Since all the rains we received recently, I've got the worst BGA outbreak I've ever seen. The visibility has been reduced to around a foot and color is very green when you can see thru all the scum on the surface. When the aeration runs there's no difference in color of water being pushed up, so I'm thinking the bloom goes all the way down.
Normally, I would spray algaecide in a small area of the pond and let the wind keep pushing the junk to a bank I can keep treating, but now its covering the entire pond, and predominantly north winds has it pushing into the main feeding area, not to mention the smell when you step out the door.
I've never seen it this bad.
I'm wondering if I could pour a small amount of chemical into the aeration boil and let it treat the entire pond or if that would be too stressful on the fish. Has anyone ever tried this? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Mike, I had something happen similar last year, in April. Right before my pond filled up. It turned out to just be a week or so of worry as it washed out or went away on it's own. Here is a short thread with photos for comparison...
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=35937&Number=470475#Post470475The pond tried to do something this year to a much lesser extent about the same time, but dissipated...it's amazing what you can notice when you tend to a pond on a daily basis, or should I say it's amazing what you miss when you don't.
Hey Noel,
I remember reading your thread earlier. Looking at your pics again, I can say my color is no where as brilliant green as your pond got (more of a dingy green).
Since filling up, I've not seen the visibility get this low, however. If it were a plankton bloom I wouldn't be nearly as concerned. But when the sun pops out and this stuff starts covering the surface and burns your nostrils when you get downwind of it, its obviously BGA.
I don't particularly want to throw chemicals at it and hoped it would run it's course by now, but it seems to be getting worst instead of better.
Having the pond just outside the front door definitely keeps you aware of every minute change. It's raining again today and will continue for another two days with this storm moving in from Mexico, so doing anything at this point is mute anyway. Guess I'll watch it a bit longer before I do something drastic.
When I had some 9 to 10" of green water, I was warned about adding chemical to kill off the algea due to removing the 02. Adding alum sulfate reducing the phosphates cleared my green water to a really nice olive green water color. Might be worth researching some more before pulling the trigger on any treatment.
Hey Tracy,
The disruption of 02 levels by using chemicals is what prompted my initial question about the effectiveness of using a copper based treatment by pouring it into the aeration boil and having it be distributed throughout the pond as the aerator ran (adding oxygen as the treatment does its thing,thus hopefully balancing out).
I'm wondering if anyone has ever tried this approach and what their outcome was.
My thought is that I could use small doses over time instead of a massive application all at once, or even spraying just one small section of pond surface.
Just something I was curious about trying, but thought I'd ask more experienced pondmeisters.
Sorry to hear about the stink of it. My green just smelled like a pond. My novice approach would be to keep aeration going and not kill any of it and hope that it runs it's course. Keep in mind I said "NOVICE" and that's an exaggeration.
It seems to me that the "stuff" is thriving on the nutrients in the pond and killing it would leave the existing nutrients there and add the nutrients of the stuff. Is there any practical logic in my thinking? I don't know, but I feel for ya!
My understanding is that if what you're describing is blue-green algae, the stuff at the surface and mixed in the water column is dead already. Wouldn't think any treatment other than skimming would do any good at that point.
The bottom of my pond is covered with live blue-green algae year round which starts dying and letting go from the bottom starting in early summer and runs all warm weather long. The live stuff makes the entire visible areas of the bottom of the pond dark, olive green and when it lets go in patches you can suddenly see the lighter colored soil at the bottom of the pond showing through. It's been getting worse every year and this is the worst year for it. The pond was unusable for recreation almost all summer long. Heavy rains might break it up and send it down but in a day or 2 it'd be right back.
The odd thing this year was that the die off was preceded by some dense, bright green algae of some other sort piled up at the surface that the catfish were tearing into for a couple of weeks. Suddenly, within a 24hr period, the dead blue-green algae started appearing and, although there was still large amounts of the bright green algae, the catfish wouldn't touch it since it mixed in with the dead blue-green algae.
The science appears to suggest that blue-green algae grows on barren, fertile bottoms - which fits my situation to a T. The suggested solution seems to be to knock down the fertility as TGW1 did and get something else growing to shade it out. My pond is turbid but the blue-green algae seems to be the only thing that doesn't mind the low light levels. Alum appears to be my best bet to clarify the water and knock down the fertility at the same time. I don't know if this compares to your situation in any way.
As QA suggested, looks like it may well have run its course...for now. I had this kind of bloom back in the spring, but no where near as heavy as this time. Water has a good color to it and I'm guessing visibility to be about 16" today. My homemade schetchi device got broke and I haven't replaced it yet.
Back in the summer, when we went 9 weeks without rain, the visibility expanded to over 4 feet. Once the droubt ended, we've had rain every week since, sometimes heavy enough to overflow the pond into the yard. We've had around 6 inches of rain this past two weeks, and the pond is overflowing the drain pipe. My inflow is relatively clear and surface temps are still in the low 70s.
I've never seen much of anything (algae wise) growing on the bottom other than a little FA.
With the cooler temps and heavy cloud cover, I've been running the aeration intermittently on warmer days to keep from cooling the pond too quickly. So maybe tomorrow I'll be able to turn it on for a bit and give everything a good stirring. They're calling for clear and warmer days for about a week.
At least my nostrils aren't burning when I walk outside now.