Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Green slime - newbie question

Hello,

I'm having a bit of this 'stuff' growing along the bottom of my pond and could use some help identifying it and suggestions on handling it.

Makes for some frustrating fishing, having to clean lures off after each cast.

Thank you,

JR

What you've got is FA (Filamentous Algae). Its caused primarily from having to many nutrients in your water. There are several ways to deal with it.

You can use chemicals, which could be costly to treat the entire pond, and if not careful can do harm to your fish if treated too aggressively, depending on what you use.

You can try to get some better plants growing (American pond weed, arrowhead, iris, even some types of Lilly pads) to help use up some more nutrients.

You can add pond dye to reduce sunlight penetration.

Aeration to dissolve some of the nutrient gases will also help over time.

You can try the quick aggressive way or the slow, more natural method.

I'm sure you'll get other suggestions as well.

Tilapia.

About 250 pounds worth for your 6 acre pond. You also have a shorter 'growing season' than those in Texas so you will need to try to buy larger adults (more costly). In the south they can stock smaller fish, and less pounds, and rely on the millions of offspring to grow up to a size where they can do the heavy 'eating' of the algae. By me in lower MI, I have to stock more adults and larger sized adults as by the time the water warms up to 70 and they have babies the babies don't have enough warm weather left in the season to grow large enough to eat the algae before fall comes and they all go belly up.

Make it easy on yourself right now before it gets out of control....it will give you time to decide if you can do something more permanent.

go to coppersulfatecrystals.com (they also sell on Amazon now) and get the "small" crystals, 50 lb. bag, delivered to your door for about $130. You need to use 15 lbs. per surface acre for initial spring treatment>

Put crystals in doubled burlap bag, tie a rope onto the bag and use your jon boat to drive around the edges of the pond as the copper sulfate dissolves in the burlap sack. 10 days later it will be clean as a whistle. You can follow up every 3-4 weeks with 7 lbs. per acre. BM61.

Thanks -

It sounds like I should probably check the alkalinity of the water first, before I try the copper sulfate. I should be doing that anyway, but not sure what the base level should be.

I have a large fountain in the middle of the pond that I haven't turned on this year yet, but I'm guessing that will help with water aeration/oxygen levels that might be lowered by killing off the algae.

http://help.bioworldusa.com/kb/algae-treatment/is-copper-sulfate-toxic-to-fish

Thank you.

Tilapia might be an option, but I don't have a screen over my overflow to prevent any fish from getting out if there were a flood-type event and my pond directly. It can be done, but the drain pipe comes off a hillside about 20 feet off the ground and will be hard to build around it, and make it so that I can clean it out easily will be a fun challenge

Our alkalinity in the 3 ponds we manage is in the 70-145 range so we are good there. And i do avoid doing a treatment when the LMB are on the beds. The initial dose should be done when the water is about 52-55 degrees.....before the LMB spawn.

We only treat about half the pond at a time (wait 1 week to treat the other half) when it heats up in July and August. FA doesn't grow all that much when the water is really hot from our experience. Once we get into September we stop all treatment until the next Spring.

Just like any of these other pond chemicals, you do need to be careful about over-treating when it's hot outside to avoid causing an oxygen depletion event. BM61.

I've heard the GreenClean algae killer actually increases oxygen as it deteriorates in the water and is supposed to be very effective at killing algae, as well as not losing any threat to fish, but it's pretty expensive. Trying to do a large pond may be cost restricting.

BM61 have you ever tried broadcasting the copper sulfate crystals as is done with Cutrine Plus granular? I just bought 20 pounds of the copper sulfate crystals and want to know what my treatment application options are.

Bill i tried broadcasting the copper sulfate years ago but it didn't seem to work as well as letting it dissolve in a burlap sack. It appeared to me that the burlap bag/dissolving method was reaching every nook and cranny in and around the FA and dispersing better in the water column than just scattering the crystals.

I have used C Plus granular as well but have switched to the liquid there as i usually would mix a little of that with diquat and go after submerged weeds like coontail....that is an awesome combination as well that really works great. Easy to target spots to kill and spots to leave relatively untouched. I use a battery powered backpack sprayer in a jon boat and have a long handled (4+ foot) wand that you can push down into the water and drag through the standing weeds you want to eliminate. Very happy with the results and still have plenty of weed cover for small forage to hide. BM61.

Thank you sir!

Hell from Argyle,Il. We have been rebuilding our 1 acre pond eco system for 4 years now after a drainage collapse.. We did have algae blooms from farm nitrogen drainage in the old pond. totally out of control! we have used barley straw in the new pond and so far its done quite well. It does have to be within 3 foot of the surface to decay and release its chemicals. Initially used 6 bales. Keystone Hatcheries sells a bale for $33 (WOW) and they suggest 5 bags about 1.5 bales early in April for 1 acre pond.I bought before from a farmer for $12/bale. Our neighbor pond uses a lot of the copper sulfate --apparently not enough as last year the green floating algae was over a a third of that pond. I will post things that may be valuable for both of us. I am on the middle pond in Argyle. How big is your pond? Lots of shallow area?
bill