Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry help pon

hello,
My name is michele and i have a large turtle pond. I built the pond because I run a turtle rescue. I built the pond in january and filled it then. The waterfall ran for that whole time until now. just this month i put in the turtles a few small plants that arn't mature. some tad poles and fat heads. There was plenty of algae and i just put some duck weed in there for shade purposes.
The water isn't clear at all it's quite muddy and i''m not sure how to deal with that either. I'm very concerned about the froth because I believe it has killed two turtles. I was trying to have a naturally regulated pond with all aspects of the food chain so that other than feeding the fish and turtles it would keep it's self clean. Oh yes there is a bog portion and a few gold fish I put in for looks. there are only five though
the pond is about 6,800hundred gallons. I used a 20x25 liner and it ranges from 3 ft to 8 inches.There is a small island in the middle for the turtles.
The bubbles spread over the pond but they arn't making a soapy froth. where it builds up and you can pick it up. It's just difuse over the surface.
The ph is 7.6 slightly acidic. and the amonia is 0 parts per million. I have a water fall that runs 1800 gph.
I have never added any chemicles ever so I'm very confused.
There are also one or two small sunnies and a trout and one tiny striped bass.
Help I'll gladly discuss this here or in my email or on the phone at my expense. I must solve this issue.
Thanks in advance
I hope someone here can help with the foam and muddiness.
Thanks
Sincerely,
Michelle C.

Hello, Michelle, and welcome to the forum.

You can see if your muddiness is suspended due to mechanical action by doing a bucket/jar test. Put some of the muddy water in a 5 gallon bucket or smaller container (stuff down to mason jar size has been used) and see if the cloudiness settles out over time. If the water clears on it's own in a couple/few days, something is continually mixing it up into the water. That could be bottom feeding fish (like a LARGE number of common carp or goldfish), but from your description the waterfall would be a likely candidate. 1800 gph in a 6800 gallon environment seems like pretty fast mixing.

If the muddiness does NOT settle out when removed from any mechanical disturbance, it is probably chemically (ionically) suspended. We can help with either mechanically or chemically suspended particles.

I have very little experience with foam on ponds - I occasionally have a miniscule amount of foam where water drops out of my spillpipe - but I do know the causes can be as benign as natural protein in the water. The forum is a little slow on weekends now that good weather has arrived over most of the country, so please keep checking in here during the week for more information. We'll keep your thread bumped up every day or so to give lots of experienced PMs a chance to help.

Hi Michelle and welcome to Pond Boss. I'll leave the technical advice to the experts, I just wanted to let you know that we're glad ya found us.

Okay, PMs - who can talk water quality and foam on ponds, or find a previous thread?

Turtle Haven, I have searched thru 5 years (the max possible) of forum posts for "foam", and found a real dirth of information. The best, most technical post was:


There were also two posts expressing opinions that the foaming surfactants involved in two separate incidences were probably proteins, and that's it for prior foam activity in the forum.

FWIW, I think the waterfall is providing the impetus to physically produce the foam, but I doubt the foam itself is any more worrisome to turtles than the causing surfactant would be.

Does anyone have an idea what water quality tests Michelle could have done to determine the identity of the surfactant involved in her pond, as well as it's possible toxicity?