Green Water

Tyler718

Tyler718

AC Members
Feb 17, 2002
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Stafford, Va
Real Name
David
My 300g pond has been set up for 2 months. Everything has been going good until I went out of town for 3 weeks. I have an algae bloom going right now. What is the best way to treat it and keep it from coming back? For maintenance, I've been treating it like one of my tanks inside.

Specs
1. It gets about 3-4 hours of direct sunlight.
2. Do 30-40% water changes weekly.
3. Clean both filters weekly.
4. Planted inside with water lilies and floating plants that I'm not
sure of the name of.
5. Feed lightly 2X a day.
 
If it's free-floating algae (just a green color to the water), and not 'hairy' algae, you can find a product that causes it to clump together and then be removed by your filter. That's your cheapest option. Aqua-Rem is one that comes to mind. You'll just have to clean the filter more often for a while.

Option #2: Barley straw - check the catalogs - it competes with the algae for nutrients and essentially starves it. Also fairly cheap, but will take longer to work than the Aqua-Rem. Might be a good idea to combine them - start with the Aqua-Rem, then use the barley for control.

Option#3: the most expensive - a UV sterilizer. Since you're in FL with a long period of heat and light this may be your eventual option. I'm in MO and opted for one. I placed the UV after the mechanical filter so as not to 'gunk up' the tube thru which the water passes to be exposed to the UV light.

I'd try the least expensive first, and work from there. Also, keeping the surface covered (with floating plants, as you have) will cut down on the sunlight the algae needs to survive. (And keep your pond cooler in the process)

If it's 'hairy algae', good luck - daily hand removal is the only cure I know. It's wicked.
good luck
judy

ps: plecos, algae eaters, mollies, swordtails and platies all thrive on algae and sunlight. I raise a lot of fish outside during the summer to be brought in in the fall. (If you have the space)
 
Typical

Actually taking two months to tourn green seems slow, maybe it was still cool in the beginning to slow that down.

Be patient, the green will clear itself. There is an interesting post on Aquabotanic about green water in shallow ponds, very hard to get through without a dictionary but my take on it is that there are little critters of various sorts that eat green water algae and you probably dont have any of those yet. Fish will eat these critters and so they hide in plants. More plants are good.

Also, the algae may be living off of the nutrients leaking from the plants you added, assuming that the plants are fertilized in some way. As the plants grow, they wil use up some of this excess fertilizer.

The algae are also using sunlight to grow, and as you have more coverage of the pond surface, there will be less green water.

As I recall, it takes almost 2 months to resolve. Beware of algicides, they are bad for plants. Beware of the algae treatmenst that make it clump and fall to the bottom, this will clump in the fish gills and can do them harm.

Some people have great success by adding quilt batting to their return flow from the filter and rinsing frequently, safest to do this in a way that does not plug up the pump or waterfall as it will clog very fast and may need cleaning many times a day.
 
Thanks for the replies.:) I guess I'm in luck. I have a UV that I'm not using right now in the garage. I think I'm going to try it with the Barley straw. If that doesn't work then I'll try chemicals. I want chemicals to be my last choice. I guess I I have some work to do today when I get home from the ballpark.

Thanks,
Dave
 
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Also, there are 'pond dyes' that help a great deal on cutting down the algae blooms. They darken the water a little - another way to control Mother Nature's light....
 
I think they should rename barley straw as miracle straw - it works wonders for me. But I personally dont mind a bit of green water - doesnt harm the fish, and its only natural. Its blanket weed that really gets me...

Thom.
 
I live in south Florida and run into the same problem with alage. Barley straw is very effective on string alage however, for the typical floating alage it didn't work for me.

UV's are still a sore subject with some because of the long term effects it may or may not have on beneficial bacteria .


I competely agree with anonapersona, the surface of your pond (60-70%) should be covered with floating and oxygenating plants. Alage is feeding on the excess nutrients contained within your pond so the more plants you can stuff in there the less likely the alage will want to stick around.:cool:
 
AHHH!!! I came home today from work to find that I have been invaded by hair algae. With my work schedule I won't be able to take care of it until Wednesday. Any suggestions.
 
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