How do I kill String Algae?

bettagurl

bettagurl

Colby's Pincher (24X)
Aug 5, 2006
2,261
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It took over my pond last year, and I want it gone.
It's out there, waiting... For the first warm front. lol

My fish love it, the babies hide in it, but it is choking out my plants. How can I kill it without damaging my plants and hurting the fish?
 
How many hyacinths did you have/lose? If you get enough to cover a significant surface area to start with they should outgrow the algae. That can be expensive if you have a large pond, but you may get lucky on an e-bay auction.
 
You can buy stuff that will poison it .
Think long and hard befor using it and Read The Lable it is bad stuff if not done right
 
I once asked a friend who owns an lfs about chemicals to kill algae. He told me they usually kill fish too...
 
I had it covering about half of my pond, nearly 60 hyacinths.

What brands would you suggest to use?
 
I bought some hydrogen peroxide from the pond store..I think it is 35%, which is much stronger than the stuff you use to clean cuts. If you put it in the pond, it kills all the algae, but doesn't hurt the fish or other plants. It will make the water look like soda pop for awhile as it makes it all bubbly, and you do need to break the surface tension with a splash of water a few times. If I remember right, the instructions give an "ounces per hundred gallons" dosing, and recommend that if you have fish you dose half the amount one day and the rest the next. The string algae turns all brown and dissolves. I did have to clean the filter almost everyday after I nuked the algae until it was cleared out, but I only did it twice a season, once in the spring before the other water plants got going, and sometimes late in summer.

I dug around for the instructions and can't find them, naturally, but I will keep looking...sorry for the longwinded answer...can't seem to say anything in under a hundred words!!
 
Jennie Beth said:
I bought some hydrogen peroxide from the pond store..I think it is 35%, which is much stronger than the stuff you use to clean cuts. If you put it in the pond, it kills all the algae, but doesn't hurt the fish or other plants. It will make the water look like soda pop for awhile as it makes it all bubbly, and you do need to break the surface tension with a splash of water a few times. If I remember right, the instructions give an "ounces per hundred gallons" dosing, and recommend that if you have fish you dose half the amount one day and the rest the next. The string algae turns all brown and dissolves. I did have to clean the filter almost everyday after I nuked the algae until it was cleared out, but I only did it twice a season, once in the spring before the other water plants got going, and sometimes late in summer.

I dug around for the instructions and can't find them, naturally, but I will keep looking...sorry for the longwinded answer...can't seem to say anything in under a hundred words!!
Click to expand...
How will this affect the beneficial bacteria, do you know?
I will probably end up removing the fish (I need to rehome a few of last year's babies anyway) and all of the plants I want and just nuke the pond with algae killer.

No problem, I prefer longer, more detailed writing anyway.
 
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