Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Very Muddy Pond In Louisiana

(what I noticed was was how light in color it was.)

Bass in muddy water are very light in color and bass in clear water are very dark.

If you pour in the alum without turning it into a slurry, it will sink to the bottom and get covered with what little debris falls to the bottom. This renders it effectively useless as it will not mix. You have to dissolve a 50 pound bag of alum in about 55 gallons of water and spray the alum on to be truly effective. You could pour it into a trolliny motor prop wash but spray is by far the most effective. I use a 40 gallon ATV boomless sprayer that sends a 30 foot spray.

I didn't have that problem at all in my pond. I can dump a 50# bag in shallow water, and the white blob of alum will be completely diffused and gone in 3-4 hours.

Bobad, thats true in the shallower areas since there is FAR less suspended clay and it is "mixed" (poorly) with the water from wind/wave action. In water deeper than 5 feet it is virtually useless to add alum that is not in a slurry since it can't mix well enough. Depending on how much is in suspension (Assume a lot otherwise alum isn't really needed) The deeper the water, the thicker the sediment cover and the less alum dissolved. this quote was copied from this website Langston Universty/Aquaculture---Clearing Muddy ponds

"How to apply

Apply alum to the pond in calm weather. Alum must be applied evenly over the surface of the pond and rapidly mixed into the water column. For small ponds, make a slurry of 1 part alum to about 10 parts water and apply to the surface. In larger ponds it is more effective to use a boat with motor and pour the slurry into the prop wash as the boat is guided back and forth across the pond.

Clearing should begin in a few hours and continue for several days."

You need to make the alum slurry so it can "fall" through the water column slowly to be the most effective. Alum will dissolve but does not mix with water_that is why it is called a slurry. If you pour in the alum without turning it into a slurry, it will sink to the bottom and get covered with what little debris falls to the bottom. This renders it effectively useless as it will not mix.

FWIW Alum is best sourced from larger chemical suppliers and averages 32.5 to 37 cents per pound.

Here is great magazine...

It is imteresting one...

Thanks for including me...
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For you pondbosses who already have an aeration system, I found this site using something they call "Floc-Logs". That's the beginning and end of what I know about them, their costs or effectivness though.
http://www.siltstop.com/Pond-Lake.htm

They look promising - we have some in our lab that we will be using for case studies this fall when things slow down a bit. We tried to clear a couple of sites this spring using the floc logs, but ran into some variables that affected the outcome. I will keep you guys posted on our results.

Thanks Sue. We always like to hear from you on new products. Please post what you learn.

Rainman, I will plan to use my ATV sprayer to treat my 1/10 acre pond. Did you have any problems with the alum settling out of the water and causing a problem cleaning out the sprayer tank? I plan to mix the alum in a 5 gal bucket and then dumping it into the sprayer tank an leave the mixer pump running on the solution in the big tank as I add the mixed solution 5 gallons at a time. I think ly boomless sprayer has a 35 gal tank. It is a Tractor Supply sprayer. 30 gallons of water is 240#s. If I mix 25# of aluminum sulfate in this amount of water that seems about right don't you think? I will do this 25# treatment and then wait a week to see how it looks before a second treatment. The pond is only stocked with a couple quarts of shiner minnows a couple months ago so I don't have a big concern with fish die off and don't think this will be a problem. Will the treatment continue to work over time or does the treatment just parcipitate out the suspended clay and settle it to the bottom one time? The water has looked like light brown milk since it was dug over a year ago. I don't think the water is being stirred up , just never settled and cleared up. RubyCreekTed

RubyCreekTed, Welcome to the forum!

I put about 5 gal of pond water in my sprayer then dumped the 50lb bag of alum in and mixed it pretty well by swirling my hand around in the sprayer and then continue to fill the sprayer with pond water while mixing (watch your arm on the sprayer opening edge, it can be sharp!). Not all of it will dissolve in the 35 gallons, but I refill the sprayer with pond water when it is half full and continue spraying. The alum WILL get hot if it clumps up badly, but not enough to burn. No chemical burn danger either, the acidic PH is like vinegar. I doubt you will get much improvement with 25lbs unless your pond is about 2 feet deep. 150lbs would be closer to enough.

If you don't get ALL the suspended clay out, the positive charge effect from the alum will be quickly neutralized and the clay will re-suspend as fish swim along the bottom and stir it back up. It is virtually impossible to over treat the pond and the extra alum is very good insurance. Also, unless your ph is around 8, add hydrated lime at 1/2 the weight of the alum to be sure to avoid too much drop in ph. The ph drop is WAY over rated as for danger though, the warnings are more of a legal CYA for the advisors.

Alum has been in my spayer for 3 years without clogging. The last use was to clear N&Cponds, pond about 2 months ago. I'm sure your sprayer is made by Fimco, It sounds exactly like mine. 30 foot spray spread? I adjusted my nozzles to spay about 5-8 feet wide and just circled the pond gradually getting tighter and concentrated the most spray in the deeper parts of the pond. If you use enough alum, the pond will be cleared completely in under 24 hours. If it takes longer, not enough alum has been used. I have read that alum, applied properly and not flushed out , will be effective for up to 15 years. If you get it ALL settled quickly though, it should never be a problem again, unless you have clay continuing to run into the pond. For runoff, you will need a grass buffer strip.

