Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Frustrated at Chocalate Milk Pond!

The chemical process resulting from adding Al lowers alkalinity not just the amount over that needed to effectively coagulate the suspended solids.

http://srac.tamu.edu/tmppdfs/144249-460f...8f873f42c382435

Erik is right. The alum added dissociates to form AlOH which lowers the alkalinity and the pH.
The buffering capacity of the water determines the final pH from various feed rates. Lower initial pH results in lower ending pH.

Thanks Eric and M. Now I know! I was mistakenly assuming that as long as the water was very muddy, that I had a safety margin.

I had a Chocolate Pond last November, when I bought my property. ZERO visibility. I had Paul Dorsett come out and put 22 Tons of Gypsum in the Pond. He put it in the erosion areas, and it took quite a long time for most of it to make it into the Pond. I imagine about a ton of it stayed on the banks and grew Bermuda over it.
This was put out when it was very cold. It didn't seem to work that well, but Paul told me it would be better, when warmer.
We thought we might need another load. For a few months, I was only getting 5" of visibility, still chocolate colored.
As it got warmer, the water started to clear some more. Every so slightly.
I attended a class with Peter Woods, from TAMU, giving the presentation (Extension office's Master Urban Rancher Program). He gave some numbers of product needed and Percentages of success. He said Alum was 90% effective, but expensive. Gypsum, 70% effective. The interesting thing about his Gypsum numbers, was the wide variance of gypsum needed to work. 80 lbs to 960 lbs per Acre Foot. I have about 93 Acre Feet, so Paul put in approx. half of the spread, about 470+ lbs per acre foot.
I had a lot of Green stuff growing near the banks, looked like FA. 2 weeks ago, I bought some herbicide.
Last week, I put a little of out on the FA, just on about 1/10th of the pond's shore. I put out 2 or three more areas of 1/10 over the last week.

I'm sure it's a coincidence, as I think the warmer temperatures are responsible, but I'm at about 12-18" visibility this week, and we had an Plankton Bloom. No more chocolate milk to be seen. Totally green. It was amazing and I thought of The Pond Boss site when I saw it!

PS: I don't like the way that herbicide makes anything look. Might add some Talapia, instead.

Agent,

Glad to hear your water is clearing up. I think clear water is crucial for sunfish weight gain and spawning.

I think I read somewhere that a plankton bloom can help a little at clearing up the water.

Can anyone attest to this, or explain how it works?