Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Alum Kicks Clay Butt!

I just got done using the liquid form and my water is probably 75% better.

Last year we had a drought and a steep part of my watershed area got burnt and the grass died. This winter/ fall we had a lot of rain and a few gully washers. This proceeded to erode ground and empty a lot of the orange clay into the pond. The 3/4 acre pond turned a muddy brown color that I just couldn't live with anymore. Clarity was at around 6" at best, and I feared the fish could not hunt.

After reading about alum on here I contacted my pond guy and all he uses is liquid. He reccomended I use 16 gallons. I set up the boat with an electric trolling motor and slowly poured the liquid into the prop wash. I'd then go back at the same pass with powdered lime and do the same dumping it in the prop wash.

The first treatment did about a 20% clearing so I went back and did it again and it's about 75% and getting better every hour. I paid $8 a gallon for the liquid aluminum sulfate. I killed one LMB but no other fish seem to have been affected.

I live in central Illinois, Champaign. Does anyone know where I can buy Alum?

Check the local FS dealer. I believe there is one in Urbana.

Alum sulfate has increased significantly since this article was written...any ideas of where to shop, I'm finding the 4 lb bags from $7to $12 per bag. I just applied 10 bags and no success...

I will be adding alum/lime next week at 82 alum and 40 lime. I have had low visibility of 10 or 11 inches over the past 5 months which started with a dense algae bloom back around the first of Oct. I have done a jar test and it takes 6 to 7 days to clear. The water seems to be cloudy from some plankton and some clays. If I use some of Rainmans numbers @ 200 lbs per acre foot, it comes out to 81 sks of alum for the treatment. I am running another test right now using a 5 gal bucket of pond water where I added a qtr teaspoon of the crystalline alum and will ck the outcome today and will make adjustments if needed. The calculations were based on a pond that google measures as 3.12 acres with 6.5 average depth. And I came up with 20.25 acre foot. Any one see something I am not seeing here?

I got lucky when searching for alum and found 40 sks for free from a local water treatment plant. I just had to go by and pick it up. They converted to liquid and had 40 sks they wanted to get rid of, so they gave it to me. The cost for the additional pallet or 42 sks is $.64 per pound or $32.00 per 50# sk. I will be adding some fish to the pond soon and so I thought if I was going to use the alum, it would be better to use it before I add any more fish. Thoughts?

Sweet deal on the free sacks! Did you cold call the manager or purchasing agent?

My only thought is if it clears in 6 days - perhaps the main issue is mechanical disturbance of the clay?

It was a sweet deal forsure. When I was looking for supplier for cost comparisons is when I found the water treatment plant that had converted to liquid and wanted to get rid of the sk material they had on hand. And as far as what has kept my water cloudy, Bill Cody described it as detritus. Dead stuff stirred off the bottom of the pond. I don't have an answer why or how and have looked for the answer but have not come up with how, when or what caused it to go from a nice 18 to 21" of nice olive green water(for 3 yrs) to what it is today at 10 to 12" of cloudy water. It is possible that high numbers of crawfish are there and with low visibility they could be thriving because the lmb can't see them to eat them or it could be the diffusers but they have not been turned on since Dec. We have received good rain events the past 30 days and it has been windy and I think that is contributing to all this now but prior to that, I could do a jar test and the water would not clear at all. And that is why I am trying the alum, out of frustration for the most part.

That is a pretty decent retail price on the alum also! If your water volume estimate is right, and you disolve the alum well before spraying, it should clear well in a few hours and max clarity will be achieved overnight.

I have decided that I would rather have somewhat muddy water. Last year my #1 pond had 4-5 foot visibility late summer, and the FA was horrible. The forage pond had 6 inch visibility and no FA. To me, the muddy water is better than FA. Guess I need Koi or something to muddy up my #1 pond.

Rainman, the past two days we have had some good rain at the pond, about 3". And I ran a test with the water using Alum with a five gallon bucket, I added 1/2 tsp. I think that is 3 grams, if my scales are accurate, and the water cleared pretty good in a short time but when I added 3/4 of a tsp it went to clear water in a couple of minutes. So if you were to see that, how or what way would you go, lighter or stronger concentration? My pH went from an 8 to a 6.5, so would you stay with the two alum to one hydrated lime when adding the treatment? And to double ck on my volume, 6.5' average depth with 3.12 acre, would that be 20.25 acre foot'? With the pond a full right now, if the average depth is 7' instead of 6.5' how much difference would that make when treating the pond?

Had anyone tried broadcasting the alum by hand? My water is generally clear except when someone or a dog goes swimming. That's stirrs up the water pretty bad. My water settles on its own, just takes an hour. Could I simply throw the alum by hand into the areas where people swim? It's not going to do anything on its way down as there is nothing for it to floc until it gets stirred up.

