Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants When will this crap die?

So my once lovely and picturesque small pond has been growing increasingly covered with watermeal and FA for the past month. The watermeal now moves around like a huge mass, shifting with the breeze. When it's sitting still, it covers probably 65 - 70% of the pond surface. The FA is floating all around, too, making fishing a pain since you have to clean the lure off after nearly every cast now. I'm going with tilapia from Rainman next Spring, but for now am wondering when this stuff is gonna die off and I can reclaim the visually relaxing clear water that I once had. Any thoughts?

Is it possible to remove the stuff manually? When it dies is just creates more biomass for more algae to grow.

Cold does not kill WM at least not in the south (not sure about WV). What about the rope method (a form of manual removal ) as 2cat suggests?

I may well have to resort to manual removal. I have been working under the impression that the cold would take care of both once temps hit the right level. That's really disheartening, but good to at least know that I may have to git 'r done by hand this year. I'm really anxious to see how the tilapia impact it next year.

My experience with water meal is limited to a one year experiment with tilapia in a small stock tank.
They wouldn't touch the stuff.
Tank dried up in drought and klled tilapia and water meal.

Thanks for sharing that info, George. It's always great to hear the varying experiences of others here as I consider what steps to take with my projects. I wonder how my obviously different circumstances - i.e., more northern climate, water chemistry, food sources for the various fish, fish population, etc. - may impact the results I get and look forward to testing and evaluating the plan, then reporting it all here.

If my pond(s) were the size of yours I would try and manually remove as much as the FA and WM as I could. I remove a lot of decaying vegetation/leaves in my lake on my frontage as well as some others who don't bother. I have no experience with the WM. If it floats on the top I would try a large screen in a small pond.

WM is a floater, so a screen may be worth trying. Maybe I can fabricate an oversized pool skimmer net. Anything will be better than what it looks like right now.

Saw some interesting stuff on skimmers.
http://www.skimoil.com/oil_skimmers.htm

How big is the pond. White Cap will kill it in 60-90 days and is super easy to apply. Its really the only way that I found to get rid of the stuff. Reward would knock it back but it would come back thicker. After trying with other chemicals for a year I tried White cap and its be Water meal free for 3 years. All you do with white cap is pour it in the pond no spraying or anything. Its just like Sonar but its a generic version at half the price and still works great.

It's a half acre. I'm getting tilapia from Rex (Rainman) this spring and will be anxious to see what impact they have. If it's not enough, then I may look at some chemical options, but that's my last desire right now to go down the chemical road.

The pond I treated was about half a acre and it was about 300.00 to treat it and its gone. I doubt that you will see the results that you are looking for with tilapia. If you decide to use White cap Call Greg Grimes http://WWW.Lakework.com He is the guy that I got mine from and he can tell you excactly how much you need.

Yep, Greg is the guy at the top of my list right now if I go that route. I've heard enough success stories from tilapia that I'm optimistic, plus I can eat them while the White Cap, eh, not so much! Thanks for the insights into your experience.

You can use a fine pool skimmer on a telescopic pole for smaller ponds and infestations. Makes very good mulch and poultry feed. It's a low cost temporary labor intensive fix. Some customers are just paranoid when it comes to any kind of herbicide, especially when they are raising food fish. And I have to come back time after time, job security. But I ain't complaining.

When waters are high or when you want to top a pond up, and there's a good rain on the forecast, a harsh mist spray would help blast stubborn pockets towards the overflow. Might not eliminate it, but would cut the volume and impact of smothering surface plants back a while

Regards, andy

I appreciate all the suggestions. It appears that the cold winter does, in fact, take care of killing the watermeal and the majority of the FA. I noticed, by mid-December when it started really getting cold here (by WV standards, anyway!) that the WM disappeared probably within about a 30 day period. We had a couple of brief episodes of "skim" ice early and those really did a number on it. The whole pond is ice covered now, so I can't see what's going on, but in the shallows when we've warmed up a bit and the ice has melted in those spots, the water is beautifully clear and there is no WM anywhere and the FA is also not visible. I do see my chara is still present, though not as heavy and not as deep of a green as it was during late summer. All in all, I think the stage is set to see if my tilapia will do what I'm paying them to do come summer again.

Todd, how much ice you got on the pond now?

Not sure right now, Scott. We just got home from vacation and the last time I was out there was almost 3 weeks ago now. At that point, we had probably 2 inches or so after an extended warm up melted most of what we had. I could just walk on it when I was last there, but it was cracking. We had some more warmer days while we were gone, but oerall it stayed generally cold, so I would guess we've still got ice. I may take the truck and try to go out there today as I'm curious. I'll let you know what I find.

Cold weather does not kill watermeal. Nor algae. Just sinks it off the surface and into a dormant state awaiting the Spring temperatures. Tilipia are supposed to inhale the stuff. Make sure whatever you do, you do it when it first emerges. Then it is weakest and most vunerable.

Thanks for the clarification, PondFrog. I was going on the strength of seeing less and less of it until it totally disappeared before the ice came and had figured it just died (not to be even remotely confused with Dave in El Dorado). I never actually gave any consideration to where the next season's bloom would come from, but your explanation makes total sense. The tilapia will go in probably later spring and the WM didn't make its appearance last year until late summer, so the timing sounds like it should work as they'll have plenty of time to get established prior to the WM emergence.

Todd, if the ice is only 2" you might not want to take the truck out there!

Glub, glub, glub!