Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help New Pond Owner

Hello everybody I'm new to this site. I bought a house with a 1/4 acre pond and it looks terrible. I'm told the center of the pond is 14 feet deep. It is stocked with fish but I was looking for a little advice on how to clean up the algae and weeds. I bought some copper sulfate but I have not put any in it yet. I'm not sure how to do it or how much to put in? I was hoping that someone on this site could help me. Thanks in advance.

Hello Jlynch! And Welcome! I would start your knowledge journey on pond plants here.

I would also dip out some of the weeds and take focused close ups of a spread out/single sample with a white background. We have many experts who visit the forum, along with the rest of us who've learned via the school of hard knocks. We can give you better advice with better information as to the specific 'weed' we are seeing.
My initial two cents is lots of duck weed, but hard to say from that distance.

If you have a small boat, I'd do a bottom depth survey as well. You may be surprised to find much less depth than what you were told, given a pond's natural inclination to fill in over time (see 'eutrophication')

Welcome JLynch! That looks like some good potential right there!

Dr Luke writes wisely. And you chose well to get advice before trying to eliminate the nuisance vegetation. If you kill too much at one time, bad things can happen.

Good luck and send in some good, clear pics of what you are tying to reduce in the "weeds" department.

Yeah close up pictures would help.....could be Watermeal too

Sorry for the long delay. I've been crazy busy all summer long. I had a local pond management company come out and look at the pond. They said I have Filamentous Algae, Watermeal, and Eurasian Watermilfoil. They suggested using Sonar which appears to be really expensive. Will Copper Sulfate kill these weeds? Thanks!

I used Clipper on Watermeal...it's works but expensive.

I'm quickly finding out that owning a pond is very expensive. Lol

I have not found that to be the case. The most expensive thing for me was an aerator 4 years ago. Aeration can do wonders.

Be careful killing off plant life too quickly, especially in a small pond. You may unintentionally create a low DO event and get a fish kill.

reward herbicide does a good job killing *everything* if that's what you are trying to do

Jlynch, Sonar also comes in a Sonar RTU version which is much cheaper. I went to the dark side, and actually bought some to treat my 1/4 acre hatchery pond. It took about 5-6 weeks to clean up the pond, but it was well worth the couple of hundred it cost for 2 bottles. Ron Popeil should be selling Sonar on cable TV. You just set it, or in this case pour it in, and forget it. Spraying my smaller pond with diquat, glyphosates, and algaecides, with active CNBG and tilapia beds rolling along all summer, was not something I wanted to do.

Thanks everyone. I think I'll get some Sonar or Reward to kill the weeds.