Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Alum kicks clay's butt....again!!!

Still looking clear.. Getting a greenish tint..
Still waiting for a nice rain storm to get the pond filled. It hasn't really rained in a long time. (Seems that way, if you are waiting for a pond to fill.)
We did get 1/2" last week. That kept it at the same level.

Great chronicle of the water treatment - looking great...now - where the heck are the SMB?

I have thoroughly enjoyed this well documented account of a process I didn't even know existed. Very, very cool keep it up guys.

So I assume this works for newly constructed ponds or ponds that have excessive run off issues leading into the ponds eroding the banks etc...Will this then cause a substantial muck layer to form on bottom ? Or will it just be a few inches of fluff and nothing to concerning ?

Once the "fluff" has time to settle it is not more than a 1/4" of clay on the bottom of the pond.

Update on the pond water, and clarity.
Went up today, because we finally got some rain! 1.5 to 2.0" according to the climate website. Got some suspended clay in the water again, hopefully there's enough alum still in June pond to knock this down. Water was still coming in (trickle) when I took the pics, so it's right after a rain. I suspect it'll settle out pretty quickly. It's also still a thousand percent more clear compared to last fall.
Main inlet. You can tell how much water was coming in by how the grass in the rocks is laid over. (By the way, there were half a dozen FHM trapped up in the rocks in the inlet. They got caught up there when the water flowing in stopped.)


Another shot of the water. This shows the high water mark on the 2x2" (tape) it's almost back to where it was in March, before the drought started.

I have a small pond (1 acre/ft) that I am treating with Aluminum Sulfate to clear the water. I put in 150 lbs but still only have 2 feet of visibility.I have high pH (7.8) so I didn't use any hydrated lime. Is the lime required to make the chemical reaction happen?

Alum isn't a "lets put a little in to clear the water a little". You have to put in enough to start the clay flocculation or it's like you didn't add any at all.

By doing the bucket test, that should have told you how much alum you needed to start the flocculation process.

High pH or not, keep testing as you go and have some Hydrated lime on hand. That is unless you don't have fish in there. Then it doesn't matter.

That alum that you added, how much did it change the pH?

Jeff, congrats on some rain. What's the water clarity now? Is it settling out? Try secchi disk reading every other day, you should be seeing some improvement.

Alum isn't that expensive, if you need another treatment, now you know what to do.

The Alum I put in lowered the pH to 7.4 (I tested when the water was still cloudy white) but it went back up to 7.8 when full mixed in after 8 hours.

Hydrated lime is part of the total Alum reaction treatment. It adds extra positively charged ions and starts the process faster than Alum alone. I rarely apply under 200 pounds alum per acre foot of water.

The jar test gives you a dosing rate only if you have very precise scales and volumes to start with....plus, it is a reaction in a small, undisturbed setting...hardly close to real world application conditions.

Setter guy...you scared the bejeezus outta me with that picture!!!

Dis you grab a jar of water to see if it clears? I am wondering if the rush of inflow stirred the bottom floc from this past winter since you have gotten such a nice stand of grass on the shoreline.

Jeff, I hope you've raised that feeder to higher ground before the next rain event.

Rex,
I still haven't had to move the feeder. We've had another rain since the last one. This last rain has the pond at its highest level yet. I got there right after the rain, and the water was coming in from three or four places. The two main inlets had some silt flowing in, but not like the mud flowing in we originally had. The water is a weird color now. It appears to my untrained eye to be a brown algae. I don't know. I have not done a visibility depth test. Here's a pic from yesterday. This is post rain by four or five days..

It's actually a pretty ugly color. I'm hoping something happens to clear it, or get it back to green. I'm still running the feeder. The YP appear to be hitting the feed. It goes off for 3 sec at 6:00 pm, that's it. The feed is basically gone in 10-15 minutes. Still some FHM working on AM 600 pieces by nibbling at it.
Do you think the feed not eaten by the fish (if there is any) is causing this weird color, or is it runoff from the recent rains? If you can tell from a picture..

Here is a pic from this morning. If you look in the upper half of the pic, through the reflection, you can see submerged pallets. (3 pallets, with rocks between them.) I'm posting it, to give you an idea of the clarity. FYI, the color is uniform throughout the pond.



I'll grab a jar of water today for clarity, and do a test for ph. Also, the water has dropped, maybe, a half inch in five days..

I can easily see the bottom step on the ladder when it's down. (At least 18")
The water seems "stained" hard to describe. I need to mow again too. Ha

Well, I did the jar test. The water still seems brown, but it has decent 18" visibility. Here's what the water looks like.


The jar. (Taken 8' from shore 2' deep.)



So, I'm guessing it's ok. Must be brown algae, or just stain from the oak and hickory leaves, or soil, or whatever.

You have gotten quite a bit of White Oak and Hickory leaf litter in there, and without your aeration installed yet, the tannins are able to leach out before decay can convert it. Harmless, and I think it will self correct as you go along.

Jeff, if brown algae is present, keeping the jar in the dark for a few days will kill it and you should see some that looks like sediment. If no change, try adding some alum and shaking.....I'd bet there will still be no change, which would indicate to me it is tannin staining.

I've got the jar in the barn. It gets pretty light in there during the day. I'll move it to a closet. Thx! Supposed to be getting more rain tonight.

Don't know if you noticed. I raised the feeder..

Catch anything in the live traps other than ants?

Not yet. I don't know if the coons are smarter than I am, but the trap is always closed up and locked tight. It gets moved three or four feet down the hill, but no coons.. I wonder of they just spring it, then roll it over and eat all the chow once it spills out. Ha

Been there done that. FWIW what worked for me was staking the trap down with tent spikes, landscape staples, etc.

If you enclose the trap with plywood, that forces them to go in thru the door.

Also, try taking a can of sardines in oil. Poke a few holes in the top with an ice pick and slide it all the way to the back of the cage.

Or get a Little Grizz. Use a few marshmallows or the fish food as bait.

That's what mine did, I have to put a piece of rebar through back end to keep them from rolling it. Started catching them soon thereafter. Cinder block would probably also do the trick

I'll stake it down, and get a can of sardines. That should do it. If it doesn't, I'll box it I. So far they just dig the rocks up under the feeder, and get mud around the bottom. Haven't figured out how to climb it yet. I have a deer feeder in the alfalfa field above the pond. A game camera up there got 7 coons in one pic. I know I've got a healthy population of coons up there.