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I would like to add aeration to my pond. I am aware of many of the benefits. I have a tough situation for getting it installed, and may have to go solar.
All that aside, if I can get rid of this, what I’m calling scum which is mostly pollen and I think algae. I can help justify the expenditure of an aeration system.
So far my chief financial officer has resisted allocating the necessary funds for any system. She’s also worried it will overall cool down the pond and make swimming less comfortable. I appreciate any info or input on getting rid of this. FYI, it’s all bunched up in the south end of the pond due to a north wind. It’s usually more spread out. Also, the bunches of new GSH fry seem to like it. They are working in it almost exclusively. At least on the surface.
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]

Last edited by SetterGuy; 08/10/22 10:09 AM.

9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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Not an expert at all on this topic, so just throwing out ideas.

If that is primarily a "swimming" pond, then might it benefit more from a pond skimmer than from aeration?

Do you have deep cycle batteries available from some other purpose on your farm? If so, then perhaps you could experiment with a skimmer or aeration before making the big investment in the solar power equipment.

Finally, I believe a stratified pond has a lower average temperature in the summer than a pond that is turned over from top to bottom. (The hotter water at the surface allows for more heat losses at night.) OTOH, a stratified pond in the summer could be warmer for swimmers if they swim in the surface warm layer and don't disturb the water column too much.

P.S. Air line is cheaper than electrical line. If you have grid electricity somewhere on the property, then running a large diameter air line (to make up for your frictional pressure losses) may be cheaper than installing solar power at the pond.

Hopefully, an actual expert will drop into your thread!

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Couple things that may help your discussions with The Minister of Finance.

My airline has been 100% overland since I installed aeration. I ran a shallow diffuser 24/7 last winter. Zero freeze-ups.

Aeration is not going to cool the pond during swimming season. Very likely it will do exactly the opposite.
When we were stuck in the middle of that 100° crap a couple or three weeks ago the surface temp in my pond was 88.7°.
10' deep the water temp was 80.1°.

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Originally Posted by FishinRod
Not an expert at all on this topic, so just throwing out ideas.

If that is primarily a "swimming" pond, then might it benefit more from a pond skimmer than from aeration?

Do you have deep cycle batteries available from some other purpose on your farm? If so, then perhaps you could experiment with a skimmer or aeration before making the big investment in the solar power equipment.

Finally, I believe a stratified pond has a lower average temperature in the summer than a pond that is turned over from top to bottom. (The hotter water at the surface allows for more heat losses at night.) OTOH, a stratified pond in the summer could be warmer for swimmers if they swim in the surface warm layer and don't disturb the water column too much.

P.S. Air line is cheaper than electrical line. If you have grid electricity somewhere on the property, then running a large diameter air line (to make up for your frictional pressure losses) may be cheaper than installing solar power at the pond.

Hopefully, an actual expert will drop into your thread!

As a matter of fact, I have two deep cycle batteries sitting on battery tenders in the barn. I also have a 200 ah portable suitcase solar panel. (We upgraded the batteries in our camper.) So, I’m part of the way there to a solar install. I have never heard of a “skimmer” before, I’ll have to do some research. Just cleans up pond surface?

I’d like to run an airline down from the barn, but we have our living quarters in the barn. Any compressor running at night would be a no go. The CFO is a light sleeper. The compressor almost has to be on the pond bank due to noise issues. The CFO is not so much of a swimmer. Really just a floater. Usually with grandchild in her lap. She likes warmer surface temps. I prefer to swim, and moving the water around definitely brings up the much colder water. I think I can sell the overall higher water temp scenario though.

Will aeration alone make the scum disappear? I hope so.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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Here’s our place. The yellow circle is the barn/house. Only electric on farm. The yellow “L” is a big ravine. Approx 50 yards wide, and gets bigger as it moves east and north. Distance to pond from barn is 300 yards (approx). North is up.
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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What time of day was the pic and how was the weather the 24-48 hours before the pic?
















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Originally Posted by ewest
What time of day was the pic and how was the weather the 24-48 hours before the pic?

The original pic in the first post was taken at about 9:15 am. The weather had cooled a little bit in the last 24-48 hours. The temps had been in the upper 90s and dropped to the upper 80s. No precipitation. Haven’t had rain in the last week or so. North west wind had moved all the “scum” (whatever it is) to the south end.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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I have seen what appears to be similar where there is a strong plankton bloom. As the individual plankton run their diurnal cycle and lots die their cytoplasm will look like that and be concentrated by the wind. Looks like liquid jello floating on the surface.

Have you had a considerable green plankton bloom just before this started?
Looking like this for example.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

Last edited by ewest; 08/15/22 11:57 AM.















