I’m back again, and I am really at a total loss. At the point of throwing in the towel! (Aka that won’t ever happen) but I’m about there!! Anyway, the past 4 weeks I have been struggling with high ph. 9.6 evening and 8.8-9 in the am night. Before this all started I did what was hopped to be my last alum treatment after stabilizing the banks, but things went south from there. I think I used the wrong kind of hydrated lime, and that caused the initial spike. I lost 90% of my fish and since the pond has just gone down hill. I had high ammonia and nitrites as well as green water within days of the treatment. Presumably from the dead fish I couldn’t get out. Anyway rewind 3 weeks and my ph was still at the same high level, so I added alum to drop it down. It did and all was ok for a few days. I then added micro-lift algae remover along with micro-lift PL. I wanted to really boost the benif bacteria and try and rebuild the ecosystem. All stayed good for about 4 days then my ph went back up a little then the next day a little more and now I’m right back at the same high ph I was. Ammonia and nitrate and pitas are all 0, so that’s one thing I actually got right, but I can’t get the ph to drop… I was going to add baking soda, but idk how much ponds say 1/5 of an acre and around 4-6.5’ deep. I’ll attach a picture from before this nightmare started. Actually the pics are from the beginning of the downward corkscrew! I just don’t know what I’m doing wrong, I also didn’t mention prior but my hardness is through the roof but my alk is showing less than 20ppm. I didn’t add a lot of the “wrong” hydrated lime and only did the 50lbs alum to 20lbs lime, but idk if that is still in there and is just bringing it up. Please help. I really can’t drain it and start over as it’s fed from wetlands below. This has been Very discouraging and defeating.
