Our 1/4 acre cool water pond is choked with elodea and FA. Each year the issues worsen. The pond bottom out to 7 feet deep is solid with vegetation. I drag elodea from the pond many times per summer. FA come with it. It is removed from the pond drainage area.
I do feed about one 50 pound bag of Optimal and 10 to 12 pounds of dried meal worms each year. The incoming water irrigation water is delivered from a very low nutrient source, the McPhee reservoir on the relatively infertile Dolores river. Although we have several acres of watershed, virtually no runoff occurs in this very arid climate.
16 years ago when we bought this place, there appeared to be no underwater vegetation and no FA. It's our educated guess that the former owners treated the pond heavily with herbicides. There were a few undernourished LMB and YP present.
It seems to me that locking up phosphorus could be a really benefit for us to limit the vegetation growth, making the chore of removing FA and elodea a simpler one. More time for fishing, too!
So, can anyone advise us on the several phosphorus binding products available? There seem to be several competing companies selling different chemicals. What have You used?