Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry Tannins - How do you fix?

I have a small farm pond (1/4 acre, 11 feet deep) that was built a couple years ago. The pond has several large tulip poplars near it and each fall I get alot of leaves in the pond. The pond is always brown colored. I thought it was from clay particles, so I limed it heavily, but it's still brown. I have read some posts that talk about tea-colored water and think that is likely my problem, caused by the leaves. Aside from cutting down some of the poplars, is there any way to get the tannins out of the water and clear it up? Any chemicals, etc. that would improve the water clarity?

Experts may disagree with me but why do you want to get rid of the tannins? What harm do they cause? We have tannin stained water in all our ponds in East Texas (some over 50 years old) with no known adverse affects...and we've raised some pretty impressive fish.

I agree that it doesn't seem to affect the fish. It's more the look of the pond that bothers me. Since it's right next to my driveway, I'd like it to look "greenish clear" rather than tea-colored.

you want to get ride of the tannins , your gunna have to wack the trees. my pond is nasty brown in the fall. not so much the color of the water , but all those leaves end up at the bottom of the pond. i left a bunch trees around the pond , thought they looked nice. now i'm cutting them down , digging up stumps , redoing the grass ,yuk lol. i don't know of any other way to clear it up. maybe someone else will.

I don't understand tannins. I put a bunch of green oak trees in my pond when it was built. Rain came and I had black water that was lethal to all life. I stocked and everything died within an hour. I had to actually pump it dry. However, I see what looks like tannin water in pine tree country. Fish thrive in it. What is the difference?

We have had torrential rains and one of my mostly dry ponds filled up with what looks like tannin stained water. No oak put in this time. Same thing happened with a neighbor. I had put some bluegill in to keep the mosquitos down. I threw in feed and none came to feed. I assume they died but the water is butt deep with tadpoles. What is the difference and what caused the tannin looking water? Can tadpoles thrive where fish can't survive? My previous pond was devoid of all life, even bugs when the tannin came. I'm going to catch some BG this weekend and put them in a floating minnow bucket to see what happens. BTW, my 3 other water holes are not black.

Dave,

It would make sense that not all tannins/trees are alike. We are in pine tree country (East Texas) and the tannin stains are light tea colored water which turns a normal green with the spring/summer algae bloom. I never considered it harmful as evidenced by healthy fish populations. I do know that certain hardwoods such as walnut preclude a garden plot around them cause they tend to kill/inhibit other plants...maybe the same thing happens to fish when those kinds of trees are near water?

Meadowlark, Of the 4 water holes I have, only this one is affected. All of them are surrounded by scrub oaks and all are fed by runoff. This one is the second largest at 1/4 acre and held fish for years until it dried up during a drought. It was so prolific that it had a a series of severe DO crashes that killed most of the fish. Heck, one of the smaller ones has a couple of flooded oaks and a cedar tree partially under water. It doesn't have a problem. I'll check to see if it is lethal when I get there tomorrow and post the results.

BTW, I talked to several neighbors that monitor rainfall. We got more than 16 inches or rain during June. Our average annual rainfall is supposed to be 26 inches. For the last 3 or 4 years, we have gotten less than 20 inches per year.

Up here in the Catskills we have Hemlock forrest all over the place. Hemlock bark used to be used years ago to get the tannin for the leather tanneries. As a result our ponds and mine for sure are tea colored all the time. My watershed comes from 1000's of acres of these Hemlock forrest. So far we have not seen a problem with the tannin as far as the fish are concerned. I also have tannins in my well water and while dealing with that a few years ago aeration was one of the solutions recommended. We just installed our aerator this past week so I'll let you know if that has any impact on the tea color. Sunlight and aeration break down the organics so it may.

I figured out that the blackened water is not tannins from oaks but somehow is coming from rotting submerged weeds and grasses that grew during our recent droughts. Another small pond has become affected. Only one fish came up to feed in it. I assume the other 20 or so that I put in each pond for mosquito control are dead. I guess I should have bought fatheads. I think they could thrive in a nuclear waste dump. Question: Both ponds are loaded with tadpoles. Are they unaffected by fouled water?

Have you checked your pH and alkalinity? My pond was loaded with tadpoles with very low pH. From what I read they like acid water. Also one we limed to get the pH up we started seeing all kinds of activity from the bass and BG. It took nearly 4 tons of lime for 1 1/2 acres.

Still have the tea colored water even with the aerator going 24 X 7. It does not seem to bother fish at all.

We had drought conditions going until this week and now it won't stop raining. Looking foward to seeing ho it looks after the heavy rainfall and what the pH is now. The acid rain is getting bad in our area.

Most of my water is so 'new' that I need to wait to test alkilinity. I'm going to try both alkilinity and PH tests this weekend.

Tuzz, I see the floods going on there and it looks like what we had last month. We are in another dry spell now with temps heading to the century mark. Just hope we get the fall rains that skipped us last year. Mosquito's are hell.