I live on a 4 acre pond with 13 other homes. The neighbors hired a new lakes service company to chemicaly treat the pond for a massive and sudden bloom of algae. The service said they used pure copper sulfate. I thought that was an old and now dangeous method. Can anyone provide information on this?
The previous service company used all of the latest products like those advertising in Pond Boss.
By the assumption that pure copper sulfate is the blue granular type...as long as the label is followed and the guy didn't go nuts dumping a lot of the stuff overboard it shouldn't be too dangerous. It becomes a problem after years of use when it builds up in the sediment. However, I can't see any advantages of going back to the "old" way of doing it. By the time one buys and mixes the sulfate powder, he's wasted time and probably spent more money to do the job equal of Cutrine. I believe that I've seen where copper sulftate settles out of the water 3 hours or so, pending on water conditions, where chelated copper products will remain active in the water for a considerably longer amount of time. To me it makes more sense to use cutrine and I'd at least ask them why they don't. Where in IL is Wheeling?
Green Head,
Can you give some information an Cultrine? Where can you find it? I have used copper sulfate crystals, known to us here as bluestone, for years. I always bought a bag from Southern States. One of their stores sold a 50 lb. bag of pebble shapes crystals that work for me great. They warned us all of the time not to put too much in or it will kill the fish. Then Southern States raised their price and I found bluestone cheaper somewhere else but it felt like sand and it stayed on top of the water unlike the crystals that sunk to the bottom. The day after I put the cheaper bluestone out(I used the whole bag and didn't cover the whole pond which was unusual)most of the fish were dead. I decided I would come up with the money to pay for the good stuff at Southern States. However, recently I've heard how barley straw will kill algae. But no farm supply store sells barley straw around here and what few farmers that grow barley don't want to sell any bales. I decided to grow some myself and I will for many years to come. The barley works well and is cheap to plant.
TURKEYFOOT,
I'm going off of memory here...I believe you could look up "the pond guy" and get his catalog. Aquatic ecosystem may have it. I'm sure Aquatic Control would have some. I got mine from a local dealer here in IL. for around $35-$39 a gallon.
K-tea is similir to Cutrine. As mentioend much easier and safer than bluestone. Lots of fish kills around here by folks putting out too much. Here is a link for you:
http://www.lakework.com/products_herb_fert.html $75 for 2.5 gals plus shipping.