Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Is this Phytoplankton?

Is this phytoplankton? If not, do you recognize it? I recently got my aerator up and running, and started to notice this after a HUGE rain. May or may not have shown up with the rain, that just happens to be when I noticed it. Just curious!

mostly its little tiny things like you see in the cup picture, but in a few areas there are little clumps of it.

Thanks for your input!

Do they look like little green wood splinters?

Yes bill, thats a pretty good description of them!

They sort of looked like that but the image was too small to see it well. Okay -- they are Aphanizomenon flos-aquae - a filamentous Cyanobacteria aka bluegreen algae, that when abundant forms green surface films.

Thanks for the follow up. Is this something I should be concerned about? I read a little about bluegreen algage, and of course got mixed results... from no biggie to fatally toxic.

There isn't much "floating", its mostly suspended throughout the water. My dogs drank the water over the last few days and have had no ill effects. I'm planning to keep them away until I know a little more now.

There are various farm fields where we live to where runoff would end up in our pond, and we had some flash-flooding that causes insane amounts of water to flow in and out of the pond last saturday (the 6th). The aerator has been running 24x7 for about 2 weeks now after the 8 day startup. before that -- according to the neighbors, it probably hasn't been run in at least 2 years.

A couple days before the big rain, I had sprayed a combination of Cutrine-Plus and Weedtrine D to kill of a small amount some FA and American Pondweed that was growing.

just kinda new to all this, and not really sure what i'm looking at or looking for most of the time! All the help is much appreciated!

What does a beneficial phyto-plankton bloom look like in comparison?

ninety6, if you're up for a road trip next Saturday Bill will be one of the speakers at the seminar at my place.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=339465#Post339465

Just a quick update in case anyone else has a similar issue in the future.

I did a lot of research on blue-green algae (cyanobacteria). It CAN be toxic, my bloom didn't seem to be. Better safe than sorry -- if you have this -- do not use your water for anything at all until the issue is gone (unless you have a way to test and verify its safe). It also releases (can release ?) toxins as it dies -- so you can't treat it -- if you kill it all, it could kill your fish, so you just have to let it run its course (for weeks or months?! possibly).

first, after a huge rain with a ton of runoff from neighboring fields and roads (a known factor in BG Algae blooms), this stuff appeared as pictured (tiny green "splinter" looking things floating all around in the water - not just on top).

After a week or so, i started having white/green/brown foam/lines/floating scum around the edges of the pond. parts of the surface almost looked like a very thin oil slick. Floaties still there.

After another week or so -- the stuff started to mat up around the edges. I just kept an eye on it, raked out what i could reach, and what stuck to the rake.

Now, about 3 weeks later the population of the green floaties has slowly dwindled, and the last two days, using the white cup test (pictured in original post) i have no more "splinters". As the stuff has died, it mats up on the edges of the pond, and I still have some matting and scummy stuff on the top of the water on the edge, so I'm continuing to rake that out. I'd imagine it should be gone in another week or so now that there are no more visible floaties. I'll be keeping an eye out for floaties, and scraping the scum/mats off until they are gone.

Thanks to BILL for the help in ID-ing the problem.