Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Lake dye for pond where water is used in home

Does anyone know of a lake colorant that can be used in a pond where the lake water is used in a water treatment plant that supplies the home with water? I have a very effective water treatment plant to use the water from my 3 acre pond as treated household water. The water is treated with alum to remove the sediment, and then chlorine to remove bacteria. Next the water goes through two holding/settling tanks. After that it goes through a sand filter, an activated charcoal filter and a whole house filter system. The tap water is clean, good tasting and tests better than local "city" water for bacteria, etc.

However I've got algae and other things most of us read these posts to learn about. I have used cutrine plus for algae and diquat for duckweed. However, I'd much rather use something rather than cutrine or copper sulfate for the algae. Most people locally have great luck with lake colorants, however, none seem to be approved where the water is consumed.

Can you advise, is there a safe dye for that? Or can I assume, with all of those filters, etc., that my water will be safe?

BING

Bing, Aquashade is registered with the EPA for weed & algae prevention, but it has a label warning to not apply to water that is to be used for human consumption. Below is a link to the manufacturers web site:

http://www.appliedbiochemists.com/
(Now owned by SeaPro)

I'd email your question to them.

Aquashade, and other pond dyes, will prevent submerged algae from growing, but it will do nothing for mats of algae on the surface or duckweed. Also, you have to consider other effects of the pond dye. It will prevent beneficial submerged aquatic vegetation from growing, which can inhibit the ponds capacity to process nutrients, which can lead to more algae. Pond dye can also disrupt the food chain, which is a problem if you are managing for quality fishing.

I'd look at other alternatives in your situation, like aeration, encouraging beneficial native aquatic vegetation, and spot cutrine plus treatments, if necessary.

Your water-filtration system makes a lot of sense. Have any photos you care to share with Pond Boss readers? If so, send them to me at:

Mark McDonald
Editor, Pond Boss
34 Herff Road
Boerne, TX 78006

Aerial photos, shots taken from an elevated camera, would be especially instructive. Your methods and materials would be of great interest to a broad cross-section.

BTW, in ponds that have a lot of flow-through, water dyes are less effective in controlling vegetation than in ponds of standing water.

Thanx,

McD

Bing - From pond owners experience in northern midwest, reasonable amounts of aquashade (0.5 to 1ppm) will be removed by a couple steps of your treatment process.
1. chlorine will bleach it out, possibly chemically deteriote it. Check with Applied biochemists for verification.
2. Activated carbon filter will absorb most of the remaining organic residual from the acid blue and acid yellow dyes in aquashade.
3. Alum treatment may also have an impact on aquashade by absorbing some of the dyes. Ask Applied Biochemists for verification.

NOTE. Aquashade also contains an emulsifier and dispersing agent, monoethanolamine at less than 1%. This is not appproved by the US Food & Drug Admin. (FDA) as a food additive but it is allowed in as a pharmaceutic aid. I am pretty sure (Ask Applied Biochemists) that acid blue and acid yellow dyes are approved by FDA as food additives. EPA says you cannot use it in drinking water because it does not have a EPA registration permit. Check it out.
PS I would not drink water with aquashade, I would have my treatment system remove it so I did not have to drink it.

Another Note. No component in your water treatment system listed above has the ability to remove copper from the water, unless the whole house filter includes a reverse osmosis system (RO)or an ionic resin filter. Water treatment standards (EPA) do not allow water comsumption with copper levels above 1.3ppm.
Ohio EPA does not routinely allow municipalities to use Cutrine in reserviors for algae control because of its potentially long residual time in the water column.

When I was a kid, my grandparents pulled their water for bathing and the commode out of a pond. Drinking water came from a well, when it developed problems, drinking water came from a tank that caught the run-off rain from the roof of the house. My grandpa would move the drain pipe from the gutters out of the tank untill it rained a while, to wash dust and bird poop off, and then he would move the drain pipe so that it filled the tank. And that is what we drank.

When you state that the water from the pond is being used in the home, is it consumed by the people, or just used for washing? That would make all the difference in the treatment needed.

