An update here about grey water. I've been tossing around ideas for the past few weeks about what to do about grey/brown turbid water. There has been good debate on this thread about stirring action of CC vs GSH vs crayfish and in my case, possibly goldfish and crayfish. My traps won't catch crayfish. It is possible I don't have the right bait or the right traps, or there are very few adults to trap, but I keep trying.
It seemed overnight my water went very chocolate colored, almost like coffee with heavy vanilla creamer. Visibility was awful. I didn't put two and two together till yesterday. Yesterday I noted the water suddenly clearing in the shallows. We have had no heavy rains, no heavy wind action to cause the turbid color, why the consistent cloudy conditions in the water for weeks, and then now sudden clearing? I see now up to about 2' of water it is clear again and gets a bit cloudy as you go deeper.
I have been baiting, setting traps, checking them twice a day. I noted that my hands REEK last 2 weeks. It is a very unusual smell, not fishy, but very aromatic and earthy as the organic chemists would say. I noted I would wash my hands inside and that smell would linger.
I recall now that prior to fencing off our pond that the same smell would be on our dog when he swam in the pond and we could not wash it out.
Now with that unusual smell and the sudden clearing of the shallow water, I'm thinking I may have a brownish bacteria/algae bloom that I didn't recognize. Timing is right since the fertilizer machine came through about 3 weeks ago and the water went suddenly brown right after that.
So, I probably actually had a 2 week brownish/grey bloom going on. Not a bad thing afterall! Good timing too as I see these little critters at the surface which I believe are larval perch (stock photo attached, I saw them at night and couldn't get a good picture)
Also catching some 3" perch in the traps (last year after stocking apparently some females still pulled off a spawn, most waited till this spring though). Also catching a few leeches for the first times and some newts. A few PK shrimp are still in the pond (spotted at night with strong light and found in traps) too which is very glad tidings for me given the perch predation possibility.
