Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Last resort to clear water

Hi, I’m not sure if some of you remember helping me out with a fiasco I had a few weeks back.
Long story short, I tried clearing water about 5-6 months ago with allum / hydrated lime, worked great initially, but didn’t last, was cloudy within a week. Tried another treatment and had limited clarity results, but inadvertently messed up my water’s chemistry very badly, and couldn’t seem to get Ph to below 9.6 for 3 weeks. That and also had a green water bloom and high nitrite and ammonia for the 3 weeks. Did one final alum treatment about a month ago for the sole purpose of lowering my ph. It worked, and my pond has been stable and all my levels are actually excellent. Ph -7.2-7.4, next to 0 phos. and nit, 0 ammonia, Alk is still a little low, but I have barely any change in PH through day/ night so I’m thinking my test strip is wrong. Only thing that is a little high is my hardness.
This leads me to my question. My water is still very cloudy, visibility is near 3-4” (not good). Is this just something I’m stuck with being a wetland pond? Or I was wondering if my original alum treatments were just not enough. I did 50lbs for a little less than 1/4 acre pond. I did have great results that first time with visibility becoming 2-1/2’ . I know it was premature because my banks weren’t stabilized and the first big rain there went the clarity…
My banks are stabilized now, and i don’t know if more alum is the route to take, and if so how much should i use for approx 90,000-100,000 gallons of water. I only have bluegill and one or two LMB, a few shell crackers, and some HGS, and some mosquito fish…
I was wondering with a somewhat soft bottom is it just pointless or would adding rock or gravel over the entire pond bottom do anything? Also thinking about trying to pump it out as much as I can, and then reading and line with harder clay… prob not going to do much either since it’s wetlands

The pic is just as a reference to see size of pond and volume of water. The pic was taken during the banks stability efforts, and is not relevant. Also finally that AWFUL DYE from this picture Is gone! lol

any advice would be great.

Joe, I have a small, approx 1/4 acre pond that has been, not muddy but, certainly not clear for over 30 years. It has a lot of big cats, bluegills and green sunfish; an occasional bass. It’s a mile from the house and I don’t live there. I’ve tried multiple times to clear it with no luck or success. The fish are heathy so I’ve quit worrying about it. When I go there, I toss feed and enjoy watching them.

There are three ways to do this and both require testing. Maybe more than 3 out there but here are the two I know of.

Option 1 - Bucket test. Get a sample of the water and apply your treatment (Alum Lowers PH, AG Lime Raises PH, Calcium Sulfate - I think & does not impact PH).
I hear that AG Lime and Calcium Sulfate (if this is the correct one) are both less successful if the hardness is high.

Option 2 - Send a water sample to have it tested and they will tell you what you need to do and what the rates are. I know Texas A&M does this ( I have sent them a sample from our pond ). See the bottom of the attached.

Option 3 - Hire it out from a pro.

Without the test....it's a guess. With the test or hire it's more of a centainty.

When I tested in May...my water looked very similar to the 3rd pic. This is what my pond looked like for the most part since filling starting Oct/Nov 2023. In the two weeks that I waited for the report to come back, 4th pic, it changed to the 5th pic and I have not treated as a result. Might at some point in the future but it would require additional testing imo before I pulled the trigger on adding chems to the pond water. Even then I would be very selective on when I put the chems in for the season. For me that would be fall or winter when the water is stable with O2 and Spawns weren't in the works.

I feel for ya on the water clarity. I was in a rush to get mine with more clarity ahead of family coming out and additional fish stocking. I was encouraged to give it time....and time is what it needed to try to balance and show us what it was going to look like as the water started to mature. I'd still like some additional clarity but.....fish were spawning, and then summer hit so it got put on hold as I really want to make the water better for the fish and not stress them if I can while that treatment happens.

Goodluck on the water treatment. Hope this helps.

Thank you very much for the response! I couldn’t agree more about not wanting to add chemicals and disturbed/stress the fish out more than necessary. Definitely frustrating, considering I put so much time and effort into trying to make the pond as natural, and self cleaning/filtering as I could. I’m wondering if I designed the bog system wrong or am doing something wrong with it considering the clarity never seems to improve. My bog system consists of a 9000 gallon per hour pump set near the bottom of the adjacent end of the pond which pumps the water to a approximately a 6 foot deep by 12 foot long and 6 foot wide hole. I ran the pipe to the bottom and filled the hole up with large rock on the bottom 2 feet and gradually decreased the size of the stone filling the pit to about 6 inches below water level. The water, then cascades down to two smaller shallow pools creating a 3 tier water fall. I would have thought by now I would have enough beneficial bacteria established in the rock to keep the pond and water moving and clean. I’m thinking I may have to disassemble the entire and rebuild it differently. It’s been about 9 - 10 months.
Does anyone know as far as if I am onto something with my bog system not working correctly? I’ve read somewhere that potentially I am running the water too fast through the system.? Maybe I would have to extend the bottom tiers and make them deeper and wider? I think I’m going to try and backwash the system. There is also a bit of an odor that comes from the top. It’s not a foul odor or anything just smells like a stagnant pond if you know what I mean. I don’t know if that’s a sign of anything? I also don’t have algae growing anywhere, but everything seems to be coded with this fine brown dust like substance.
Like you said, though I have to look into getting the water tested, but call it stubborn if you will, but hiring someone to do the work doesn’t really sit well lol. I have no problem hiring someone to tell me what I need to do though.
The main purpose of the pond is to allow my kids to fish and catch frogs and away from the TV, but not have my wife thinking they are going to start growing a third arm or turning green every time they “accidentally” get wet lol! it be nice to be able to have typical 24 inch visibility, And have the water look clean aside from the occasional algae bloom.