Thanks

Alum is heavier than water and will sink...it will sink even faster, while providing almost no benefit if broadcast dry.

Alum will help the stirred up mud settle out faster, but only until the alum is washed into deeper areas that won't get agitated.

If fish are present, and depending on the grade slope, the alum get pushed to deeper water pretty quickly (days)

What do you recommend for a pond that only has a problem when someone goes swimming? I imagine treating the whole pond won't help since the deeper water doesn't get stirred up?

I don't need the alum to treat the whole water column and settle anything on its way down to the bottom. I just need to treat the mud on the bottom which is why I thought dry broadcasting might work, but I don't want to waste money on something that won't help.

I have 5'+ visibility now (no algae bloom yet) so I don't have an everyday muddy issue like some have. Would lime or gypsum be better?

It would probably be better if you put something down to cover the mud in the swimming area, like coarse sand or pea gravel over a layer of landscape cloth to hold the sand/gravel out of the mud.

Treating the area by dry broadcasting will not hurt anything...I just don't know how long it may help. Ag Lime and or gypsum add minerals to the water and won't help with what you hope to gain.

If you have several kids and critters feet sloshing around in mud and clay, there really is no way to avoid muddying the water.

Hello all! Longtime lurker, first time poster.

I have a small pond with lots of suspended clay. I dug it out about 8 months ago, so there is little life in it.

My pond is probably about 200 feet long with an average width of 50 feet and an average depth of probably 8 feet.

I am planning on treating the pond with alum. Preliminary results from mixing a teaspoon in a 2 gallon bucket have been very promising.

My questions are:

1.) When I apply alum, is it ok to use only the slurry mixture and spread it evenly across the surface of the pond evenly (with greater time spent on deeper sections)? I work at a refinery and treat water as part of my job, and typically we use mechanical agitation to mix our coagulants and flocculants with the target water well enough to clump up the suspended solids. I don't really have a lot of great methods of agitating the water in the pond; but I've read this is not necessary.

2.)What is preferable: mixing the slurry with clean fresh water from my municipality or pond water? I would think the clean water would create a better "neat" chemical mixture.

3.)Where can I get aluminum sulfate and hydrated lime at in southwest Louisiana for a fair price? I bought a 50lb test bag of alum through a Walmart vendor for around $38 plus $27 shipping. I havn't looked for hydrated lime yet.

Twar,
talk to member TJ about soilfloc. It works great for leaks, but in your case, it also will 'firm' up the bottom by locking the sediments into the polymer and pulling it down into any pores in the bottom. Where I have put soilfloc in the shallows you can hardly push a stick into the sand as it is so rock hard and when you walk on it you get very little puffing of sediment from the bottom despite a sandy bottom that used to do this.

A single unit or even a half a unit as a test dose in the shallows might achieve what you are looking for.

No personal experience with alum but want to say welcome to PB.

Thanks! Look forward to giving this a try. If I don't get any responses soon I think I'll just go out there and give it the old college try lol

I do not have trouble with visibility...my water is very clear. I'm wanting to tie up phosphorus to help with my FA problem. If I were after that how much alum would I be looking at needing? Similar to pond clearing...or more/less? I can get alum down the road from a poultry litter treatment place for $15/bag.

Thanks

Peach...about 100 pounds per acre foot of water will bind the dissolved P....how much does that $15 bag weigh?

50# from what I could tell. That may be the friend discount. I was helping his son with his welding and asked. The have a poultry litter treatment service. I saw the pallet today so I asked. Would I still do the hydrated lime at 50# per acre foot?

I also read that once the alum binds the phosphorus, it could get stired back up from the bottom? Is this true or is reintroduction from outside the bow the only way?

A question about alum, anybody use the granular form? Thats all i was able to buy.....need alot more. If so, does it dissolve very quickly in water to form the slurry or is it a chore? Thinking 55 gallon bucket and trolling motor method to mix it.

I used a trolling motor inside a tote and that mixed up pretty well. I used some granular and some powered. Using the trolling motor, it seemed to mix up about the same.

I would like to try the alum process on my pond. I am curious:

1) Does anyone know of a source fo alum (and lime) in the NW Ohio area?

2) Is there a standard dosage chart? Going through the thread it seems there's lots of variations.

My pond is .2 acre, average depth of 6' so I calculate this at approx 1.2 acre/feet. Also our pond has bottom aeration and is our source of fun and drinking water so I want to be sure it's safe to use alum. It seems that it is a natural way of clarification from what I have read.

Thanks in advanced!