Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Sheetrock

I have a 4.5 acre pond in west Georgia. We are very dry here, but the lake refuses to clear completely. My son is building a house close to the lake and am thinking about putting the sheetrock scraps in the pond. I am not real clear on how to do this from reading the posts. Do you just toss in the scraps or do you need to cut them up?

Hey Ted,

If your pond water's turbidity is indeed caused by clay, then the gypsum in sheetrock will clear it up. Some ponds require a lot of gypsum to clear them up, others take a lot less. If your 4.5a pond needs more than a minimal amount per acre, you had better have a LOT of sheetrock scraps!

The smaller you can break up the sheetrock, the quicker it will dissolve and start to clear the water. Soaking and peeling the paper off should also speed up the process.

You may want to try about 1/2 tsp of sheetrock in a 5 gallon bucket of pond water before you do a lot of work. It should clear it up over night.

Good luck, and please keep us posted!

IIRC, some kinds of sheetrock (fireproof???) have fiber glass and/or other nasty substances (chemicals???) that you wouldn't want in your pond.

Ted,

Have you had the pond water tested? If so and its been determined that gypsum will benefit your situation then follow Bobad's suggestion on the bucket test.
As Theo mentioned, there are some caveats associated with adding sheetrock to pond water. This subject has been discussed in the past and a search on the subject should yield more food for thought.

TedJ,

Theo is exactly right! I forgot to mention that old sheetrock may have undesirable additives. New sheetrock scraps from a builder should be perfectly safe. Watch out for blue board or green board, because they may have fiberglass.

I am a drywall contractor and most of the the wallboard we use is synthetic these days. The core is actually flyash from smokestacks of electric generating plants. There is no gypsum in it at all.

Check with the supplier that stocked the board on where it was made if possible. If there is no gypsum in it then it won't work_ unless flyash does the same thing.