Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Alum Kicks Clay Butt!

Shorty, pickled fish? Kosher crunchy or butter crisp?

Hi Folks,
I've been following this thread and am about to do the alum treatment to our 1/8 acre swimming pond. I had a quick question:

We have an aerator installed that's mixing the suspended clay and contributing to turbidity. We've had it off for several days and, while the pond seems to be clearing a little bit (maybe 2-4" of visibility), it's not settling quickly enough. My question is, should I run the aerator for, say, 24 hours to really mix up the suspended clay and then add the alum, or should I add it as the pond is now? My thinking is that we might trap out more clay if it were more thoroughly mixed? Any thoughts on this?

Thanks,
John

Shorty - IMO it is more important to get a good dense crop of vegetation growing on the watershed before implementing the alum treatment. If the water shed is not well grassed you may well have to do several alum treatments in the next couple years.

J-lion, Creating more suspended particles in the water column will probably result in needing more alum to get the same amount of clearing, assuming the same amount of alum was applied to each situation - less and more dense suspended clay. I would leave the aerator off for several days 2-5 after treatment to allow more complete settling of the flocculant in the deepest zone.

John:

Is the diffuser set right on the bottom of the pond? Is there any sort of dirt screen under the diffuser? If it is, and there isn't, I'd pull it up and either make a stand to set it up off the bottom of the pond by a foot or so, or place it in the center of a 2'x 2' or 3'x 3' piece of plastic to help stop it from stirring up the bottom sediment.

I am working on it Bill, I had wheat started in the pond basin before the pond started to fill, it just filled too quickly this spring for the wheat to get established well and help clear the water after it filled. It also didn't help that ag field in the water shed was plowed and then planted with corn just days before the first of several gully washers, a 1" rain in 30 minutes produces a lot of run off on top of already saturated ground. The corn is knee high now and the last 1" rain we had Saturday morning the water was clear coming out of the drain tile feeding into the pond. I do have oats, brome and rye coming up in my portion the water shed and around the pond. I also have three rows of straw bales staked out in the watershed to filter silt out of the run off. I will plant some prairie grass here shortly, I have to do some work on the seed drill I picked up before I can do that. I have delayed my fish stocking plans until I can get the water cleared and a bloom started. The only thing I have stocked are a couple dozen fatheads and golden shiners for mosquito larvae control. I did put 50 lbs of alum down yesterday and the water has gone from a 1/2" of visibilty to 6" aready but the Ph has dropped from 7.0 to 6.2, I won't do anymore until I can pick up some hydrated lime and bring the PH level back up. Right now getting the forage base started and vegetation growing is more important than getting fish stocked. Looks like I am going to have to be patient.

Kosher fatheads.

esshup:
Yes, the diffusers (two 9" micro bubblers) are attached to a mount that gets them about 10" off the bottom. When we first got it going earlier this spring, we noticed the increased turbidity problem, so I hauled it back up and mounted the whole shebang to two bread trays that got it another 8" off the bottom. So I'm figuring it's far enough off the bottom not to be the cause of the turbidity. My best guess is that there's so much suspended clay in the water column (about 12-13' where the diffuser is located) that the diffuser is just churning it around. We also have a bunch of koi in the pond that might be churning it up as well.

I'll be adding the alum today. We figured we have about 0.5 acre feet so judging from the tables we've found here, we're going to add about 25-30 pounds of alum.

And I'll leave the diffuser off--thanks Bill!

With the koi in the pond you might not be able to clear the water. If they keep distrubing the bottom sediment the problem will never go away, even with the alum.

Go ahead and add it, but if it clears up then gets cloudy again, I'd do a test in a 5 gal bucket with the alum. If it clears with the same alum ratio that you used in the pond, then I'd suspect the koi.

As esshup says for J-Lion, with ""a bunch of koi"" in the pond don't ever expect it to have clear visibilities at much greater than 2ft? In a pond of 0.5 acft (163,000gal) is and how many estimated koi & what their lengths are present. A pond size of 0.125ac (1/8ac, abt 5400 sqft) and 12 ft deep has to have some really steep side slopes if the pond does not have a V bottom. Why were koi added to a brand new pond?

I would not turn the aerator back on until you achive an acceptable water clarity. New ponds with bare bottom clay soil will often remain relativelty cloudy until 1. plant growth becomes established or 2. a benthic organic skin forms over the bottom sediments. Raw clay soil covered with water is usually very susceptable to easy resuspension of the fine clay particles.