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Originally Posted by ewest
I have seen what appears to be similar where there is a strong plankton bloom. As the individual plankton run their diurnal cycle and lots die their cytoplasm will look like that and be concentrated by the wind. Looks like liquid jello floating on the surface.

Have you had a considerable green plankton bloom just before this started?
Looking like this for example.

[Linked Image]

[Linked Image]

My water is often that color. It really got green after a big (4’) rain a few weeks ago. It is jello like in spots, with bubbles trapped in it. It’s still here. I’m at farm now. Getting a bit of rain. About 3/10”. I’ll see if that helps.
If the rain doesn’t help, what do you think I can expect? How long will this stuff hang around?
Thx


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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See if the rain breaks it up. Surface agitation will often get rid of it for a while. With cooler weather it should dissipate. Do you get water runoff from fertilized fields around you?
















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Originally Posted by ewest
See if the rain breaks it up. Surface agitation will often get rid of it for a while. With cooler weather it should dissipate. Do you get water runoff from fertilized fields around you?

Both of the soybean fields drain off into the pond. Both were fertilized, (and a weed killer was applied) right before the big rain I mentioned earlier.
The orange and green surface pollen disappeared with the rain. The slimy surface scum that had the trapped bubbles is still there. It apparently is ok for fish, because small groups of GSH fry are staying in it. They are feeding on something on the surface. It’s weird, they are spread out in groups all around this surface bubbling slime. I’m hoping it goes away fairly soon. It’s just not very appealing for swimming. Although these cooler temps (50s tonight) are going to turn off the swimming season.
Hopefully I’ll get some fishing in this week while I’m putting in food plots and fixing up deer stands.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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Originally Posted by SetterGuy
Hopefully I’ll get some fishing in this week while I’m putting in food plots and fixing up deer stands.

That sounds like a pretty good week of "work" at your property!

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It’s back, and seems worse. I guess it’s difficult to say if aeration would help.
The wind died down, so the scum spread back out. I looked into skimmers, my google search turned up nets. I think I need something to float around the pond like a robot vacuum cleaner, sucking up the scum? Any ideas, anyone?
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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It would appear that this pond scum has finally p*ssed you off!

Here is a link to a video for a garden "pond" skimmer. It is clearly too small for your needs, but you can see how the concept works by watching the video.

Small Pond Skimmer

I think you can DIY a larger system for your pond.

You need an intake box that has a lip just below the water level on one of the long sides of your box. I would make it 1-2" below the other sides. However, you need to have a floating box that will automatically adjust to your changing water level, or a fixed box that you have the means to mechanically raise and lower. Either way, you will need to experiment to determine that best "gap" below the water surface for efficient skimming. It may be 3/4" or 1/2", but if you can adjust your skimmer, you can optimize your design.

I would NOT use a submersible pump in the intake box. I would put an inexpensive centrifugal pump on the bank and run the suction hose over the top of the box with the hose intake set at the bottom.

I also would not run my filters inside the box. I would run them at the end of the pump discharge hose where the water goes back into the pond. (You might want a large hole screen in your intake box to catch large items like leaves, etc. so you don't clog your pump intake and burn up your pump.)

I would have the discharge go over a stack of screens with progressively smaller screen sizes. (You could use buckets with holes in the bottoms, or anything you have on hand that will frame the water enough to have 100% pass through your screens.) Your very last stage might have to be something as fine as the filter pad they show in the video.

Another option is to pump the water into a small retention tank. (This could be combined with the screens to make a hybrid system.) Basically, you would pump into a small pond you excavate, a cattle watering tank, etc. The outlet must be out of the bottom of the retention tank. The pond scum will accumulate at the top of the tank and mostly clean water will discharge from the outlet. You will have to skim this retention tank! (Note - the water in the tank needs enough residence time for the pond scum to separate from the water flow. If you have turbulent flow that comes in the top and quickly exits the bottom drain, then a large portion of the pond scum may stay "entrained" in the flow and go back into your pond.)

I am just throwing out some conceptual ideas to fight your pond scum! Hopefully some of that is helpful and you can adapt it to your actual situation. Good luck!

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Hello.

First the GSH fry feed on Zooplankton in the algae.

When I make a bloom for my Yellow-perch larvae, this bloom is made by different algae but especially Chlorella algae, water is very green.

These algae produce oxygen during the day, but take it back during the night.

To compensate I put aeration stones every 4 feet with a blower.

As you can see it's not the aeration that make the algae disappear, here I feed the fish twice a week,I monitor all the fertilizer inputs.

