Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Pros and Cons of Pond Dye

Two of the claims from the website for Sanco Crystal Blue Pond dye :

"Can help clear up muddy ponds"
"Helps settle out dissolved solids"

The MSDS provides they have 1% "surfactant" as an ingredient. Do other dye manufacturer's add a "surfactant?"

The surfactant helps keep the dissolved dye in suspension and not precipitating as long as the dye does not freeze. IMO the claims of - "Can help clear up muddy ponds"
"Helps settle out dissolved solids"
is guesswork and sales promotion and they have no real data nor proof to back up these claims.

Off the topic but i think blue dye looks little horrifying. Kind of like there is some kind of chemical leakage to the pond from a nearby factory.

Thanks Bill Cody for your recommendations. That was the plan for this year to reduce the amount of fertilizer that was used the last two years. Another thing is this past year I built a sediment pond and have been raising fhm's in it. Feeding the minnows will cause a bloom and when it rains some of the sediment water moves to the big pond and I will see a bloom there. So this year I am not so sure I will fertilize but may let the sediment water along with feeding the big pond do my fertilizing. Or may add a reduced amount of fertilizer depending what is going on in March. I was wondering if I had numerous blooms this coming year, could it be controlled through dying the pond, reducing sunlight penetration. a light dye application over adding some alge controlling chemical. Not wanting to kill off a bloom but to control a bloom.

Concerning the surfactant and suspension, on the super concentrated quart stuff I found it good so shake the bottle violently before opening kept me from having to do so many rinses to get the sediment out of the bottom of the bottle.

Fatih, although I would put it in somewhat more charitable terms, my feeling also is that the turquoise color is more adapted to the Caribbeam setting and would not fit well with our midwest decor.

That is why I went with the much less popular black dye. It tends to give the pond more of a mirror look rather than black.

Bill C posted earlier...



FWIW IMO it would be more desirable to suppress/reduce a bloom before it starts instead of trying to reduce it wants it starts. I would think that would reduce the potential of a DO crash compared to if you "kill off" the bloom. If it was my pond(and it's not ), I would go with Bill C's "1/2 aspirin" approach from the beginning, before a bloom. Maybe reducing the depth of sunlight penetration to some degree would reduce/suppress the bloom in the deeper water and still allow some in the shallows??

Just my 1 cent....

If you think about, please post back with what you end up doing and how it turned out.

We did this half-measure treatment last year -- our first time using dye. It worked pretty well. We still had some FA but maybe 25% of what we had the previous year. Our place is old and hyper-eutrophic though.

snrub, it totally agree man. And i would also prefer black dye. It looks like a lake in a rain forest. Dyed by all the logs and dry leaves...

Blue dye in ponds with high iron content turns them a nice green color. That's the scenario with my brood pond.

This month's BobLuskOutdoors Newsletter has a nice article about hatchery ponds, or sometimes called grow out or brood ponds. I personally think hatchery pond is a more descriptive name.

Since most hatchery ponds must be seined, weed control is important to say the least. I move water from my big pond to my hatchery pond, and weed movement is always an issue. Despite my best efforts, spotty coontail started showing up in the hatchery pond after water transfers. In 2016 I added Aquashade during water changes, and I had no coontail show up in that pond. We seined that same pond a total of 14 times in 2016, and no coontail was pulled up by the net either. I started adding Aquashade when the overnight water temp sustained at 50 degrees, and stopped early this last winter when the overnight water temp was below 50 degrees. This certainly isn't scientific data, but I do know I no longer had to use aquatic herbicides in that pond.


I always place an upside down coffee cup in the water right before applying dye. I place it just deep enough to recognize the color, but not the cup itself. Within a week or two, the coffee cup becomes clearer. After thinking it was caused by some sort of light spectrum change due to the dye, Bill's comments on plankton now makes me certain that the loss of plankton is the most likely cause.

Because the particular pond I apply dye to is a hatchery pond, and is drained and treated with hydrated lime several times a year, long term water productivity is not an issue for me. Now, I'm more convinced though that I probably wouldn't add it to any of other my ponds. In those, I'll take the food chain, and fight the weeds.

Great insight from real world experience Al. Thanks. Might help me out with what I am trying to do some day.

FirelsHot do you have any idea how much dye was added to reduce the coontail in your hatchery pond? How blue dark is it? This darkness or dye concentration is a big variable from one user to the next. Brand of dye and it's concentration the bottle has a lot to do with how much is added. Keep in mind that some dyes will be more absorbed by the pond sediment, organic content and possibly some leaching. Some ponds stay dye stained longer than others. Why has always been a mystery to me.

Bill, I put out 20 oz per treatment, which is right at .5 ppm. That's the lowest recommended effective dose for Aquashade.

I apply the dye on the windward side of the pond, or by pouring it in during water additions, and let the hose discharge circulate the dye. The pond is dark blue when added, but changes to green within a few days. Again, I'm thinking it's the iron ore in the pond since the normal water color is a dark tea color.

