The hyacinths in my pond are turning brown/black, as is the algae, and the watermelon vine that was growing well in the bog got all dead looking and floppy so I did a water test with my liquid test kit. 0 ammonia, 0 nitrites, 8 ph, and between 0 and .25ppm phosphates. here are my slew of questions about it:
Are the phosphates high enough to cause the decline of the hyacinths and watermelon?
How dangerous are .25 ppm Phosphates?
At what ppm level should I try to dig up more money for emergency plants to throw in?
If I do need to add more plants, are there any particular plants that are heavy phosphate feeders and will overwinter in my cold climate that gets down to the single digits fahrenheit?
I don't feed my fish and my bioload from them isn't high. There's only 5 goldfish in there and they're maybe 5 inches long - pond is 2,850 Gallons. We are in the pond 2-3 times a week manually removing the string algae with a toilet brush and by just pulling it off but we never do get it all. One fish did go missing (I used to have 6) so I suppose maybe the elevated phosphate levels could be from it dying and decomposing somewhere in the pond that we can't see it.
Are the phosphates high enough to cause the decline of the hyacinths and watermelon?
How dangerous are .25 ppm Phosphates?
At what ppm level should I try to dig up more money for emergency plants to throw in?
If I do need to add more plants, are there any particular plants that are heavy phosphate feeders and will overwinter in my cold climate that gets down to the single digits fahrenheit?
I don't feed my fish and my bioload from them isn't high. There's only 5 goldfish in there and they're maybe 5 inches long - pond is 2,850 Gallons. We are in the pond 2-3 times a week manually removing the string algae with a toilet brush and by just pulling it off but we never do get it all. One fish did go missing (I used to have 6) so I suppose maybe the elevated phosphate levels could be from it dying and decomposing somewhere in the pond that we can't see it.