Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Alum question

I just bought some Aluminum Sulphate Hydrated to put in my pond to clear it up. I did a test with Gypsum and it would have taken almost 2 tons in my .33 acre
pond so I decided to go with Alum and Hydrated Lime as a buffer. First is Hydrated Aluminum Sulphate the same as Alum? I did a Slurry test with the alum and it looked like I only needed 120 Pounds. I put 100 pounds of alum and 50 pounds of Hydrated lime. I live in East Tx, so I needed the lime as a buffer.
The jar test worked within minutes but it seemed to coagulate the clay in rather mucky clumps that I am kind of worried about when it settles to the bottom of my pond.What will become of this muck when it falls to the bottom?
Next, The test called for 120 pounds so I figured i would try 2 50lb. bags, but apparently it wasn't enough because my visibility is 8 inches which is what it was when i started. It has been 12 hours since I treated with the alum and I am wondering how long should I give the pond to clear before I add some more. Should I put 50 more ponds or will 20 pounds be enough if I wait.
Please Help!!!

It has now been 5 days since I put the alum in and there has been no change in water clarity. Do I have to put another full dose or if I add 1 more bag of alum will it work. What time frame is too long between doses?

Sorry you didn't get any hits after your first post, dbw.

One of the few things I know about using Alum is that it can be VERY important to monitor the PH while applying it - that fact has been imprinted on me by multiple professionals here, one of whom had to replace a whole pond full of fish after making such a mistake. Knowing you need to use lime as a buffer shows you are ahead of where I'd be, knowledge-wise, in your situation.

ARE there fish in the pond?

Has the pond had any flow-through since the first application? I kinda suspect it might have, based on TX weather reports here recently. If a bunch of water has exited the pond, it probably took that portion of the first Alum application with it.

If you haven't read the Alum threads here yet, hollar and we'll help you find them. You may want to have PH measuring stuff on hand before attempting a reapplication. I'd be scared to use the stuff without monitoring the PH as I went.

DBW,

Your post slipped right by me.

In addition to what Theo said, watch your pond level.

When ponds are very high, the mineral load is low, and fine clay tends to stay in suspension. As the pond drops, your mineral load becomes more concentrated, and the pond will tend to clear.

With that in mind, maybe you should accept a little turbidity when the pond is at full pool. If the water level is in the normal range, you can add a little alum at a time until it just starts clearing. I think that's about what you have in mind.

On the muck:

It isn't nearly as bad as you think. When the alum first settles the clay out of suspension, it appears that the muck will be very deep. That's not the case. It settles out very fast at first, but then slowly compacts over a long period of time to a tiny fraction of what quickly settled out.

I have monitored the PH since I added the Alum and Lime and it has been steady at 7.5. I just got some more Alum and went ahead and did another jar test to see if anything has changed. The slurry test suggests the same amount of alum as I did the 1st time. I would have thought that the slurry test would have suggested that I didn't need as much Alum this time since there should be Alum in my pond all ready.I have all ready put 100 lbs of Alum 1 week ago and the slurry test still says to put in 60lb. per acre/ft. Do I lose the Alum that I put in the pond earlier or will the additional Alum mix with the all ready saturated Alum. I don't know if I should put lime with this next dose of Alum. I was told that 50 lbs. of Hydrated Lime was sufficient for up to 200 lbs of Alum. Is this true or should I put Lime to be safe.

Alum and aluminum sulfate are the same thing. The pH you show should be okay, but the optimum pH for lowest aluminum solubility is 6.5. That is important because as you add alum, it dissociates to form aluminum hydroxide "floc". The aluminum has to be insoluble for this reacted solid to come out of solution, form the floc, and trap the silt solids with it as it settles. The mud balls you see are the reacted aluminum hydroxide with the silt attached. These will settle to the bottom and act like any other silt particles.
The amount of alum needed is dictated by the unique chemistry of your pond. typical minimum dosages are 30 ppm to start to see the reaction taking place. That might be the 100 lb addition rate your jars show. In that case, every addition you make would be at that rate, regardless of previous additions, since the alum reacted, settled, and is no longer in solution to act to reduce subsequent addition rates.
If you did not see effective results the 1st time, it might have been due to the lime addition boosting the pH too high the 1st time, and the resultant pH after reaction was 7.5. The second addition will further lower pH as it takes OH out of the water. Watch the second addition rate closely for too much pH drop. If it drops below 5.0, you will need addition of more lime. it is a juggling act.