This pond also has a large watershed which makes application longevity problematic. Several times a year, dye is added due to natural flushing of the pond. This year we're raising CNBG again, so little will need to be done with this pond water level wise. I'll try to get duration numbers this spring after all the rains are over.

EDIT BY ME: One more thing I would like to add is that previous attempts to control coontail didn't work when that coontail had grown to several inches below the surface. I'm not sure if it was the previous dyes I was using, or the coontail's ability to get unfiltered sunlight, but for whatever reason, dye didn't work. Dye doesn't bother my water primrose, so my assumption is it was the sunlight.

Originally Posted By: FireIsHot

EDIT BY ME: One more thing I would like to add is that previous attempts to control coontail didn't work when that coontail had grown to several inches below the surface. I'm not sure if it was the previous dyes I was using, or the coontail's ability to get unfiltered sunlight, but for whatever reason, dye didn't work. Dye doesn't bother my water primrose, so my assumption is it was the sunlight.

Your observation is a concept that bears repeating. Suitable lake-dyes will generally "work" only as a deterrent/preventative measure; meaning they should be applied long before a weed or algae problem becomes evident or established. Several feet of water-column depth are generally required for light-filtration to occur; with the relative depth being determined by the dye-dosage. If submerged plant-growth has already ascended to near the surface - or is on the surface (primrose) - it's unlikely that a dye-treatment at that point will offer any benefit unless the plant's biomass is significantly lowered to a greater depth by some other means (ie. mechanically or with a herbicide treatment).

+1 I want my pond to look natural for its setting. To me, ponds are supposed to be some shade of green or clear. Wish they made a pond dye in a "natural" green shade!

Cody Note. Clear water, such as the Caribbean, reflect the sky color, some shade of blue. I think this is what the dye companies try to copy.

Bill nothing I did specifically answers your specific questions, but this is my experience with dye the first year I used it.

black pond dye experience

Edit; the link goes to page three but the application information actually is the last post on the previous page 2.

Repeat question from 'black pond dye experience'. "Snrub - Good report. What brand of black dye do you use? Do you see black as having benefits compared to blue? My understanding is most black is made with blue, yellow, and red."

The first I got was called "Black DyeMond" as I recall but what was most used was from "Rain Biologics". You can do a Google search and find them I think.

I really have no experience with the blue other than both my wife and I did not care for the shade of water color we saw where it had been used. That was really the only reason the black was tried. It was the only other color found to be available.

Edit: rainbiologics.com

Black DyeMond is by Pond Logic

I saw no difference in the two other than price and fancy label.

snrub,
Do you think the black dye affects surface temperature much in heat of summer? Maybe no more than muddy water?

Good question, but I surely do not know the answer.

I'll answer your question with a question. Does it really change the total absorption of heat, or simply change the depth to where the heat (light) penetrates?

I gotta feeling we are splitting hairs, but an interesting thought at any rate.

Muddy water affects the surface and extreme shallows temperature more on hot days, but not much impact, if any, on total absorption. I wonder if black dye would have much the same effect? I have experienced this myself from wading in very shallow water: On a hot summer day, shallow muddy water will be MUCH warmer than shallow clear water.

Edit: From my experience, the blue dye does reduce visibility (secchi depth). I have no experience with any other dye color.

Does pond dye reduce the depth of penetration of all wavelengths of sunlight or just the wave lengths required for photosynthesis? Does dye reduce visibility (secchi disk results) by blocking light penetration or does it increase visibility by preventing blooms or "it depends?"

Color of the dye determines which wavelengths of light that are filtered or absorbed. Type of penetrating wavelengths will stimulate specific "types" of photosynthesis required by different species of algae. It is pretty complex due to all the different species of algae. They are definitely not all the same and usually some species are unique and capable of inhabiting all sorts of conditions on earth. There are algae that live in hot springs, snow banks of far northern areas and a form that lives as co-habitants as lichens on trees, even aerophylic algae.

Can tannins in the water act as a pond dye to some extent?

The reason I ask is our pond came up 4 feet overnight and is at extreme full pool today. The sudden influx of water was caused by a combination of a large watershed with frozen ground, melting snow and an inch of rain. A portion of the unexpected runoff of water came thru some woods and our pond is now tea colored.

The fish don't seem to mind. I suspect that's because the pond PH is normally 8+ with alkalinity 300+. I doubt the PH dropped any significant amount with alkalinity so high to act as a buffer.

Amount of light filtration reducing light wavelenghts for plant growth will depend on: 1. the darkness of the tannin, 2. the filtration ability of tannin to selectively filter wavelengths needed by plants mostly green plants. Some good homework may provide your answer. I have nothing for you. Please share your research.

I do know that when the addition of new tannin subsides the tannin will gradually and naturally be reduced.