Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Water Clarity Experiments

I have read on this message board many different suggestions for improving water clarity. So I have recently performed several jar tests on my pond water and I would be interested in hearing everyone’s opinions on the results (so far).

Water clarity is currently about 1 foot and has a greenish/brown tint.

I did the jar test with 7 jars; control (nothing added), lime, copper sulfate, gypsum, crushed up drywall, vinegar, bleach (yea, I know). I added about 1 teaspoon of each.

After 48 hours, here are the results so far.

Control: No change in color or clarity. Appears as if algae might be growing on glass.
Lime: water looks like milk. Clarity much worst.
Copper Sulfate: Water very clear with blue tint. Brown goopy stuff floating on top.
Gypsum: Bad. Looks like coffee. (See note below).
Drywall: No change in color or clarity. Same as Control.
Vinegar: A slight improvement in clarity and a lighter shade of green/brown.
Bleach: Crystal Clear and no color. A small amount of floating brown material.

Because the clarity improved with Copper Sulfate and Bleach, can I conclude that my poor clarity is not caused by suspended non-organic material such as clay runoff but from living organic organisms in the water such as algae and/or plankton? Do you concur? I have fish so I don’t want to add copper sulfate. Any other suggestions to improve clarity in this case?

Because I saw some improvement with vinegar, should I add hay or barley balls to my pond?

Gypsum: The only gypsum I could find in my area was garden gypsum that came in a 40lb bag and looked like little brown 1/8” dia. Balls. This cannot be the right stuff.

Are there other jar tests I can do? What other conclusions can be made from these result so far?

Comments?

I concur.

Sounds like your turbidity is plankton bloom.

Only way I know to clear your water up is to reduce fertility. Don't add any fertilizer, of course. If you have horses or cows in your watershed, do what you can to reduce runoff from the area. If your fish are healthy, reduce or stop feeding for a while.

A teaspoon per quart of gypsum is a very high dosage. The brown sludge caused by garden gypsum is normal and harmless. It's probably caused by the binder used to pelletize it. I've used huge amounts in a small minnow pond and the fish are not affected. In a pond, the wave action would soon break up the sludge, or it wouldn't form in the first place.

Day 3 in my experiment.
All the jars are the same except for the Lime jar. The lime settled to the bottom and the water cleared quite a bit. About the same as the vinegar jar. In both cases, I'm assuming that the water cleared because the plankton couldn't live in those environments and died.

I do not fertilize but almost all the water entering the pond is from run-off from fields, yard, and garden. I can't do much about that.

Is there something else I can add to the pond that will slow down plankton/algae growth without hurting my fish? (sunfish/blue gill).

How about microbes?

Would small fish like FHM help? How about invertebrates? Are there any plants that would help clear up the water somehow?