Thanks for all the replies, I appreciate it.
What are your goals for the pond?
Good question, my primary goal is just to have an attractive backyard pond. Fish would be nice, but which fish doesn't matter so much as just having a nice looking pond. Fish grandkids could catch would be nice, but not necessary.
No expert here, but I think it is filamentous algae, the water is pretty clear, even with the algae, no green soup look.
Do you fish the nearby streams and lakes? (If so, then you may be able to hand stock your pond. You can put in a few small ones as Theo says above, and then catch them a year or two later after they have grown larger.)
Not a bad idea, and I have already tried doing it a little. Nearby lakes have warm water species like bluegill, perch, crappie, bass, etc. However they warm in summer to 70+ Nearby streams are colder and mostly trout. I put a few perch in last fall, but no sign of them now.
The algae is a big problem. I assume the flow-through makes it worse, a fresh supply of nutrients all the time... About 2 weeks ago I did the manual removal, with lots of help. We filled the 1/3 yard bucket on my tractor 24 times... that's about 8 yards of algae. I had cleaned the pond in the fall, so this is just what grew over winter. When I saw it coming back I tried copper sulfate, the first couple of times it didn't work. Then about a week ago I added enough copper sulfate to result in about 2 ppm as CuSO4, my aerator mixed it pretty well. That worked, pretty much wiped the algae out, but now just a week later its coming back. So one of my objectives is to find as many algae eaters as possible. Don't like the idea of the heavy does of copper once a week forever...
As to emergent plants I have tried planting lillie pads, but so far not much luck getting them established. I do have some cattails, but raking the algae out is hard on them.
I've attached a couple of pictures, one last year showing algae, one today. The pond was at it's lowest level in last year's picture, I am able to drain down to that point, but not completely. This year I have it about as full as I feel safe making it.
All suggestions appreciated.
