Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Floating algae

Hi, My pond is 9 years old. It is a 3rd acre 12 ft deep pond at its deepest end. this year I am experiencing something new. Floating algae. It looks like little pieces of floating green specs. Its not just on top the water, It's all through, at every depth, making the water look green. I Would think it affects visibility for the fish, affecting how they eat and fishing for us. Any info would be greatly appreciated.

The Pond is stocked with LMB,BG,SC,and somehow "BH cats and GSF"

Sounds like you have a build up of excess nutrients over the years and a strain of algae is taking advantage of those nutrients.

Once nutrients get into a pond (via water running in, added feed or fertilizer, etc) the only ways it gets back out of the pond is by removing fish or removing organic matter (like muck or plants or filamentous algae) or water flowing through and out the overflow.

So ponds tend to, over years of accumulation, get nutrient rich. Then something in nature comes along to take advantage of those nutrients. Unwanted excessive plants or excess algae are symptoms of those excess nutrients.

That is the easy part of the explanation. Curing it? That gets more complex and I will leave that to someone who actually knows.

Floating green specks in the water column are a species of algae that exists as a colony or clump of algae cells. Numerous algae species in a few groups of algae have this growth pattern. My best guess is this one is a specie of bluegreen algae also known to belong to the large group Cyanobacteria. Most all species of algae have a preference for a certain combination of water quality characteristics where they prefer to live and when conditions are best in terms of nutrient combination, they bloom. You have a bloom of some specie of algae.

How do I fix the problem? Will Aeration help?