine years ago IIRC - Dave D. will recount this early history.
Myself and others followed his lead the next year, if anyone is interested.