Have a few questions I have about a 2 acre lake and just got the FA knocked down quite a bit, I have a creek that feeds the pond then it empties into another creek at the other end. So I get quite a bit of run off from people upstream as far as fertilizer and such. There is no plants in it currently which I was going to add next spring to help eat up some of the nutrients. And also have a 3.5hp fountain in the center, I was thinking of adding 2 aerators as seen in the pic should I? But what do I do about the elodea will it go dormant through the winter, and is it something I can treat next spring? Thanks for all the help!
It appears you have our typical STL area retention pond for area runoff control. Do you own the pond or is it part of an HOA or common area?
The elodea can certainly be treated and 2 bottom diffused aeration stations would provide a lot of benefits.
The biggest issue is the highly fertile runoff that will be constantly fueling new plant growth. There are some plants that you can add to help take up nutrients along with other preventatives.
Your elodea will go dormant and not worthwhile to treat now. You are thinking correctly to begin control next spring.
It's part of the HOA, but since I'm a trustee the burden falls on me 8) What about FA will that slow down also in winter? I've been using sodium percarbonate to keep it at check but man it grows FAST!
I battled Elodea, man that is some vicious stuff! My experience with Elodea is that it will die back in the winter (at least it did on my pond) but will come raging back in the spring. DO NOT try manually removing it! Elodea will spread if fragments break off. I made an amateur mistake of trying to manually remove Elodea and I caused it to spread all over the pond.
I used a Reward/Cutrine mixture to treat Elodea and it worked wonders. I treated the pond in small strips (so as not to cause an oxygen crash) over 3-4 month period I was able to obliterate it.
Oh and plan on other pond plants to fill in once the Elodea is gone. This is a lesson I have learned the hard way. If there are nutrients and open space in a pond then something is gonna try to occupy it.
JHAP ~~~~~~~~~~ "My mind is a raging torrent, flooded with rivulets of thought cascading into a waterfall of creative alternatives." ...Hedley Lamarr (that's Hedley not Hedy)
