Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants lillies and algae control

Can you have the best of both worlds? I have had bad luck with algae. Tried amurs, some luck, not much, copper sulfate, one pound per acre, not much luck and for a short time. Cutrine granular, some help, not much. Now the real problem. My wife is mad. I killed all of her beautiful hearty lillies. someone told me to use Princep which is the same as aquazine to control algae. It worked great. Lillies and all. I also added aquashade at the same time. I put 10 lbs of Princep in my 1 1/2 acre pond. It seemed to kill everything green. We would like a semi clean pond and water lillies. Is this possible?

I posted this under the general topics forum and someone told me that I would get better response here. I posted it last night, but today I can't find it, so here it is again.

Tom - don't exect anything green to live in your pond when using princep. Water from a princep pond can kill tomato plants one year after application. Princep will also kill most if not all phytoplankton in your pond, then the whole fish food chain at the lower levels crashes. Don't expect many small fish to survive when using princep.

Thanks Bill. Thats what I get when I listen to the wrong people. I have learned a lesson. I am going back to cutrine next year. Will it hurt lillies?

Since Cutrine's active ingredient is copper this should not kill lilies. At heavy doses it may slow them down maybe a little "burning" of newest leaves. Otherwise lilies should reamin okay. Princep does too good of a job at nukeing the plants in the pond; denudes the whole plant community. This is primarily why the company did not try to re-register Aquazine for pond use. It ruined the plant food chain / ecosystem of ponds and EPA would not approve that as safe; too much environmental impact.

Tom, Bill is right on target with his post. An area that also needs to be considered is that the "inert" part of a product like Princep or any herbicide can vary greatly. Most manufacturers use what is called "least cost formulation" for inert carriers or products with their AI (active ingredients) in this case simazine.As long as the inert part is tested and approved (labeled)for land use and field crops (Princep is a common product for fall panicum control in field corn)it is used. If the $$ market dictates a different inert later, than that is used. So you may be looking at a 90% simazine but the total package can vary by manufacturer and vary by batch number from the same manufacturer. This is one of the reasons NOT to use a product in your pond that is not labeled to do so.With products like Simazine being off patent many manufacturers compete for the market from around the world. You have no way of telling what makes up the inert. When these materials are applied according to the label they will breakdown over time and degrade often 1-2 years The same products in water can persist for much longer.Simazine is also a great pre emergent grass control product. Any new lawn trying to get established and irrigated with a Princep treated pond will show the impact from application made in prior years, Ted

Thanks guys. You would think an old man like me would not do stupid things like this. I will stick to pond boss advise only from now on.

hello,ladies,and gents,
new to the board but i have a small pond which is almost overun with lillies what can i do to get rid of them without endangering the fish?

Any of the Sonar formulations will take out the lilies and not harm the fish.