Hello..

Our 3 acre pond, which is 20 ft deep in the center, is in it's second full year. We limed heavily this past winter and fertilized when the water temps hit 60. We had an excellent bloom. BG and LMB are thriving.

May and June brought a lot of rainfall to NC on a daily basis. The new water from the watershed was more than our siphon could handle on several occasions, causing some good top water to be lost over the spillway. The siphon worked non-stop on many occasions.

After this period of heavy rains, we have lost our bloom. The pea green top water is now a rust brown color. Water temps are 78 degrees. We have fertilized again now that the rainy period is over. In short, does anyone have suggestions as to the brown water color? It's not muddy water. Dead bloom? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance....WS

Rust color could be and likely is another species of algae growing due to a shift in nutrient balance and different concentrations. Brown color could be a zooplankton bloom but I doubt it. Is the suspended dirt/clay in your area causing the color? Water with a dead bloom usually quickly clears as dead tiny algae quickly settles and decomposes.

Hi Bill..Thanks for the quick response. Suspended clay can be a problem from runoff and construction sites far up the watershed, but this is a different color of brown; almost a rust color. It's more clear than suspended clay... Any ideas? We recently re-fertilized. Hope I didn't add to the problem, if it is in fact a problem. The fish are thriving.

if the reddish color is right on the surface probably red euglena. Do you monitor visibility with secchi disc? If not I strongly suggest doing so when fertilizing. You can tweak it this way if checking every couple of weeks and keep a more consistent bloom.

Hi Greg/Bill

I just returned from the pond. The water color can best be described as pure brown. Almost a rust color. Greg, we do monitor visibility. The water is not clear at this time; just pure brown, a darker brown than clay runoff, which typically lasts a few days before settling. I'll try to post a photo. Thanks again for any advice...WS

Ws, what is exact visibility we are talking about 6 inches or to you stained and 23 inches. Also if clay rarely for us does it only last a few days it stays in suspension for months.

WS-

Where does the water draining into the pond originate? Does it drain from a heavily wooded area with a lot of decomposing vegetation? A pine forest? Hay fields?

I have a pond that drains a large forested area, water is always brownish as you describe, and fish do wonderfully. Just below, though with a different, spring fed water supply, is another pond with double the visibility, nice blue-green color.....I wonder if the huge inflow this spring brought a lot of tannins into your pond, completely washed out your lime,amd encouraged a different color algae bloom. The bloom in the upper brown pond is clearly visible at times, and clearly more brownish/reddish in color.

I think you have a bloom of one basic type of algae. Species unknown until I look at it.

Here are a few photos taken this morning. The pond was pea green with low visibility before the rains. Its hard to photograph the brown color. Hope this helps.

We fertilized again a early in the week with a water soluable fertilizer. We also hung from trees, suspended in water, five gallon buckets, drilled with holes and screened, then filled with granular fertilizer in the spring entrance that fills the pond. We were amazed at how fast the granular dissolved when suspended in the water. If productive, this is certainly more cost effective.

Even with the water color change the fish are thriving. This bass, caught this week was introduced to the pond July 13th of last year as a two inch fingerling. It now measures almost 13 inches and fat. The bluegill are also thriving. With the multiple feedings, they measure 8-10 inches and very fat! Even though we are in year two, we still see occasional FH minnows. We attribute this to the spring fed, creek entrance to the pond that is full of plants and grasses. Before the bass were introduced, the FH were in large dark clouds all over the pond.

Do you find that once your pond is built and can be fished, you are late to the office and early to leave on a daily basis? Or is this just me?

Thanks for all the help....WS

WS, I have the same. Water has always been dark green until this year with a very wet spring. After all the rains my pond turned brown & has stayed that way.

Ric, you're not too far from me so I assume you've had the same rainy spring. We went weeks with big showers every day. I lost some good water over the spillway and siphoned huge amounts of bad water off the bottom. There's no doubt the water turned over in the pond more than once.

It's definitely not muddy water. It's some sort of bloom, but not the one I want! I'm hoping my recent fertilization hasn't perpetuated the problem. I guess we'll find out soon enough. In the meantime the fishing is super....WS

My forage fish pond is looking the same way. A deep brown bloom in it. It was crystal clear just a month ago, now the bloom is so thick you can't see 18" in.

I also get a small amount of very dark brown to black scum floating unattached very similar to polen in the spring in how it looks.
Vis. is apx 2ft. After a heavy rain I do get a small amount of orange/tan clay particles entering in one end of the pond but it always settles quickly.
Everything else seems ok, I'm just not crazy about the color.

WS, we got the heavy showers & then 2 weeks of constant rain. I guess mine turned brown around the first of May.
Sure miss that nice dark green color.

Does anyone know how long this type of bloom lasts?

WS, I have great data on this. Sea Pines on Hilton Head Island tracks things closely. They had ugly brown water. They had been fertilizing. I told them to take their Do meter and check, sure enough low in am then high in pm, classic phytoplankton, visibility nice 28 inches. We send sample to Bill Cody and sure enough he listed many species of phytoplankton. Crazy thing is about 3 days after sample submitted lake turned beautiful green color. We do not know what species of phyto is brown vs green and not easy to find out. However fyi it can turn quickly. Also easy to tell if the brown is good for fish you can take dissolved oxygen readings, it will tell you if phytoplankton or just suspended inorganic particles.

