I was wondering what the ideal visibility for a healthy pond would be. If I put an aluminum beer can on a yard stick, my pond has 23" of visibility. At 23" the aluminum beer can is completely gone and not able to be seen whatsoever. Is this good, bad, normal? Just wondering.. I prefer to have the pond as clear as possible for swimming / fishing etc. It's located in northern Ohio and built in 2016.. until recently it has always been muddy and turbid..
As the favorite saying goes here on PBF, it depends. If you want to grow fish a nice 2-3' visability caused by a plantonic algae bloom is desirable. If you want clear water for swimming it is something different.
Be careful what you wish for concerning clear water. If your water is nutrient rich, it is going to grow SOMETHING. It might be plantonic algae, it might be fliamentous algae, it might be submerged weeds, but it will grow something. If you clear the water up enough so the light hits the pond bottom, you may have an outbreak of FA or some undesirable submerged pond weed.
Sometimes in the quest for clear water, you trade one problem for a different problem.
