We recently dug a 1/4 acre pond on a remote island in the Bahamas, the pond water has a strong tea color to it and the sludge on the bottom of the pond gives it a very nasty deep brown color. We would like to try to clean the water/ pond and would appreciate any help that anyone might be able to offer.
The water itself is brackish and the pond has a very fine sandy bottom, the pond is around 5’ deep (approx. 500,000 gals) and there's a good layer of organic material that settled since we excavated back in November 2014. The sediment layer seems to be around 2' deep in places. The water temp is around 76-80 degs. year round and the pond/ lagoon is fed by a fresh-water lens along with any rainfall that we pick up (it is the dry season here at the moment).
I'm told the brown coloration is due to all the tannins from the organic material on the bottom, we would like to explore (non-chemical) solution to cleaning the water, but don't know where to start... aeration? filtration? sludge pumping?? Not sure.
I will upload a couple of photos and would really appreciate any feedback.
Thank you in advance!
NickD
