Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Murky water help?

I recently bought a house with a pond and the water is real murky.

There appears to be a lot of life in the pond, many blue gills and large golf ball sized tadpoles. It even has a muskrat and someone at some point must have put a koi in there because he's about 2 feet long now.

the water was pretty clear early spring but started turning this color in the last month or two

I put a home made aerator in a couple weeks ago to help clear up the water and my koi seems to be spending less time near the surface now. I'm not sure if that is a sign that the water is being aerated well and that he was at the surface for oxygen before or what it means.

I'm quite new to this and aeration doesn't seem to be helping




The koi taken several weeks ago

Welcome to the forum! It looks like there is a lot of pollen on the surface, but the other water color could be a phytoplankton bloom, turbid water due to clayey soil washing into the pond with rain or a combination of both.

Take a clear jar that holds a quart or more of water. Fill the jar with pond water, taking care not to scoop up anything from the bottom of the pond. Cap it and set it somewhere in the house where it won't be disturbed for a few days. See if you get things settling to the bottom of the jar, and subsequent water clearing. If so, most likely it's due to suspended clay from either water washing soil into the pond, or something in the pond stirring up the bottom. If there is no change, get some aluminum sulfate and put a pinch or 3 in the jar and stir it. If no change, add a few more pinches. Repeat a number of times. Even take a whole teaspoon and mix it in the jar if you don't see any changes with the pinches. If still no change, then it's due to phytoplankton.

Top pics look more like a bloom bottom pics look more like turbidity issue.. don't Koi stir up alot of muck?

I would think so since they are a carp variant but I've only seen this one, and from most of my experience he dwells on the surface near the edges.

I will try the water tests.

There is so much vegetation around your pond that it looks like that would mostly keep the water clear from earth runoff. 1 KOI wouldn't muddy the water in that size pond. I wonder if there are carp and catfish in the pond also. Is there a stream filling the pond. The water looks clear in the bottom KOI picture. What strikes me is I don't see any vegetation in the pond. The pond bottom looks dead. I wonder what the muskrat is eating in the pond?

It seems that the pond has too much sludge that make it look murky.
You may try -------------------- that effectively removes silt from pond base and make pond clear.