I have a two acre pond that is not near any trees or leaves. To add some cover, I added some cut limbs from a distant woods that have been on the ground for well over a year. I'm not sure if they were oak limbs or hard maple because the leaves have since been long gone and they are not fresh cut. I added these limbs in early April of this year.
After ice out, the pond water was it's usual less than clear self. It gets clearer as the plants are growing and filtering the water during spring and summer. This has been normal. But, lately the water is more of a brown color than I'm used to seeing. The weeds are a little less, except for some curly leaf pondweed and filamentous alage. I did add some grass carp early last year which may be keeping the weeds down, except for these two plant types. Or it could be the darker water. The SEKI is about two feet.
I don't know if this dirtier looking water (brownish, not muddy) is the result of 1) the tree limb brush piles I added (about five of them with about 7 branches in each), 2) the possible loss of some plants due to the grass carp, or 3) all of the rain we had this spring and the occasional rain we continue to have. I thought when the rain died down this month, things would clear up. Any thoughts on this from other members??