Good luck.
Mike

Spinhirne ,

Are you saying that the first dose of Alum did not work because the PH didn't drop enough because of me adding to much Hydrated Lime at the same time of the initial dose. If this second dose of 100lbs. of Alum doesn't work, where do I go from here. My wife will kick me out of the house if I keep throwing 100 lbs. of Alum every week.
Should I increase my dose to 150 lbs. this time or stick with the 100 lbs. I am not going to add Lime this time and I will monitor the PH closely. I guess it would be better to let the Alum work first and then add Hydrated Lime if the PH drops too much than to put it all together like the first time. The PH in my latest jar test with the Alum slurry is 6.8. Should I have Lime handy at the time of Alum application and how low do I let the PH get before I add the lime. I thought that anything under 6.0 is detrimental to the fish in my pond. I am going to add this Alum at 9:00 A.M. July,21, so wish me luck. I will keep yall informed and thanks for everyones help. Please continue to give advice as I need all the help I can get.

Have the lime there and ready to go. The Alum can drop the ph to lethal levels for the fish. See this link.

http://srac.tamu.edu/tmppdfs/144249-460f...f8f10df2f714c88

Here's the first post I ever made.

http://www.pondboss.com/cgi-bin/ubbcgi/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001127

It has been 12 hours since I added the second dose of Alum and it has finally shown some improvement. My visibility is now 14 inches and I hope much more when I wakeup in the morning. As soon as I added the 100 lbs of Alum I noticed the floc happening especially by the aerator. I left the aerator on to disperse the Alum throughout the pond for 8 hours and now I have shut it off to let it start settling.
My PH is at 6.8 so I did not add any Hydrated lime this time.I guess I put just enough Alum where it did not cause my PH to plummet. I am guessing the PH is steady now so I am in no danger of it crashing overnight.
I do have another question about the fish in my pond for the last several months. The fishing has been horrible for some time now. When the pond got muddy initially about 1 year ago,I was still able to go out and catch fish regularly. For the last several months though, fishing has been awful even with live bait for perch. When I do catch a perch or bass they are mostly white with little or no color,I guess due to the lack of sunlight reaching
under the water. Should I be concerned with this awful fishing or should it improve when the water clears. I have never so much as seen 1 dead fish in my pond, so I know they are still kicking, but not eager to take my bait. I just recently started to feed them again with floating food and they are even slow and lethargic eating that. Is this
normal for muddy ponds?

It has now been 24 hours since my last Alum application and my visibility is still 14 inches.I was really hoping for better results when I woke up this morning. I was under the understanding that when you reached the point of seeing the floc,that
that is the point you should stop applying the Alum.
It seems that there is no more floc going on so now what do I do? Do I wait a few days or put some more in as soon as I can get some more. Do I put more next time or stop when I reach the floc again. This is starting to really be aggravating. I feel like if I would have put 200 lbs at once it would be crystal clear by now.I have now put 200lbs in 100lb increments and my jar test showed I only needed 120 lbs. What is the deal? I have got lucky that my fish are still alive, but if I keep adding Alum, I am increasing my chances to kill them.

DBW,

Not to worry about dispersing alum. It diffuses rapidly thorughout your pond in a matter of hours. Just for curiousity, I dumped a big pile in a corner of my pond. In 30 minutes, it was gone. It works by diffusion, the same way a drop of skunk odor can fill a huge gymnasium in 5 seconds.

Usually, chemically induced muddiness isn't nearly as bad as it looks. It looks awful, and like it would smother the fish. That's just not the case. I suspect that fish have to work a little harder to forage in a muddy pond, but I don't think it's real serious. I would guess the main problem with turbidity is poor spawning.

I have purposely thrown 10x the rate of alum than I should have into my small "experimental" pond. The fish and tadpoles never flinched, and still fed and grew happily. Just watch your pH and don't worry. If your pond is fished a lot, maybe your fish are getting a little hook shy.

