Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Cold tolerant FA species?

Hello PB gang. I had a new occurrence at our pond this spring. Normally, any living FA mats we see in the fall are killed with frost/freezing and ice formation. So in the spring we start with clean edges on the pond. This past fall, I noticed the FA mats didn't seem to die with the fall freeze, and could actually see FA on the surface and frozen in the ice this year, which was a new thing. Then at ice off, those same FA mats didn't sink and are (mostly) greening back up. So instead of a clean edge to start the spring, we already have 30% edge coverage or more. Very disappointing way to start the spring. We have a very old (eutrophic) pond, and always fight FA. However, we've learned to get pond dye in at ice off, and keep adding every month or so, to cut down light penetration in the shallow edges. This helps to a degree. We then put down copper granules around the edges right away, to hit the FA mats that appear on the bottom, before they get growing and any surface mats form. Next, we use liquid cutrine plus to spray any surface mats that do appear, and repeat this about monthly. With this combo, we can keep our edges fairly clean (not perfect, but not much FA). After reading a bit and working the PB forum archives/threads, I am worried we have developed a copper resistance and/or cold resistant strain of FA. Anyone with experience with something similar?
I am hope Bill Cody will see this post and chime in. I almost just direct messaged him, but posted my question instead, so any possible solutions could be shared with everyone.

Unrelated side note, saw 7 wood ducks on the pond this morning! I have our duck boxes re-set and ready for takers. I might try and stream from our duck box with the camera again this year.

Topic: "" Nutrients and siltation from over 60 acres of run off from row crop Ag fields flowing into our pond.""

You are in a tough place managing a pond with constant incoming agri-nutrients. This creates a BIG plant problem for a pond. Been there done that. As you know nutrients grow good row crops and when those nutrients are in your pond they do the same thing to grow bigtime crops of pond algae & plants. As long as the watershed feeds the pond and remain in the pond, the pond will want to grow a plethora of green stuff. By continually suppressing the FA you are allowing an accumulation of a bigger and bigger total nutrient sink accumulation to develop in the pond. This will cause the pond to want to respectively grow more and more green as time passes. What grows is basically determined by the historically accumulated and fresh input load of nutrients.

If the pond water is usually clear (4-5ft+) the balance of N:P is favoring FA and not phytoplankton. Some forms or types of FA are known Phosphorus Hogs. High amounts of phytoplankton will usually shade the water enough and starve the FA to a point that FA would be suppressed. If the water has low visibility due to silt turbidity, then the nutrient load is very high to create overloads of FA from just the shallow illuminated area / zone of turbid water while noticeably less or none grow in deeper low light areas.

Since we do not know the specific type of FA that is causing the problem, we do not know if the current type is the same specie/s ? type that was prevalent in earlier years. Constantly suppressing the FA with the same annual procedure likely allows the FA to adapt and/or resort to or develop a new introduced specie to the same old treatment methods or it could form a more tolerant strain or type of FA.

I had a very similar pond originally built that received similar agri-runoff. I then rebuilt the 35 yr old pond and rerouted the inlet water. This noticeably reduced a lot of my pond problems. In your situation, I would explore various methods of nutrient abetment for ways to consume and bind excess nutrients that would could be bound then ideally be removed. IMO some form of plant excess growth will always occur and need to be dealt with as long as the high inflow of agricultural nutrients annually enters the pond.

Once nutrients are introduced into a non-flow through pond some sort of harvest or binding is about the only way nutrients can be actually removed. Compare the amount of agri-harvest used on the 60acre watershed and then transfer a similar amount of needed crop harvest work for the respective acreage of your pond.

IMO constant, regular, and continual chemical binding of a constant high input of nutrients is or will eventually be detrimental to the pond ecosystem as a whole.

Floating plant islands are a good non-algaecide possibility, however with the high annual nutrient input to the pond a lot of island surface area would be needed to see a good impact. Homework needed for island surface area vs nutrient load/s. Nature demands that something will utilize the available nutrients. I would check with the floating island's Bruce Kania to see if they harvest any plant materials from their floating islands other than harvesting just fish as their form of nutrient removal / abatement. Bob Lusk has been associated with Bruce Kania for a few of the PB mag articles. There are several good videos on Youtube for building low cost large floating islands.

Congrats on your wood duck arrivals. I always enjoy your posts showing them thriving at your place!

As to the FA doing better over the winter this year, there are many, many possible causes.

If it was a new pond, I would expect that the age-related, inevitable increase in captured nutrients caused the change. However, for an old pond it is less likely that you finally, and permanently crossed some important threshold.

In my (non-expert) opinion, it was probably some random weather-related event that helped your FA survive through the winter. For example, perhaps you got heavy rains that occurred right after the fertilizer was applied to your adjacent ag lands, and you therefore received an extra "dose" of fertilizer.

Unfortunately, if no FA is ever physically removed from your watershed, then even after your spring treatments this year, those extra nutrients will still remain in your pond.

I would follow your regular spring protocols, and if you do get some heavy mats, maybe pull some out and deposit them outside of your watershed basin that feeds your pond.

Also, maybe add a few more FA combat protocols. Can you put in some tilapia if you can get a split load from a PB buddy in your area? Can you plant some attractive emergent plants that will steal some of the nutrients from the FA? My wife likes that one, and says she would do most of the care if I can ever get my ponds re-done. There are several other reasonably priced options in the FA threads.

(I don't know about cold-tolerant FA. Perhaps our plant experts will know. However, once established, I think your eradication efforts would probably be very similar to normal FA procedures?)

Good luck on your efforts to have a nice pond this warm season!

You could look into using Phoslock as a more feasible option.

I hope Bill sees this. I'd love to know what temp ranges the different FA species have.