Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello, newbie with questions

Hello all, new here, as I'm a first time pond owner. I've had koi ponds for many years, but moved into a home that borders a pond and it seems to have a algae bloom going on. It seems to do this every year from what I'm gathering from the neighbors, but no one really knows what to do. I've delt with garden ponds, but nothing of this size so I have no idea where to began. It does have bluegill, channel cat, crappie, and largemouth that I know of. Thanks for any advice!

I'm no algae expert, but that does not look too bad assuming that it does not get much worse than your pictures show. The ole' slimy stuff never is appealing to the eye really, but your algae situation is not out of hand nor does it look like it would pose any hazards to the pond occupants.

Let's see what kind of expert advice comes your way, in the mean time, WELCOME to the club!

Questions likely to come are...

What size is the pond, surface acre, max depth, average depth?

What size watershed feeds it?

What feeds it, street runoff, wet weather creek, spring etc?

What's the water clarity like, how far down can you see a white coffee mug.

Some others will come along soon but I'll say this. For floating algae like in your pics there are a few things you can do. It just depends on whats aloud on your pond and legal in your area.

1. The hard way get some boots on and a net and slowly scoop it out best you can.

2. You could add Tilapia to the pond they eat algae like crazy. If you can have them and it's legal.

3. I'm sure they make a chemical spray you can use on it put it in a bottle type pump sprayer and spray it on the top of the algae... if it's legal.

I'll let others take it from there I am no expert on algae that's for sure.

Thanks for replies, it is getting more and more each day, and I've seen pics where it has covered almost my whole end. Grass carp were added last year but nothing else has has been done

Grass carp aren't fond of algae. Tilapia are much more inclined to dine on it...

Anthropic is correct, my grass carp wont touch floating algae. The will eat pond weed, other weeds and grass but the only algae I have seen them eat is Chara which looks like a weed but really is algae.

RC

In the last week, it definitely has gotten worse, pretty much in fishable at my end of the pond, I tried to remove some manually but it's just back the next day!

Welcome, Ryan. I'm not a pond pro by any means, but it looks like what is called Filamentous Algae (FA around here). You'll typically see that in a pond that has plenty of excess nutrients that aren't being used up by other aquatic plants. It's a nasty nuisance that does make fishing a lot more challenging and it's just ugly.

While this does not address the root cause of the FA being present, you may have good luck with a copper based product such as Cutrine (available at most farm supply stores - Southern States, Tractor Supply, Rural King, etc). Spray it on or sprinkle it on (with the granular option) and in fairly short order it will start to die and sink. T?he trouble is that it will rot on the bottom of the pond and simply add to the organic load in the water and will eventually come back. Manual removal is often the most effective method, but it's a lot of hard work even with some of the fairly simply tools and techniques you'll find here on the forum.

Again, your bigger issue is figuring out why you are getting FA and trying to address that problem. Given the nice looking setting you have there, it's conceivable that some of the neighbors use fertilizer on their yards. That is probably washing into the pond and creating a heavy nutrient load that will encourage growth of FA. Just one point to illustrate what I mean by the root cause.

Again, I'm no expert. These are just things I've learned in reading the forum over the years but there are plenty of professional biologists and pond managers here who will be able to offer you solid advice. In the meantime, start searching the forum for posts about FA. There's a ton here and a ton you'll learn on your own so you can understand what is going on and what questions you need to be asking.

pull a little out and look closely at it. I say that because there are many different kinds of FA. I am fighting a type of FA called water net algae. From the pictures it looks similar.
It is not as stringy as some.
Good luck
Dave