I have been filling up my new 1 acre 45mil liner pond (240 * 180 * 15ft) from the creek. I have gotten some run off from the road ditch (which is my primary inflow) and have mostly been pumping from the adjacent steam. Originally the water looked brownish, but now has a green tint.

I have extracted a couple of 5 gallon buckets of water from the area to execute tests with. The first thing I noticed was the water in the buckets wasn't nearly as dark as what the water actually looked like in the pond area.

So with my three 5 gallon buckets I executed the following tests:

1 5g baseline with nothing added
1 5g with 1 cup of pellet lime added
1 5g with 1 cup of pellet gypsum added

I stirred all of them 3 times with 30 minutes in between. What I noticed immediately was the lime and gypsum buckets turned from a green / yellow to a light brown color...??? So I let them sit overnight. Results:

Baseline = no change
Lime added = dark milk chocolate color. Almost no visibility.
Gypsum added = dark milk chocolate color. 1 inch of visibility.

I stirred the lime and gypsum buckets again and both of them turned to a light brown color. Let it set again another day and got the same results.

What I wanted to see was the side view of the containers, but I couldn't see through the buckets themselves. So I purchased 3 1g clear plastic bottles.

I thought maybe I put too much lime and gypsum in them on the first test so I put in 1 tablespoon this time. Results:

Same as the previous tests, except the fact that the baseline bottle was fairly clear (6"-8"). I noticed that the lime bottle didn't clear what so ever, but the gypsum had fairly clear water on the top inch, but then a mix of haze slightly lower. About 3 inches down it was a dark brown color.

So I dumped them out and started another test. This time with vinegar and bleach. Test layout:

1 with 1 tsp vinegar added
1 with 1 tbsp vinegar added
1 with 1 tsp bleach added

Let these sit a day and the results as follows:
1 tsp vinegar, not much change
1 tbsp vinegar added, decent change.
1 tsp bleach added, clear as a bell!

I'm figuring that the cloudy water is caused by an organism issue. The bleach sure did clear it up nicely.

Couple of questions after these tests:

1. Why did the lime make the water look so bad? Was it because it was the lawn pellet lime that has other stuff in it?

2. Why did the gypsum make the water look so bad? Same as the lime above?

3. I though vinegar would kill the organisms just a good as bleach. But not nearly as nice as the bleach. I think the bleach is not only killing the organisms, but also bleaching everything in the bottle a clear color. So it looks a tone better.

4. What alternatives to bleach are there? Cutrine plus? Alum Sulfate? Any recommendations?


The primary use of this pond will be for swimming / scuba pratice. I would also like to have some fish to feed and see while doing scuba pratice. I have a shelf on the pond edge about 3ft by 3ft (to stop muskrats from digging holes in the liner) that is currently being lined with limestone rock.

Thanks for any help.


Last edited by neo; 10/22/07 05:30 PM.