I've been reading this thread and other info I can find, and I'm making preparations to use alum in my pond. I bought a pool test kit today, and the ph tested above the 8.2 max in the kit. I made a secchi disk and measured 18 inches of visibility. I also filled a quart jar with pond water to observe it for a few days. My pond is just shy of 3/4 of an acre, with an average depth of 6'. Lastly, I'm in the process of locating a local supplier of alum. Based on the info I provided, is it possible to determine how much alum I'll need? If I need to treat a gallon of water to see how much alum, where do I buy a very small quantity to test with? (I'm planning on monitoring my ph during the application and having lime standing by in case I need it) Thanks in advance for any advise you can give me!

Tom, if you decide to get another test kit this one is pretty good, and the PH tests to 9.5.
Good luck with your pond.

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q...ved=0CCAQ8wIwAQ

Thanks for the tip....much appreciated!

Hi Folks,
Added alum yesterday and we're seeing quite a difference in water clarity--can see down a good 3' now I'd guess.

This is not a new pond--we dug it back in 1993 and have had mixed success over the years with water clarity, algae blooms, curly pond weed infestations, etc. We've had koi in it for about 6 years (just 3 small ones to start) but they hadn't started breeding until a year or two ago. (I'd love to get some bass in there to control the population...)

We added the diffuser (finally) this spring and that's when we started having more suspended clay problems. The pond is about 12' deep at its center and has steep sides. We'll see how this all sorts out when we start up the diffuser again in a couple of day. Gotta say though that the alum is having the desired effect!

Johnny:

Largemouth Bass (LMB), Northern Pike (NP, or Chain Pickerel (CP) would all help with controlling the koi. One NP might be enough. What species of fish you use will all depend on your goals for the pond.

Regarding your aerator, make sure that the diffuser isn't placed directly on the bottom. If it is, it might be contributing to the suspended sediment in the water. Raise it up a foot or so from the bottom, or put something under it. I've seen 24" to 36" square 1/4" thick plastic used with a single diffuser was attached to the center of it.

i have more topsoil then i know what to do with
if i had it spred out over the whole pond befor it fills would it stop the clay problem or atleast lessen it ?

Yes...it can...Make sure it is well compacted. Your best solution will be to plant grasses in all that topsoil before the pond fills to prevent erosion to start with....even in the pool area.

The grass, once submerged will become excellent areas for your fish to eat, hide and thrive along with supercharging you new pond's ecosystem in a very beneficial way.

ok i added about a tenth of a teaspoon of alum to my quart jar of pond water and it cleared it based on erics chart I need to add between 1800 and 3000 pounds of alum to the pond. I there a place to buy in bulk in the dallas area that is less expensive than ordering it at the feed store by the bag? What should a bag cost?

Here is the contraption I made in order to put out the alum.the first barrel had the two inch water line coming in at the bottom this is the barrel we put the alum into and mixed it with an oar. we also mixed the second barrel with an oar. the water then flowed out of the second barrel at the top through three one and a quarter inch pipes into the pond.

the day I put the alum out it was very windy and so the only areas that were starting to clear were along the north shoreline out of the wind. Out in the middle i could tell the alum was binding the clay and making visible clumps and starting to clear but I had to leave before I got to see the final results. Hopefully it worked and when I go back this weekend it will look better. If its still muddy looking would you add more alum?

Nice set-up. I don't think that purple stain is going to come out anytime soon....... Did I hear a couple of dirty words??

Contraption; yep and a damned ingenious one.

the cat knocked the glue over when I was working but the glue was nothing like trying to remove the hydrated lime from the boat. It sets like concrete.

My goal was to try and not have to move the water only the bags of product.

See what happens and let us know the results. If still muddy then we can talk about the next step. Would be good to have the water tested if no big improvement is seen. At least another jar test to see if the amount needed to clear has come down.

Nice work on the ---? Once you have the water clear what happens to the -----?

Just curious though, because of the toxicity of the alum rate a whole arm length over the coagulant called chitosan, has any one attempted to use chitosan over alum. Base price of alum is probably 1/2 the cost over chitosan after shipping/handling fees. Alum will re-dissolved back into the water as stirring caused by wind or run-on. Chitosan actually retain the bound material until you can safely harvest the sunked chunks. Just something to toss into the mix.