Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Muddy Water

I dug my 3/4 acre pond last fall and it filled up pretty quickly. The water is brown and has remained that way for the last 9 months.

I just read Serman Wyman's article and heard of Gypsum powder for the first time. I also read on this site about bales of hay.

I'm near Tyler TX and my soil is red clay with a hight acid level.

Is this the type of charged water the Gypsum can clear up or will hay bales work. Most local hay is Bahia and/or Bermuda. Does it matter what type of hay.

Where does one find Gypsum and what is it normally used for?

Thank you,
Eddie Walker

Eddie,
First, analyze your water. Call the county agent, he has a form to send water samples to the soil sciences lab at Texas A&M. Read the results, or email me directly and I'll help you read them. Look at pH, alkalinity, and ion balance. That will be your first reference point. It may be that you only need aglime. It may mean aglime with a moderate amount of gypsum.
Gypsum is the ingredient used to make sheetrock. It's calcium sulfate.

Eddie, my pond is in Lumberton (TX) and Gypsum worked very well for me. It looked very "lagoonish." That being said, because I still need more grass and vegetation, my pond is muddy again after a good rain. I reapply occasionally.

Which leads me to a question for Bob: Is sheetrock safe to put in a pond? I'm building a house and I have a mountain of sheetrock scraps that I would love to dump in my pond.

Absolutely. I used sheetrock scraps in my own pond. Do it.

Bryan,

I sent you an email.

Russ

My pond is that tea brown rust color , I brought a gallon of thr pond water home a week ago and now it's cleared a little and is beginning to settle on the bottom of the jug , i assume it's suspended clay . will gypsum speed the clearing , do you shred the sheet rock or break it into small pieces ? Harvey . Canton , TX.

Bob, I was advised of the below post on a different thread named "Gypsum application." I'm ready to dump my sheetrock scrap but I want to make sure it won't kill my fish. Have you ever heard of the claims made by Scott Trava?

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Scott Trava
Lunker
Member # 860

Member Rated:
posted November 12, 2003 10:36 PM
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Craig
Sheetrock has small bonding fibers for strength that when dissolved in the pond will kill your fish as the same with spackle.

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scott

Uh, I hang drywall on the side and (unless there's some new high teck sheetrock out there - which I doubt) there is no such thing as "bonding fibers" in standard drywall or drywall mud (spackle is for plaster). Now, the paper backing is full of "fibers" but can't see where that would be a problem.

Mat, i think your right. A friend of mine threw in a bunch into his pond and it cleared the water and he never had problems with his fish.

I tossed in a bunch of scraps from doing my basement and 2 weeks later they were still floating around on the surface finally took them to the junk pile.

Bob

Sheetrock is gypsum held with paper. It doesn't float, it sinks like a rock. It dissolves into your water. Sheetrock good. Lusk use.

Bob , at what depth do you collect the water for testing , are does it matter . Harvey

Sheet rock FLOATS!!!

Is the water brown from being muddy or is it a "tea" color? Also, do you have run-off coming in from areas that are not covered with vegitation. We have had a lot of rain this year and if you have runoff coming in that is going over non vegitation covered ground that constant addition of muddy water will keep it brown.

If it is "tea" colored it is probably due to tanins from evergreen (in my case hemlock forrest) that will "tea" color the water. I can see down into my pond but it has a "tera" colored hue to it. Gypson will not take care of that. Not sure anything will.

Guys,
Scott is correct about the fibers:

Here is the web site this came from:

http://www.usg.com/Design_Solutions/2_2_6_diffdrywall.asp

"Type ‘X’ gypsum drywall, such as SHEETROCK® Brand Gypsum Panels, FIRECODE Core, has glass fibers mixed with the gypsum to reinforce the core of the panels. These fibers have the effect of bridging and reducing the extent and size of the cracks that form as the water is driven off, thereby extending the length of time that the gypsum can resist heat without failure."

Guys, I work in the gypsum board manufacturing industry and am very familiar with the composition and formulation of gypsum board. I also own a pond.

I would never dump gypsum board in my pond!

There are a couple of issues to consider. 5/8" gypsum panels aka "Type X" have quite a bit of chopped fiberglass fibers in the core. When you break a piece of the panel and hold it up to a light, you will see what looks like very fine hair. That's the fiberglass.

I don't recommend swimming in a pond with chopped fiberglass fibers. They can be a skin irritant and not good if ingested.

Other raw materials in gypsum board include inorganic foaming agents, dispersants, and setting agents. If you drank any of this stuff you'd be on the toilet for a week!

In the old days, especially where there were gypsum manufacturing plants located next to gypsum quarries, the plants would dump the waste board in the worked out pits that later filled with water. Even a blind person can tell when they are getting close to one of those pits because the smell of hydrogen sulfide gas is unmistakable. Of course, the water has a very high concentration of decomposing gypsum panels, thus the reaction. Nevertheless, gypsum is water soluable and it's chemical formula is CaSO4-2H2O.

Don't forget that for each square foot of gypsum panel that goes in the pond, there is two square ft. of sized paper that has a basis weight of nearly 40 lbs/thousand sq. ft.

If you want to put gypsum in your pond, use the material made for just that purpose. It's what we call 'landplaster' which is natural (as opposed to synthetic) gypsum rock ground to the fineness of face powder. The gypsum particle will attract a clay particle and the resulting particle is heavy enough to sink.

I see the message about the gypsum and read the new article about spreading it with a leafblower. That is quite a contraption. My pond is 1/2 acre so the baraclear pellets see like an easy way to do it. What are your thoughts on that.

match,

You may want to post a new topic to ask the question about baraclear. This thread is pretty old. I think the observations thread gets better coverage.

Please keep things in perspective. The guy wants to dump some scrap into his pond. It is probably a relatively small amount compared to his volume of water. Won't hurt a thing. On the other hand, large volumes could pose problems and issues.

In this case, do as Bob said and dump it in! Just don't turn it into a sheetrock pit, and you will be alright!