Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Water clarity issues

Is it normal for a pond to turn really murky when it gets colder outside?
I’m in Kansas with a 5 acre pond,
The water clarity has been up to 48”, typically around 28”-32”
The last few weeks it’s been under a foot

Do a jar test to see if it's turbidity or planktonic algae if you don't know what is causing it.

Have you had a lot of rainfall lately with little vegetation on the pond banks?

Definitely not turbidity or algae. Quite a bit of rain and 1 heavy snow over the last month
Typically after a rain it clears up in a day or 2 .
I did pump a couple feet of water in it 15 days ago but I’ve done that before and never looks like this
Attached is what it has looks like 95% of the time since June, no matter rain, we’ll or snow

My pond gets turbid in the colder months...mainly because about 50 mallards and wigeon arrive and feed on the Elodea, stirring up the bottom mud.
My Aussie just LOVES to swim out and retrieve the ducks that fall out of the sky after they've met their fate.
Do you have any waterfowl visiting?

Jason, keep an eye out for waterfowl, when I was there it didn't look to me to have enough exposed, clear dirt to muddy it up.
A large amount of run-off could stir it up but ducks are worse. You don't have any substantial biomass of fish yet so it really only leaves the birds and/or run-off.

Mine does just the opposite, it clears up considerably in the colder months, every year.
I had a lot of green oak timber and tree tops and brush piles from logging in it when it filled up, so I had a little brownish tint to it for several yrs from what I figured were tannins, but every winter it cleared up considerably.
This last summer tho the visibility stayed a lot better then before, I can see a lure or a fish at 3' pretty easily. and right now probably even further then that. I would like to get a sechi disk and see just how far I can see it but havent.

That is what I assumed this pond would do. We just bought the property the first of May so I don't have any back history on it. During the spring and summer when I pumped water
the pond got more clear, not murky so I would almost rule that out
I'm wondering if it could be all off the vegetation decomposing as 1 month ago it was very clear (almost too clear) with a lot of Cara and Pond weed. Today all of that
is gone and the water has turned murky.
I guess it could be water fowl, but IMO, with the shore line being so steep and the number of geese and ducks compared to the volume of water it's highly unlikely.
Since I'm new to this whole pond and fish deal it is very interesting and I always wonder what is going on when something changes


Make yourself a disk, I just painted a 8" round piece of aluminum and attached it to a wooden broom handle. Very easy to do

Could be the underwater plants dying off, freeing up nutrients for phytoplankton. You have to determine whether the "murkiness" is due to growing phytoplankton or suspended clay. They are different and are an indicator of different things. AND are treated differently.

So we got a lot of rain last night and maybe you can see in the photo, the turbidity from water run off.
Very obvious the mud color from the shore to about 20’ out. Pretty sure I can rule that out
I have been told since day 1 to be patient and let nature do it’s thing but I always get curious and want to learn

A little update to rule out Turbidity, The water still looks very abnormal to me, Kind of a grey/brown color but I went out in the boat yesterday and
the clarity with the disk is somewhere between 22"-25" which isn't far off from its norm. I'm just so used to it being fairly clear looking or greenish
when there are blooms. Not really concerned, it's just something new for me and its been going on for about a month now.

Plant die off hit here after the first hard frost and we got the same murky color. It happens here every year.

Update to this : We had a very hard freeze, 6” of ice over the entire pond for about 10 days.
Yesterday the last of the ice melted and the water is back to being clear, in the mean time the Algae has become crazy, big bright green patches of algae blooming everywhere, you can really see it growing along the bottom of the pond and some of it has started floating toward the top, I would have assumed the below freezing temperatures would have killed a lot of it, granted it has been upwards of 70* every day with sunshine

I have had filamentous algae grow under the ice.

Cody Note - There are cold water species and warm water species with some thriving in 'luke' warm. Different algae species species have evolved into all types of water.