Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pond Renovation help!

I’m new to Indiana and to pond ownership. The pond is 3 acres. Algae and muck really bad on 1/2 acre close to inlet. I have tried copper sulfate , does nothing. I’ve added alum, gypsum and aglime ( one item a month ) water clears but no fifference in algae bloom or muck reduction. I’ve looked everywhere for hydrated lime and can’t find it. I’ve looked for barley straw bales and can’t find it. I added a pond boss pro block 2 days ago so I hope it works. Any other ideas??? Neighbors say this pond was beautiful ten years ago...

What's different from years ago? Ponds change over time. What type of algae do you have. LIme, alum, gypsum has no effect on muck, at least none that I am aware of. And not sure but muck eating things work really slow. Is it a bloom or is it suspended clays keeping your water from clearing? Blooms feed fish but i do not want dense blooms. What is your goals at the pond?

Welcome to the forum! I removed the other duplicate post, no reason to have the same post in 2 different forums and have to go to both places to read the responses.

We need more information about the pond, i.e. how deep is it, how old is it, where does the water come from that comes through the inlet, etc. Have you done any water tests to it before you added any ag lime, gypsum or aluminum sulfate?

Where in Indiana, Northern, Middle or Southern part of the state?

Ok thanks for removing the duplicate. It is an average of 5 ft deep, 3.9 million gallons. I had it mapped and that’s what they said. It’s about 30 years old and was dredged at some point, according to neighbors . It has been neglected for the last ten years. It actually has a name and can be seen on a map “ Devon Lake” in indianapolis. I had the health dept. do testing for ecoli. But no other tests. I used the before mentioned things as flocculent to absorb the phosphorus as I assumed that’s what’s creating the algae bloom m. The inlet is a creek and part of the fall creek watershed .

Hi thanks for responding. The algae is string algae in big mats.. it covers about 1/2 acre of the pond . I added the above things as flocculent to absorb the phosphorus that is creating this muck, algae cycle . The water is clear but on top is algae and the bottom is muck. The change I assume is that no one has taken care of it over the last ten years. We’ve had it for about 8 months now. My vision when we bought was for a swimming / fishing pond. At this point I’m not sure swimming will ever be achievable. We’d like to at least clear the scum so we could kayak / fish/ peddle boat without having to fight the algae .

Copper based algaecides work, they have to be applied correctly and typically have to be applied every 2 weeks. It's too late this year to stock Tilapia, but I would look into stocking them next spring when the water temp is just getting past the 60°F range.

Applying alum or Phoslock will work, again you have to apply it in the correct amounts.

You really should get the water tested for nutrients - Nitrogen and Phosphorous so you can tell if the nutrient reduction treatments are really working. You should have them test for Total Phosphorous (you want it to be in the 0.01 - 0.075 mg/l range) and Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen (which should be 2-6 mg/l range). Test at the same time of the year, because the levels will change due to plant and algae growth tying up some of the nutrients.

If you do a nutrient reduction treatment like Phoslock, you will get the best bang for the buck if you treat after the plants and algae die back in the Fall, that way the most nutrients will be suspended in the water. If you could divert the creek around the pond, that would minimize the nutrient loading of the pond from the creek.

3 surface acres x 5' average depth = 4,887,765 gallons. One acre one foot deep is 325,851 gallons. Somewhere the math is wrong if you have 3.9 million gallons of water.

Do you own the whole pond or just a portion of it? It will be very hard to manage the nutrient loading of the pond if you cannot control the amount of nutrients in the water that is entering the pond via the creek, that is why I suggest diverting the creek water around the pond if possible.

There are three owners ... one other has a company spray the copper/ alum twice a year but looks like it’s not frequently enough. Yes I agree that creek gives continuous nutrient loads, it’s a slow flow but never less all bad. We at first thought increasing the flow would help but it didn’t. I’ve thought about using that inlet as a bog area, with rocks and plants and see if that works. I’ve also thought maybe recreating the inlet would help. It’s wide so maybe narrowing it? The gallons thing is because the pond is 3 ft in some areas so it’s not 5 ft the entire pond. Thanks for the suggestions , I don’t think we’d be able to divert sooo I fear this pond may be a lost cause 💔

Agree with Esshup about the creek.