Bing said that the water was good tasting so they are drinking it. From his description his water treatment system is high quality. The only question I had was the RO filtration. One could safely drink his water without the RO filtration. His water with the carbon filtration is more pure than water provided by many "cities". Very few cities pass their water though carbon filters which, when properly maintained, remove lots of the larger dissolved organic chemicals such as those from agri-herbicides, dyes, etc, plus many others.

Hello all!

Has there been any progress or updates Bing? I know it’s been a while! I hope everyone in the chat is doing well. I’m curious by this as I have a VERY clear pond currently and will be drinking from it as well here in NE Ohio. I can easily see nearly 5’ deep. This changes frequently depending on rains and such but it does clear up quickly. I’m more concerned about how hot my lower sections of the pond get.

If you haven't planned on it already, I suggest running your drinking water (from the pond) through a UV light assembly which will kill any bacteria (and I believe other organisms) in it. These are called for in potable water which is being taken from cisterns; I think they would be a good idea for you as well.

Interesting stuff

If I were using pond water as household water and drinking water the treatment process should include either UV light assembly as Theo noted or one of these treatments as chlorine treatment, iodine treatment or hydrogen peroxide treatment, all designed to kill bacteria and other micro- organisms. These processes are a part of the entire treatment process described by Bing above. "The water is treated with alum to remove the sediment, and then chlorine to remove bacteria. Bing = Chlorine injection, then the water goes through two holding/settling tanks. After that it goes through a sand filter, an activated charcoal filter and a whole house filter system."

All of the items in the home water treatment for pond use are commonly available from private water treatment businesses. If you really want the safest water for drinking then run the water from the house use through a Reverse Osmosis system aka RO drinking water tap. I have one on my "city house water" for drinking plus it goes to the refrigerator. When all steps are operating properly this makes the drinking water safer than municipal tap water. Some newer municipal water treatment systems are using large RO filters to blend RO water into the final finish water to improve the final quality.

Bill Cody, I can see where the RO treatment of water would be a necessary step and some kind of clarification to remove bacteria although I wouldn't want to inject it with all the chlorine and stuff, I think that is the unhealthiest part of tap water.

I'm thinking a little good clean bacteria might help the average immune system.

Dang, I was hoping you would get an elegant solution in the comments.

I just checked AI for pond dyes for potable water, and it could find zero for retail sale.

Time to switch to Plan B?

Is there a place on your property where you would like a small, decorative pond? If so, I would calculate your "summer" water usage, and build a supplemental pond with that volume. (If that calculated pond is too big for some reason, do a pond with half the volume, and plan for one re-fill during the algae season.)

Fill the pond with water and then perform your cutrine and dye treatments in the main pond.

You could then fill your potable pond with an aggressive spreading water lily. They will shade out the algae in the potable pond. They should be tough enough to survive as you draw down the level of that pond. Extensive pad coverage will certainly reduce evaporative water losses from your potable pond. However, I don't know if the plant transpiration losses would be less than or greater than your projected evaporative losses without the lily pads?

Maybe add a fountain and some decorative shallow emergent plant (like from the iris family) so the potable pond is attractive from the view from the house.

Remember that "the dose makes the poison". If you need to draw some more potable water from your main pond, it would certainly be safer to do it 90 days after treatments, rather than starting on the day after treatment. (Still don't know if it would be absolutely safe?)

Good luck in your future battles with algae! It is a very common problem for pond owners. You might read some of the old algae threads, since there are other partial solutions besides chemical treatments.

4-25RedLeg
Firstly he/she posted this. ""I’m curious by this (topic) as I have a VERY clear pond currently and will be drinking from it as well here in NE Ohio. I can easily see nearly 5’ deep.""

FYI there are pond management methods that can promote the pond to maintain clear water. IMO few pond management companies know enough about this topic to provide good techniques to or for maintaining clear pond water. One has to fully understand the whole aquatic ecosystem to "get it". IMO one of the MAIN tasks to maintain clear water is to focus on reducing nutrient inputs and nutrient content in the pond. Nutrients grow plankton and plankton density heavily influences water clarity along with suspended detritus. Reduce the nutrient content and this reduces plankton and detritus content / production. Numerous other eco-factors of clear water come into play for this concept of having clear water.