Thanks for the info Greg.
This pm my pond apears to be turning maybe just slightly OD. Hopefully it's turning around.

Thanks Greg. That's good info.

Hi Greg, I was going to call you today about my pond. It sounds exactly like what Ric described, and looks like the pictures that WS posted. I don't fertilize (have constant water flowing into and out of pond). Visibility is about 6". It's not muddy brown like it was after all of the rain in early June, but hasn't been clear for a month+. Do I need to hit it with Alum & Hyd Lime? Ph is 7.8

From conversations across the country this year many ponds have a late plankton bloom. It starts as brown (unusual) with reduced visibility and is followed by a green phyto bloom. At ours 1 pond is green (ahead of the others), one is brown changing to green and one has no bloom yet but is showing brown with reduced visibility. All 3 have sufficient alkalinity and have been fertilized since spring. Something I have not encountered before.

I'm working with a couple ponds, one five acres and one four, that have had brownish/rust colored blooms at some point in the last month or two. The five-acre pond got a beautiful green bloom after I fertilized the first time (which wasn't until May, just recently got back into working with some ponds), then after a bunch of rain it had a brownish bloom for a couple weeks; now it's back to a green bloom. The four-acre pond, meanwhile, which is down the hill from and receives runoff from the five-acre one (none at the moment), had a beautiful green bloom back in May and as recently as a couple weeks ago, and now has a decidedly rust tint. But I'm pretty sure it's plankton as we haven't had any rain to amount to anything in weeks.

Ewest as you know I haev discussed with you and Cody there is so much more that we do not know abotu plankton bloom than we do know.

Randy, we need to find out what it first before you go and add anything.

I assume you do nto have DO meter? That would help,
Have you done the jar test? get soem watrer put in jar does anythign settle out or still muddy.
Is 6" with a secchi disc? Feel free to call me to discuss, if 6 inches of phytoplankton you could have a fishkill on your hands.
Are the fish still feeding, not as well in the am time by chance?

Greg you are right - so much to learn so little time and a shortage of facts to base it all on.

My fish are still feeding aggressively. I haven't noticed if the morning and evening feedings have any difference, but I will check it out tomorrow.

After 7-10 days, although still somewhat brown, the pond is beginning to turn green again. For the past two days there has been a silver film across half of the pond. I'd like to invest in a DO meter. Any suggestions? For future reference, where is the best place to send water samples to be certain of what I'm dealing with? Thanks for the informative posts....

Try this - comes highly recommended by many here:

https://www.ysi.com/ysi/Products/Product_Family/Product?productID=WQS_DO200

that is a good meter but have sent back three times on the two we have. The 55 is much better meter but quite a bit more $.

Your county extension agent can do water sample analysis. Feel free to send to us we wil discoutn to any PB memeber but DO is not accurate on samples more thatn 24 hours old.

i have been keeping up with this thread and experiencing the same thing at my pond at the same time. we have not had rain for 5 weeks here. my pond is at full pool and has never quit running out of the pipe. it is very slow, but still running. i had fertilized heavily during all the rains we were having, when it stopped is when my rusty/brown muddy looking water appeared. we still have not had rain and my pond has suddenly turned green. i did notice a few stripes/bands of brown in the pond today, but for the most part it is green. we have had some wind here the last week (10 mph) and that seemed to really make a difference. seems like the brown was only in the first few inches of surface water. my standpipe has a trash rack that extends about 3' below the surface.

there is a creek (halawakee) near my house that i cross a few times a week. it has an old gristmill and dam about 50' from the bridge. beans mill in alabama if anyone wants to google it. the water there has been exactly the same. looked very muddy/rusty until the last week and now suddenly has a clearer green look.

any idea what is going on?

Just an update: After about a month with min. rain & hot sun my pond has turned back to it's normal dark OD green.

Good deal Rick!

my update: after my pond went back green, we had a little rain, less than an inch and now my pond is as brown as ever... i saw 2 ponds today that only have a dam seperating them, one of them had green water, the other had brown water.

my pond hasnt been brown until i started using the super powder fertilizer. reckon that has anything to do with it? my friend is using same fertilizer and his is as ugly as mine..

Many times Scott the brown color is either brown species of phytoplankton or it is zooplankton that has grazed the phytoplanton and a natural and desirable occurence.

Unfortunately, sometimes great fishing ponds aren't always the prettiest... Crystal clear water means there isn't much zooplankton or phytoplankton, the building blocks of the food web in a pond.

each time here the last 2 months when the wind blows my pond clears up. the brown stuff must be only in the first few inches from the surface. i have the prettiest green water the last few days. the very upper end is brown where it is being blown to.

I see the same thing as scott69. We also have a thin silver slime over one-third of the pond. I haven't been satisfied with the water color all summer, but the fish are thriving.