Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water

I have a question has anyone used those pond logs yet? How long do they last? Do they work well? How much do they cost? I have pond that is fed by a creek so there is a lot of soil that comes in when it rains. Three days ago I got 1.25" rain and at the times the pond was not stirred up I check my clarity and it was 19 inches but the very next day I went and checked and it only had like maybe 5 inches. There was no rain in between the times I went down there. I thought it would have been worse right after the rain but it was better. Any thoughts? The only fish I have in there are bluegill and bass as far as I know I haven't seen anything else

I also wouldn't mind using aluminum but I can't find it anywhere here in the Texas Panhandle. I didn't know if it would be more cost effective to use the logs or just use aluminum. My pond is about 1/4 of an acre in size.

Find a Helena Chemical dealer. They should have aluminum sulfate.

A friend had a dammed pond that was fed by a creek. In the creek mouth was a lot of cattails that controlled sediment from the creek. Any cattails that tried to spread from this area was controlled with Glyphosate.

Thanks Essups I'll look in to that I found some hydrated lime for $13 for a 50 pound sack at ace. Well that's what's crazy before it comes on our land there's probably at least 200 feet worth of cattails before it comes onto our land and it's still really murky. It's stirred up right now cause we just dug it out some more but even before it was really murky so I'm just trying to fix it.

If you have lots of bullheads, they will keep the water stirred up by their mucking around on the bottom. Go out about dusk or first dark and fish the bottom a few feet out from shore with some cut up fish, stink bait or other suitable catfish bait (SlimJim's work pretty good too for bait). If you have enough bullheads to be a problem, you will catch some easily.

Are you sure the drop in clarity was because of dirt? What you describe sounds more likely to be a algae bloom. The water coming in through the cattails is clear, then when the new water sits in the fertile pond an algae bloom happens and water clarity goes down.

Not saying this is the case, just wanting to make sure it is actually dirt that is making your water less clear (you could do a jar test to see if dirt settles out). If it is something other than dirt, you might be chasing the wrong problem. My pond regularly goes from being more clear to less clear depending on algae blooms. I also get less clarity from water runoff after a rain but it usually clears up pretty quickly as the soil sediment drops out of suspension. That problem hopefully has been rectified as I've just built a new small sediment pond in front of my main pond to catch water first from agricultural land to settle out before it enters the main pond.

I honestly don't think its bullheads cause I've lived here my whole life. I've always fished here and I've never seen a bullhead or any catfish in our part of the creek or any of our neighbors that I've fished too. Snrub I really think you're on to something with the algae caused I looked up brown algae and it looks really similar but I'm not sure. I took a jar sample and the pictures was right after I put it in there and it seems pretty clear. I checked today and I am back up to 12" on the secchi disk. It also seems like it's a little clearer along the banks than in the middle. What do y'all think?

Looks like an algae cast to the water to me, but I'm a complete amateur at this, so maybe someone with more experience will chime in.

I know one thing. In my big pond I have three double 9" disk diffusers being supplied with air from three linear pumps putting out about 2.5 cfm each (3.1 acre pond), and this pond with air almost never looks like my old pond or a sediment pond that I just created or my micro-forage pond, that do not have aeration. So different BOW's, even close to each other, can act vastly different. I did not have aeration last year and noticed a buildup of an inch or so of muck. Installed the diffusers and pumps this spring and am not sure, but I think the muck the extra oxygen is utilizing is really making my water have wide swings in the way it looks. Lot of old dead FA floating up to the surface and starting to break down. This pond with the air, at least for now, varies a lot more in looks from day to day than my other ponds. One example is it gets a lot more "black" and clear looking at times. Other times greenish algae cast more like the other ponds. It baffles me.

The point I'm trying to make that has relevance to what you are questioning, it that BOW's can act vastly different depending on the conditions that are present in that particular BOW, if that makes sense.

I see no sediment issue at all in that jar sample. Turbidity for a few days after a rain event is completely normal. The fact that visibility is steadily improving also tells me that the chemistry id fine for solids to settle out naturally.

When your pond's visibility drops, if you check the water a few feet into the cattails from the discharge into the pond, I suspect it is clear because of the filtering of the soil and the sun being blocked by the cattail foliage which helps cause the algae bloom. If you had a lot of catfish or carp the pond would most likely stay turbid all the time and not have clearer water at times. So to me it seems like it's algae bloom which carries oxygen and food for the fish and is beneficial. Just doesn't look so good.

Rainman, I think he is saying he has the opposite. It rains and he has clear water, then the water turns murky later.

That is why it leads me to believe the cattails are doing their job as a filter buffer and cleaning out any sediment that might be soil movement from a rain event. Then the water turning less clear at a later time leads me to believe he is getting an algae bloom that reduces the visibility.

John Monroe brings up a good point. A reasonable algae bloom with 18" visibility is actually a good thing for the fish population. Not so pretty for swimming or looking at, but healthy for the critters in the water.

Thanks everyone for the help cause I'm pretty clueless about this kind of stuff. Snrub is correct after it rains it clears up but after a few days then it loses some visibility. I checked yesterday and it was at 12" and today its at 15". Well if it good for the pond it makes sense cause there's a lot of life I see frogs, minnows, and fish around the edges or anywhere I can really see. My next question is I'm wanting to put an aerator in before I put some more fish in what is that going to do to the algae? Just wondering

The aeration system simply moves water from the lower part of the pond to the upper part. This removes any stratification and keeps DO levels up in the entire BOW.

It just makes more of the water usable to the fish in times when the water would have stratified making the lower part low in oxygen and unusable to the fish. Not a problem for the algae.

From my experience and from what I've read diffuser aeration will probably increase your algae some..

That would seem to make sense to me.

If aeration reduces muck, the only way to do that is to keep whatever originally would be making the muck stay in suspension in the water column (at least until aerobic action changed or released it into the atmosphere). If the muck contains nutrients, which it does, then there should be more nutrients maintained in the water column. More nutrients in the water would seem to be a better environment to grow algae.

This is just what seems logical to me, but I'm no expert. Would be nice to hear expert opinions on the subject.

It seems that your pond has high amount of silt that make pond water murky.
You can try Hydra Silt-Less All-in-One (For Ponds Only) that remove pond silt and will turn murky pond water into clear pond.

This page may help:
http://www.cleanponds.com/faq.php?cID=1

I really don't think you have as big of a problem as you may think. You want anywhere from 18 to 24 inches of visual anyway. And you said your last reading was 15. It would seem your pond does get somewhat murky but turns around and clears up fairly nice. Unless of course you want a pond that you can see down 5 feet then you do have a problem still. Kinda depends on what your looking for.

I would prefer less visual why? Because the fish can still find your food or lure and yet they cant see you as easy and you don't spook them as quick if your pond was real clear. I have this issue. I can see at times in my pond up to 5 or 6 feet. Man it looks cool but fish can see you too! So it's a lot harder to sneak up on them big ole boys!!

RC