Okay by technical definition water transparency of 5 ft deep is not IMO a definition of VERY clear water. It is clear water but not very clear pond water. I help manage ponds where Secchi disk water clarity is easily 10 to 15ft. There are ecological methods that help promote clear water conditions. There are several municipal water reservoirs where I analyze algae in the water with Secchi clarities of 8-15 ft. This 10-15ft of water clarity I consider as very clear,,, and then there is ultra clear water as with Secchi disk readings of 30-60+ft as in many low nutrient natural lakes (oligotrophic) and as a famous example Lake Tahoe.

One does not need to use chlorine as most municipalities do to kill the bacteria. As I noted above, options are UV light, iodine, and hydrogen peroxide. Without proper routine monitoring chlorine as drinking water disinfectant can cause residual chemical concerns called Trihalomethanes.

However all bacteria in drinking water should be killed because just one of the wrong common bacteria can cause health issues. E.coli is very common and just one example. E.coli at some density as rare to common is present in almost all pond waters. E.coli bacteria comes from the manure of all warm blooded animals - birds to humans. E.coli strains are good ones and bad ones. IMO it is not worth the health risk of not killing all bacteria in drinking water by one way or another. Even if it is by boiling the water.
Another current national water born illness is the cyclosporiasis outbreak caused by cyclosprora that is a single cell protozoan and not a bacteria. It normally occurs in manure, often human manures.

IMO drinking pond water without proper treatment is a liability to all visitors to that water source.

Thank you Bill! I do have a controlled runoff pond. Also, since writing this with the lack of rain, I can see the bottom clearly at nearly 9'. I know this is a new pond with very little nutrients in it. I'm not concerned about adding a chlorine treatment. I have a company who is very familiar with pond water systems doing the entire setup. Their name is Kinetico.

My question mainly wasn't about the best type of potable water treatment but about how to reduce clarity in the pond. It does receive full sun all day long, its gets warm fast, and I have been loosing water quickly due to evaporation. (also because I have very little run off into the pond, due to the design) I was mostly curious if since '03, someone came up with a safe dye for human consumption. I know that my system will remove most of it, but even the company rep said he has never heard of a dye that he would recommend to use if I am to drink from the pond.

Red Leg,

I did some AI searching yesterday. One of the things I searched was food-grade dyes. (Which are obviously fit for human consumption.) It said there are some good blue dyes that might work for that application. I assume they will be quite expensive, but maybe worth you doing some additional research?


P.S. A few years ago, I contemplated building a cool-water fish species pond at my warm location. I speculated about buying some cheap tarps (or even super-cheap used bill board tarps - there is a current thread on those) and using those for shade. I would put the most reflective side "up".

They would quickly be destroyed in Kansas winds by any method of suspending them above the pond. So I figured why not float them? I would build some large rectangular frames with 3/4" PVC pipe to exactly fit the tarps I bought.

Floating them in the pond should reduce heat gain due to sunlight penetration, reduce evaporation, and they will probably develop a nice population of periphyton on the wet side of the tarp and pipes.

If the tarps are NOT reflective enough, you may need to suspend a portion of the tarp to create an insulating air gap. Leave a little give in your tarp attachments, and suspend some sealed jugs under the tarp to float a large percentage of the surface area. You could partially fill milk jugs, bleach jugs, etc. to get the exact amount of buoyancy you desire.

Just thinking out loud. You can probably come up with some better solutions that will match your specific requirements better.

Good luck on your pond project. I suspect lots of members envy you a little bit for having a pond that is too clear!

FishinRod,

Thank you! Those are solid options. I was also thinking about adding some of those floating gardens or filter beds with plants in them, similar idea for sure.

The clarity is insane and I do truly appreciate the color it has. Several people I know with ponds of their own struggle with muddy water. The issues I see coming from the clarity are my concerns. Maybe I worry too much and should watch closely to see how it unfolds. I spoke with you and several others regarding my fish plan and I did go with the YP. I have nearly 60 to start with, they have already grown and they DO take pellets. I know they require cooler temps so this is partially my concern. I'm probably over thinking it a bit but its worth it to keep clean.

I love the natural color it is, its nearly blue anyways. The dye is more for weed/warmth control. Do you know how well the dye helps with controlling the temps?

I am NOT a pond dye expert. (Or even close!)

I have read a few articles that state the addition of pond dye does serve to keep the pond SLIGHTLY cooler. However, they did not give any good reasons.

