Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations physical removal of fil. algae?

i have too much fil. algae for my taste. i'm sure my several unseccessful attempts at establishing a bloom this year have helped (hurt). i believe i understand the process of chemical applications from previous posts and the "book" (how to control...); but has anyone had any success with physical removal of the floating mats prior to, or instead of a copper treatment? by the way, my pond is 7.5 acres and much of the shoreline affected, so a swimming pool net just won't work. jb

I fight this stuff continuously. I have started wading out with one of the rakes I purchased from one of these sites and I try to contol one side of the tanks I want to fish. You can not do all sides especially on one as large as yours. The Cuitrine Plus granules works the best for me and I have broadcast whole ground corn meal , which may help. I did not see drastic results with the corn meal. Anyway, pulling out as much algae as you can handle, then treating with the Cutrine Plus seems to work the best. From what I can gather if you get a bloom ahead of the algae it will help contriol it, but the problem is it forms before the temps get to the point that everyone says to treat with fertilizer. Good luck and if you find a permanent solution e-mail me at [email protected].

I've been told not to physically remove algae because the fragments (filaments) that break off will in turn give rise to new growths. If the follow up spraying or broadcasting of granules is effective, this may not be a problem. I'd like to see an expert comment on this question.

Breaking it up may cause some other growth but I have seen it so bad there as no other choice.

JB,
A couple of years back I tried to rake out the algae in my pond (150'x 65'x 10') with mixed results. It helped to clean up some but I didn't achieve the results I was looking for. Never tried chemicals. I had a pretty good growth of algae going up till monday night. Our area was smacked with a torrential downpour and by days light, the pond was as clean as could be. My guess is the rain "flushed" the pond. I'm curious to see how long it takes to reappear.

Russ

I actually have very good luck skimming my 150x200 ft pond. It takes an hour or so 3 times a week. A huge shortcut is to do it on a very windy day after all the algae has broken loose and is pushed up against one side of the pond. If I skim out what I can in big heavy scoops it looks really good a day later when things settle down.

I pull it out and compost it. Not always--I use Cutrine just around the margin a couple of times a season, and have some Aquamats which seem to keep it from ever getting out of control--but I find manual removal pretty relaxing, actually, just getting in the pond and hauling the algae out. It breaks down pretty well in the compost bins, which puts a whole new spin on harvesting it.

Steve said "I've been told not to physically remove algae because the fragments (filaments) that break off will in turn give rise to new growths.". I do not consider this completely true. Filamentous algae are a very diverse group that encompass several algal Divisions (Phyla). There are some genera that do continue reproducion after fragementation. But also some filamentous algae grow by establishing a hold fast cell that attaches to the substrate. It all depends. As the algal mass grows it eventually breaks lose and floats to the surface where most people now consider it a problem and need to do something about it. Technicaly Chara and Nitella are an algae and broken branches of these plants can probably regrow from bracts (fertile nodes) and or oogonia (female parts).