It is the same for Filamentous algae.
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The skimmer sounds a bit daunting to me. I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a bit “easier” solution. Not much wind again today, and the entire 1ac pond is covered. I’m a bit concerned that this is going to end up with a fish kill, or inedible fish.. I think I’ll get the net first, and wait for a windy day so it’s all blown into one end. Hopefully we won’t have some catastrophe in the mean time. [Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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Originally Posted by SetterGuy
The skimmer sounds a bit daunting to me. I’ll be honest, I was hoping for a bit “easier” solution.

Agreed. I was hoping someone else would chime in with an easier solution.

I don't even know if you can skim enough water to make a difference. However, if you already own any type of water pump, you could start the experiment.

Put a 5-gallon bucket in a flat, sandy spot of your pond. Work it down in the sand so that the rim of the bucket is 3/4 of an inch below the water surface. Put the suction hose of your pump in the bottom of the bucket. Put the discharge hose over the dam (if you have plenty of water supply), or as far away as possible back into your pond.

Just observe if you can draw a significant amount of pond scum into the bucket on a windless day.

If that works, then you can optimize the depth of the bucket rim beneath the surface.

Then you may be able to just build a box for your skimmer. Instead of complicated screens to filter out the scum particulate matter, you could just discharge the "pond scum" water over the dam for two days when you are fairly certain you have rain in the forecast.

I am also a big fan of hybrid systems. If the skimmer only works a little bit, you could try pool noodles on a rope and mechanically skim the pond and then draw the rope into a circle around the skimmer. Maybe the skimmer efficiency would greatly improve if it was processing concentrated pond scum!

Azteca's ideas for biological solutions are even better - if you can find something that targets your particular pond scum.

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SetterGuy, I haven't had the type of scum on our pond that you have on yours, but I have used an outboard motor on a tethered or anchored boat to ease FA to a corner of my pond where I then raked it out. This technique worked very well for FA removal.

I've anchored the boat with two lines out the back. I've also nosed the bow of the small boat into the shore, stabilized the stern with an anchor, and idled the motor for a period of time to work the FA towards a cove on the far side of the pond.

Maybe something like this can help you concentrate your surface scum.

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Thanks for the suggestions. It’d be easy to solve if I knew what was causing it,and eliminated it. I could back my Jon boat into the pond, and not take it off the trailer. I may give that a go, if it’s not better next week.


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
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Mix up 1 gallon of Cutrine Plus Liquid in 10 gallons of water and spray it over the surface of the pond from the boat. Let me know the results.

With all the fertilizer runoff going into the pond you may need Rex to come out and do a nutrient mitigation treatment. I had a customer that had the orange scum getting pushed up from his diffusers. He had a very minor fish kill the following day. He sprayed less than a gallon of Cutrine Plus Liquid twice, 3 days apart and got his water clarity back - it was right around 12" when the problem started. We will do a nutrient mitigation treatment in his pond as his pond gets ag runoff from tiles in the corn fields. His pond is the same age as yours.


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).
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Thank you esshup. I willl give this a shot. I’ll be back up next week. I think I already have a gallon of Cutrine Plus.
The wind did pick up (from the south this time) and blew all the scum against the dam, which is my northern edge.
I’ll also include a close up of the scum before the wind. The entire pond was covered with the trapped bubbles.
Hopefully I can still avoid a fish kill.
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]
[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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Tried a skim net this morning. I need to get a much finer mesh. The scum just passed right through the net.
My thoughts are that a net with a fine enough mesh would be impossible to work with. Meaning it would need to go through the water so slowly, it would be impractical.

Looks like I’ll have to try chemicals.


[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]

[Linked Image from hosting.photobucket.com]


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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That looks like using a shot glass to bail rainwater out of a Jon Boat.


www.hoosierpondpros.com


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).
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Originally Posted by esshup
That looks like using a shot glass to bail rainwater out of a Jon Boat.

Haha! I had it pushed against the dam. Went down to it, and just ran the net through. Would have been fairly easy, if the net would have done anything.
I guess chemicals are only solution??


9 yr old pond, 1 ac, 15' deep.
RES, YP, GS, FHM (no longer), HBG (going away), SMB, and HSB (only one seen in 5 yrs) Restocked HSB (2020) Have seen one of these.
I think that's about all I should put in my little pond.
Otter attack in 2023
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Originally Posted by SetterGuy
Originally Posted by esshup
That looks like using a shot glass to bail rainwater out of a Jon Boat.

Haha! I had it pushed against the dam. Went down to it, and just ran the net through. Would have been fairly easy, if the net would have done anything.
I guess chemicals are only solution??

grin

That's what I would do but I'm lazy.

My guess is that is there because of a high nutrient load that slowly built up over the years. Leaves falling in the pond, etc. Like I said before, I'd call Rex and get him to do an alum treatment late this year or early next year when the pond is at it's highest natural clarity. That will have the highest of P dissolved in the water column and most susceptible to the alum.


www.hoosierpondpros.com


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).
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