I will speculate below, based on my ancient education in wave propagation and reflection versus absorption.

In the visible light spectrum, water most readily absorbs the longer wavelengths; red, then orange, then yellow. The green and blue light wavelengths penetrate the most, and that is why the ocean appear blue or bluish-green when you are diving.

When a dye is added and the pond now appears blue to an observer on land, then the pond is now efficiently reflecting the blue light, which otherwise would strike the bottom of the pond and be absorbed by the sediment on the bottom of the pond. (Which is the greatest cause of water heating.)

I also found this excellent article by Bob Lusk.

Lusk on Pond Dye

He says that the best pond dyes also reflect part of the UV spectrum. That is a significant portion of the total incoming solar irradiance, so reflecting part of the UV should also slightly reduce the pond temperature.

Finally, it turns out that one of the best ways to keep a pond cooler is to actually enhance the algal bloom. A nice green algal bloom reflects some of the incoming green light. Further, much of the other wavelengths are converted to glucose when the algae is forming sugar during photosynthesis. Energy utilized during photosynthesis is NOT available to heat your pond bottom or water!

If your water is very clear, maybe try some minimal pond fertilization??? If you can promote an algal bloom that will keep your pond cooler, and benefit the bottom of your food chain - which will eventually benefit your YP.

However, adding fertilizer may do more harm than good, if it eventually leads to more filamentous algae.

I would recommend reading some of the threads on water quality and adding lime and also some of the threads about fertilizing a pond. You can easily perform some of the water tests yourself, or send them to a state agency or a commercial lab. Once you get the results back, you should start a new thread with your water analysis, your existing fish, and your goals for the pond. At that point, some of our actual experts may be able to give you some excellent advice.

Congrats on getting your YP to take pellets. Good luck on increasing their size and getting them to reproduce! In good quality water, they can survive warmer temperatures than your location. Snipe used to grow state record YP near Goodland, Kansas under much hotter summer temperatures than you experience.

P.S. I also like the floating island concept. I can't see any downsides to adding those to a pond, unless they attract fish-eating birds. I believe there is at least one good thread on those islands.

Several very important questions about your pond water, dye, yellow perch concerns.
1. Do you bottom diffuser aerate this pond?
2. What is the actual measured depth of the pond when full?
3.. Do you have a secchi disk?
4. Are you using pond dye - if yes what brand?
5.. What green type plants do you have growing in the pond?

Bill,

1. Yes, two of them. Placed in about 6' of water. I plan to move them a little more shallow before winter time.

2. The deepest point is 9.5'. The average depth is 6.5'

3. No, I do have a make shift one I use.

4. No dye, I drink from this pond and I cannot find anything is considered safe for humans. I do know that several charcoal filters say they pull it out but I am still debating if the benefits of dye out weigh the risks.

5. I am not entire sure what plants are in there. I know some Cattails have taken hold, I do not want these. I pull as much as I can. Some Rushes is near the shallows. I'm sure there's others, I just do not know the names.

4-25RedLeg - okay for your information that you provided so far. Now I have a several more important questions to provide you more information about your use of colorant and use of pond water in the house. The more educated that you are, the better you will know your options and be able to know about managing for better water quality especially for mainly domestic water use. I assume that is the main goal for the pond???? Or is there a more important goal for having the pond?

I have lots of questions relating to giving answers for your pond concerns to provide good informative answers. .
6. Pond size I do not see the size of pond that you have.
7. Pond shape? Aerial or Google view?
8. Why are two diffusers in 6' of water instead in the deepest part?
9. Brand and type of air compressor and the brand and type of diffusers?. A link to the aerator system you have will suffice.
10 Aerator run times??
11. All Fish species that are in the pond.
12. How often do you measure water clarity with Secchi Disk? and do you keep track of the readings?
13. Have you been monthly recording the water temperatures at surface or 3 ft deep from June 01 to Sept 01??

If you have the space and resources, look into how natural swimming ponds are filtered through plants, substrate, and bog. That would go a long way to pre-filter your water and reduce nutrient loads for supporting unwanted plant life, while also helping the appearance of your pond.
I cannot be an inexpensive project, but IMHO should prevent needing to maintain water quality through chemical means. Worth the peace of mind though.