Love my pond, but I'm a newbie....Recently purchased a home that came with a .25 acre pond that is fairly shallow. Peanut shaped about 8 ft in the deepest section. It is only 2 years old and this spring the algae is really bad. No fish plans but would like it to look nice and the kids use it for a little swimming. Last summer it dried up to 1/3 it's original size by the end of August. So far this spring I put in a product call Pond-Aid by DW Davies. It looks like it's working but I don't think it's going to cure my algae problem. I don't want to spend a lot of money, but was thinking about running some power about 10 feet from the pond and plugging in a floating fountain/aerator or setting up a simple waterfall for some water movement.

My questions:

1) Since I have a tight budget this year, would you recommend a fountain or waterfall or something else? Will this help enough with the algae?

2) What can I do about the water evaperation? Got some advice about a sand point...

Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.