I just had a chance to really look at your pics, I was working when I saw your message and then talk to text the response while driving! Sorry if it a bit choppy!
But wow that is encouraging that you were able to achieve that much clarity in a short amount of time!. I have no doubt your pond will continue to clear naturally as the water matures and bacteria grows and excess nutrients are broken down effectively. As to be expected, but aside from the occasional summer algae and spawn stir up it looks great! And I’d bet it’s going to continue to get better with each season under its belt! Looks to be atleast 2-3’ visibility. Congratulations my friend, and than you for your advise.
I do have a question aside from the big question on the previous post, but is your pond clay bottom and filled , or is it like mine and a wetland ground water filled?
I dug mine in January, and then did a little extension for a shallower and eventually heavy cover spawning bed area in the early spring. I just flush out and clean the bog as much as u could with a hose and w/o disassembling the entire thing…. (Is a whole lot of rock!) and not going to be looking foward to it if one of the experts tells me he sees a problem and I need to re-engineer the whole thing! We’ll see if someone responds to the previous message.
Thanks again i appreciate your help and the pond looks great! Congratulations!!

The pond was dug in a waterway (grass area) that is the drainage of two crop fields. It does have a clay bottom and is 100% filled by watershed. Let's call it four issues when the pond was dug.

First - Like many ponds all that bare ground without cover leads to erosion. It was a wet winter here and we were trying to set habitat as the pond was filling and I didn't spend nearly enough time on erosion control. Literally chased out of the pond by rising water.

Second - when the water was coming up, it rose to just below the rip rap border that is on the South and East dam faces. Our North wind over the 1.5 acres churned the water keeping it stirred up and stained as the waves crashed on the clay - not the riprap.

Third - New water. I was advised that the water was new and needed time to start to mature. I was even told that at some point in the year I would see the green tint/bloom and then the water would clear after. I have several pictures of this happening, and I used the two above as they were at the same location...first one you can see the stained water and then after it cleared on its own you can see the log in the water. A good before and after. It was almost as if the guy that told me that had seen it before....(lives in Kansas and I brought fish from him.... smart guy he is).

Fourth - Erosion control was started and implemented to late. I wish I had spent more time on this early.

Before the clearing of the water 6-8" secchi. After water clearing max I have seen is 30". I did fertilize this year to try to maintain 18"ish on avg for secchi. Have seen a good bloom of algae on the green side and the tail end of it where it's more brownish as the zooplankton takes over.

Our ponds have some similarities and some differences. I think in the beginning if I remember the posts correctly you had some erosion/bare dirt areas which you have since corrected. You treated twice if I remember right on the Alum / Hydrated Lime in close succession. Treated with some dye. Had some stress on the fish. - I hope I'm not confusing the posts....I read lots of them on here (new and old).

Your bog is a different animal that I don't have here for sure. The constant flow of water may be enough to keep your pond stained more than you like but may also improve over time if you let it mature. I wonder if you could approach this on the flow side while you wait to see if things will clear on their own. Would it be possible to calc the flow rate and check DO levels? If they are high...Could you reduce the flow and still maintain DO?

Ultimately, some things take time. I had no ability to rush my water to clear (not for lack of wanting to). Me in your spot, I'd send a sample off to get water tested (I did this), it cost a couple hundred to get it done, but what it really did was make me wait. I got a detailed report on their tests with what would work moderately, at a higher rate, and what wouldn't work because of ....(in my case Alkalinity was to high to use AG Lime or Gypsum). Couple hundred bucks to save some guessing, possible stress to the fish, and maybe dial in that bog flow rate.....might just be what the doctor ordered.

Good luck on the project.

Thank you very much for that, and I will look into some water testing places nearby. I stopped in one local pond supply/builder, but they only test the usual things, and didn’t seem as knowledgeable about resolving the situation as I hoped. There are a few more places nearby that I’ll be putting calls into and see. I’m a builder, and frequently have to bring well water samples to a spot for inspections and buyer loans, maybe that company will be able to shed some light on the situation and solution as well. Thanks again for your response and the time you took to put that together! It is greatly appreciated and if there’s a way I can return the favor please let me know. I’m Not a pond expert obv lol, but have been a carpenter/ builder for 20+ years, and can help out if you have any building questions. I’ll update you if I’m able to get the test done and if I’m given advice / a solution on the matter.