bill deauman,

Welcome to the Forum.

I would be most happy to provide you the entire text of my paper on Tilapia, if you so desire.

I would like to tell you of my experience relative to fertilizing to "shade out" algae and weeds.

I was advised about the "theory" of fertilizing to eliminate weeds/algae by sunlight shading with the resulting plankton bloom on this Forum. Thinking it might work I tried it.

The results were an absolute disaster. I not only failed to eliminate any weeds or algae, but had an explosion of them to the extent I could only have imagined in my worst nightmares. It has taken me two years to come close to recovering...and I'm not there yet.

Without Tipalia which I began stocking last year, I never would have recovered short of complete chemical elimination and risk of DO collapse.

Now, my experience isn't necessarily what you might also see. But my results were so terrible, that I feel obligated, to the dismay of some Forum members, to provide them to anyone considering using fertilizer to reduce weeds/algae.

In fact, the pond manual in Texas now very clearly warns DO NOT FERTILIZE in the presence of weeds or algae. Get the weeds and algae under control first, then fertilize if you so desire.

That's my experience, for your consideration.