Well the sheetrocker's just finished my house and I was wondering if I could just put the scraps in my pond. If so, how much is to much?

Bunch of differences of opinion of whether to use it at all or to go ahead and toss in a bunch.

What makes you think you need it in the pond?

It's more of a "saving a trip to the dump" type thing.

When I built my house, I through all the scrap sheetrock into my 3/4 acre pond. The water cleared up in days!!! It was realy amazing the difference. Then a few weeks later, I was solid green in alge. It was so bad it started growing on top of itself and looked like some hideous lumpy green puss.

Given the choice, I've decided to leave my pond muddy brown.

Eddie

Okie, if your hardness and alkalinity is low it shouldn't hurt, just dont overdo it.
Eddie, you may have had excess nutrients tied up, and the added hardness from the sheetrock freed it up to fertilize the pond.

okiefish16 Welcome

Sheetrock has a paper facing along with fibers (fiberglass?) and chemicals mixed in to reduce cracking and improve fire ratings. I would avoid sheet rock in any significant quantity for those reasons.

The "active" ingredient in sheetrock is gypsum. Gypsum can be a help in reducing turbidity in ponds that have a lot of clay particles which cloud or muddy the water. Gypsum works by "clumping" particles together so they sink.

Gypsum is available as agricultural pelletized gypsum from home and garden centers.

I have used bagged agricultural gypsum with some sucess.

Many gardening references say gypsum is helpful in "loosening" clay soils assisting in better drainage and improving soil stucture.

A search on Google for [soil gypsum] or [gypsum pond] will yield much more information.

If you decide you NEED gypsum, I suggest you use the real thing, not sheetrock with fibers, fire retardant chemicals, etc. Bagged gypsum from the home/garden center is not very expensive.

dave asked an important question [why do you think you need it??].

See http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000066 for a previous thread on gypsum.

Another article from Kentucky is http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/ky/liming_wp.htm which states
[Adding agricultural gypsum to ponds to precipitate available phosphates which can reduce dense algae blooms, increase water hardness and may reduce turbidity. ]

I hope this helps. Good luck!

Frank

Okie, I think what Frank reveals is that the potential problems outweigh the potential benefits.

I also learned some sheetrock floats.

Here is an aggregate list of links on the subject just for all you link lovers.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=002752

Gypsum can be purchased in the form of sheetrock wall board. Most all home improvement stores have it. Do not use the pink colored type and try to be sure there are no added fibers as binders. It can be broken up and ground to small pieces and put in. The way to find out how much is to take a water sample in a jar --say a quart --measure out small amount of ground up gyp. measure it and add to see when it clears. Then do the calculations to see how much for the vol of the pond. Read these esp. the last one. Good luck.

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000073

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000066

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000068

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=16;t=000049

Folks, bear in mind I would never advocate using sheetrock to clear up a pond. His main objective was to get rid of the sheetrock. The main reason sheetrock is a fire retardant is that when it heats up it gives off water vapor and keeps the wood it is screwed to cooler. Sometimes there are small amounts of additives to help in this endeavor. Sheetrock is a loose term. If it is true gypsum board I would doubt it will float. I have never seen any fiberglas in any I have used, but I keep seeing this come up.

Okay, I know this is old, but I'm researching...

So what you're saying here, Bob, is that if I pick my sheetrock properly: I can not only clear the water, but I can also construct a floating dock?

Two birds with one stone!!