Liquidsquid my pond has good clarity right now but didn't so much earlier this season until my vegetation started growing. With a lot of vegetation I think you are going to have muck as it dies off. My pond is 20 years old and it has muck. I think my pond has lots of 02 as I see it bubbling in the sun light and my minnows all look frisky and healthy. So perhaps 02 from vegetation helps to lessen muck but in the long run ponds turn into peat bogs.

We had a lake cottage on the east side of an 88 acre lake. Our beach and lake bottom was sand, but on the west side of the lake it was muck. Why? I believe it was because over thousands of years the prevailing winds blowing from west to east cause the wave action to shift fine grains of sand to the east shore.