Best of luck and be sure to take before and after pics to post!

PS
I sent you a PM (private message), Check the "My Stuff" header at the top of the thread.

CIMDMA -
I know a firm in the N. Houston area who specialize in clearing up muddy ponds. Name of the firm is Clearwater Consulting. They will analyze the water chemistry and provide their recommendations as to amout of product needed. They have a website whereby you can email them. Hope this helps.
DBRs

So far so good. After spraying in 50lbs of Alum two weeks ago with a large capacity spray pump (empty's a 55 gallone drum in 15 seconds, to fast), and seeing no results, I decided to use my 35 gallon Tractor Supply special and slowly desolve the alum and then use a fine spray to move around the pond in a jon boat. This worked very well. Two water samples two hours later, one was completly clear and the other was only cloudy. Both samples with heavy clay bottoms.
I believe that I have the most suspended clay in the world that could set a record for suspended clay, ZERO visiblity. This is a newly dug pond less then one year old, 150 ft across by 18 ft deep. Presently have 7 ft (darn drought here in Texas and Ike passed us by).
So, I beleive I have wasted the first 50lbs and hope the 25lbs just sprayed, will be enough.
Plan to spray in 5 50lbs bags of Lime to help the PH out.
Tip, never add water to alum, it turns to a paste and sets up. Always add alum to large amount of water and stir till it desolves.
Hope to add fish next month.

Ken, be careful with the lime. That is quite a bit if it is Hydrated lime and might lower the Ph too fast. If you are usin Ag lime you'll be fine and there is no need to try to dissolve it. For your amount of colloidal clay, you may need another 2-3 hundred pounds of alum for good results.

BTW PICS!!!!

Rainman, your correct, as I see alot of your posts are. Added three bags of Hydrated Lime and 25lbs of Alum. Next day, pond looked like the Carribean. To much Lime for sure. Over a three week period we have added a total of 5 bags hydrated lime and 100 lbs of Alum. The results over this time has been for the dark clay color to turn light brown, but still suspended. This last introduction took the pond over the top and it cleared within 12 hrs.
So, took a water sample from the test kit for my pool. Can someone help with the interpretation of the results.
Alkalinity: 100 ppm, Great for a pool, but for a pond??.
PH: Off the chart (High), took 15 drops to bring it (lower it) into correct range.
Several months ago, my son caught a bass over in the neighbors pond, 6 or 7 inches. He went and put this bass into our pond. Since we could not see an inch into our pond, we had no idea if this guy survived. Well, low and behold, there he is swimming around the pond with no place to hide now that you can see to the bottom of the pond. What I noticed, he was slow with lot's of red blood markings around all his fins and lips. I suspect we gave him the chemical shock of his life.

Ken, I don't know much about hardness, alkalinity, etc. IIRC, 100 PPM is pretty close to the middle of where it should be. Ewest cam give you the best range, but I THINK the high range for alkalinity is 200PPM. As for the Ph, since the bass is alive, leave the Ph alone! You can easily get into a tug-of-war with acids and bases, especially since Ph can change so much during the day.

I don't understand why you added so much hydrated lime. If you were having a low Ph problem, AG lime would have been better. Too much Hydrated acts almost instantly and is lethal to fish from the shock it causes. FORTUNATELY, hydrated lime is NOT long acting and the Ph should return to it's normal range within a couple to a few weeks.

I advise you to monitor the Ph every couple weeks for a few months just to insure it does NOT fall below 6.0. At a Ph of 6.0, aluminum dissolves and becomes toxic to almost everything, including humans. If you want to be 100% safe from that, I strongly advise adding AG LIME to act as a buffer. Also, it is not possible to over apply ag lime as the Ph will max out in a very safe range.

Good job Rainman. Ken I hope this helps a little.

See these.

SRAC 460 Control of Clay Turbidity in Ponds


SRAC 464 Interactions of pH, Carbon Dioxide, Alkalinity
and Hardness in Fish Ponds

http://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm?catid=25


Fish and other vertebrates have an

average blood pH of 7.4. Fish

blood comes into close contact

with water (1- or 2-cell separation)

as it passes through the blood vessels

of the gills and skin. A desirable

range for pond water pH

would be close to that of fish

blood (i.e., 7.0 to 8.0). Fish may become

stressed and die if the pH

drops below 5 (e.g., acidic runoff)

or rises above 10 (e.g., low alkalinity

combined with intense photosynthesis

by dense algal blooms –

phytoplankton or filamentous

algae).



A desirable range of

total alkalinity for fish culture is

between 75 and 200 mg/L CaCO3.



Ideally, an aquaculture pond

should have a pH between 6.5 and

9 as well as moderate to high total

alkalinity (75 to 200, but not less

than 20 mg/L) and a calcium hardness

of 100 to 250 mg/L CaCO3.

Many of the principles of chemistry

are abstract (e.g., carbonate-bicarbonate

buffering) and difficult

to grasp. However, a fundamental

understanding of the concepts and

chemistry underlying the interactions

of pH, CO2, alkalinity and

hardness is necessary for effective

and profitable pond management.

There is no way to avoid it; water

quality is water chemistry.