Hi all!. I'm a recently new owner of a 20 year old pond, my wife and I just bought our first house and the 3/4 acre pond was (what I thought at the time) a wonderful bonus. Don't get me wrong I still think its a wonderful bonus, I'm just realizing I have no clue as to what I'm doing. So the first thing I did was scour the internet for information, lets just say this turned out to be way more stressful and confusing than I hoped it was going to be. I finally ended up here, and after much thought decided to register, hopefully all of you will help we learn a little... or A LOT! The basic info that I can give is this. The pond size as stated earlier is 3/4 acre, I'm unsure of the depth (I haven't had/taken the time to get out there to take measurements), and the pond has 2 diffuser aerators. I know there are fish in the pond, I've seen small ones swimming around the edges, however I have no clue as to what kind or how many, I've never been fishing before and know some basic fish names but couldn't put a description with a name to save my life. The pond itself has a shallow side with a small beach area that needs some TLC, we've noticed in the summer we get a decent amount of filamentous algae. We have been here for a little over a year, and so far the only things I have done maintenance wise is applying blue pond dye as needed, spraying the algae with cutrine plus, and keeping the weeds at bay around the stoned edge. So my initial questions are. A.) What am I not doing that I should be B.) I've read up some on how to reduce/eliminate the algae, and I guess I became confused. From what I've read it sounds like adding Tilapia to my pond would help with the algae but I'm uncertain if they would get along with the other fish that I have. I've also read that adding beneficial bacteria to the pond would help by using up some of the nutrients before the algae can. Should I use both or, just try the tilapia, or am I just completely wrong on everything?
Any help I can get would be great, I'm here to learn as much as I can.