DBW,
Hope the pond is looking better by now. The treatment may take several days to get full effect. Essentially you are increasing the settling rate of solids through coagulation by bridging solids to larger more dense and faster settling size. The settling rate will be impacted by the water temperature and wave action (wind). If you got 14" visibility in 1 day, wait, see what happens in a week. I would not add more alum for a while for fear of reaching the pKa value where buffering is lost and pH drops quickly. Building alkalinity back in the water through lime addition would allow additional alum if you need more solids reduction. If you can test alkalinity and have means of accurate measurement of small dosages, you can do a jar test that mimics the pond (assuming you have an accurate volume estimate of the pond)and can get an accurate dosage calculation for lime and alum.
Here is something to try that might help. Take a 1 gallon clear bottle of pond water and see how clear it looks when viewed across the bottle. If you can easily see detail (such as large news print) across this water column, then I would let nature do the rest through plancton bloom.
Mike

Powdered or granular limes, alum, fertilizers and chemicals will dissolve and disperse by dissolution and diffusion, BUT if you are applying a chemcial that requires good distribution and it works FAIRLY RAPIDLY due to a fairly even coverage or uniform concentration then if makes good sense to evenly spread, spray or manually distribute the chemical in an evenly as possible manner over the entire treatment area. For example, in my opinion chemicals such as contact killers (copper sulfate), rapidly absorbed chemicals such as diquat or settling agents such as alum these should be evenly dispersed over the treatment area. Label directions will almost always specify that they be applied in a uniform manner.

Clump distributions via diffusion can be acceptable for very slow working chemcials such as some fertilizers and dyes.

It has now been 36 hrs since my last Alum treatment and visibility is at 16" on the edge and 18" in the middle. It seems to cloud up a little bit overnight because in the morning visibility is around 14". Why does it cloud up at night? The pond still looks a little brown at times, but for the most part it the color is turning to more of a light green color. It looks the best in the evening right before dark.I took a sample of pond water last night and let it sit overnight and it didn't clear up any so clarity my be as good as its going to get until I add more Alum. I am going to hold off for a week or two and see it improves any more before another treatment. I fished this morning for about 30 minutes and the fishing still sucks. After I fished,I threw some fish food and they ate fairly well, but nowhere near how they used to before Hurricane Rita came by and screwed things up. Right after the hurricane hit my pond was beautiful and clear and shortly after it went to crap and hasn't been the same since. Hopefully, I am making the necessary steps in getting this pond beautiful again. Thanks for everyone help and advice. Please, don't stop. I feel like I am half way there because of this wonderful site. Thanks everyone...

Interesting thread especially since I can now relate to the muddy water syndrome. With the weather so dry and no rain my pond was down about as low as it ever gets so I decided to dig it bigger. The digging went great but now I have a muddy pond and fish that won't feed. I'm thinking about applying alum so this is an interesting read. But, I see every aspect of using alum discussed other than how you apply it and where to buy it. I've searched high and low and cannot find any place that sells it. Where to you folks buy it?

BZ
Look for a commodity Industrial chemical supplier in your area. Ask for 50lb. bags of Aluminum sulfate (alum).
Mike

BZ,

I get mine from a local nursery. Nurseries sell it to acidify the soil for acid-loving plants.

It costs me around .60 a pound by the 40# bag. I add 1 bag at a time, and I'm up to 450# with no clearing yet. (1.5 acre pond)

Good luck!

Update on my pond:

It has been 1 week since my 2nd dose of Alum and the pond is decent. Visibility is at 18 inches and holding. It still is a little cloudy so I am getting some more Alum this weekend to get visibility up to at least 2 ft. I am going to put enough to create the floc and stop and see what happens. I am getting 200 lbs, but I am putting in 100 lbs at a time because that is the amount that creates the floc. I'll wait 3 days and if the results are not acceptable, I'll put the rest. I really feel like if I would have put more 200 lbs of Alum on the first dose, my pond would be crystal clear right now, but I don't know for sure and my fish would probably all be dead, so I guess better be safe than sorry. So far the increased visibility has not improved the fishing. I used to go out and catch 10 fish in 30 minutes. Right now I can fish 2 hours and not even get a perch to bite live bait. I think they are still alive since I have never seen a dead fish yet. I don't know where the fish are. They do eat sparingly when I throw feed out, but nothing like they used to. I guess as hot as it is here in Tx, they must be really deep in the middle. I have caught a couple of bass since the water cleared and there color has improved from white to green and you can see the stripe now, so I guess I should be happy with that.
BZ,
I got my Aluminum Sulfate from a local feed store that orders it from me. I have a phone number where you can get the Alum directly from Houston if you need it.

It has now been 2 weeks since my last treatment and visibility has actually increased to 22 inches, so I decided to let things lay for a while. I am happy with the clarity. I guess it just took time for the Alum to do its full job. I didn't lose 1 fish, so I am very pleased with my results. I want to thank everyone here for the wonderful advice and for taking the time to answer my questions. Yall are great.