Algae all vanished at once. Theories?

[crsublette]

Yeah, your small volume of quite young looking plants is no where near a volume that would reasonably be responsible for what you are describing.

There are theories of freshwater algae spontanseously collapsing, that is the algae is so hardy to stay alive under nutrient restrictions that eventually it pushes itself of absorbing too much nutrients that it causes itself to collapse.

Also, there could have been another species of algae or bacteria that is emiting toxins to kill the particular floating.

I would suspect there are clumps of it on the pond floor unless it was more like a floating slime algae that simply just disintegrates into the water when it dies.


If folk want to be honest about the scenario, then there is no easy, single answer. Just take pride that you did something right, whatever that was, to allow it to happen. :banana:

BTW, I love how you are using those wooden barrels for your filters there. :banana: :banana:

 

[dieselplower]

LOL and had you been trying this or that you would be telling us about the latest magic cure for algae! Love it.

HTH below is an example of a helpful post. Maybe you could use it as an example to follow in the future. But I guess you just dont have much knowlegde to share so go ahead and keep laughing. Soon you will be thought of just like your hero on this site whose name I wont mention. Well known for just going around telling people they are dumb but providing nothing useful.

Yeah, your small volume of quite young looking plants is no where near a volume that would reasonably be responsible for what you are describing.

There are theories of freshwater algae spontanseously collapsing, that is the algae is so hardy to stay alive under nutrient restrictions that eventually it pushes itself of absorbing too much nutrients that it causes itself to collapse.

Also, there could have been another species of algae or bacteria that is emiting toxins to kill the particular floating.

I would suspect there are clumps of it on the pond floor unless it was more like a floating slime algae that simply just disintegrates into the water when it dies.


If folk want to be honest about the scenario, then there is no easy, single answer. Just take pride that you did something right, whatever that was, to allow it to happen. :banana:

BTW, I love how you are using those wooden barrels for your filters there. :banana: :banana:

I totally agree Charles, which is why I was hoping other people might have suggestions. Thanks for taking the time to provide some thoughts and thanks for the compliment about the barrels. The taller one is actually a plastic rain barrel from Home Depot. The bugger was a bit expensive but it was set up perfectly to be used the way I wanted. Water in the bottom, filtered through rocks, and back out the top. Obviously the opposite the way of its intended use but hey in ponding we do get creative

 

[crsublette]

Oh, don't get Howard too hard of a time, riling him up. He's a good guy. We all have our different approaches. I think he was essentially saying what I was in a more smirky approach, in a good way. :biggrinangelA:


For stuff like those type of wood facade barrels, I think the expense is worth it due to the pleasing aesthetics of it.

Yeah, with your barrels, I have been wanting to do something like to feed into my stream. It is quite appealing. For the shorter one with the spout, did ya get that one from Home Depot as well?? I remember seeing something like that before.

You could probably also build a S&G in one of those as a polishing filter, set it behind the tall one there you have connected to the other, have this barrel gravity flow in the tall barrel next to it, convert the barrel that is dumping into the pond as a very efficient moving bed filter. An S&G really needs big particulates filtered out of the water first so you can simply just get some strapping or leaf neats bundled up around the suction and weighted down and covered with lava rock around your suction inlet in the pond. It would only take about 10 minutes to properly blow out the S&G and any little time to vacuum the debris caught in the pre-filter. This would be one heck of an awesome particulate and biological filtration system and ya would not need to hide it or anything since you are only using two of those rain barrels that are quite aesthetically pleasing to appreciate.

 

[dieselplower]

Thanks I will take a look at those links when I get home. The shorter barrel with the spout it from a place called Wedels in Texas corners, Michigan. the barrel actually has a preformed plastic tub liner inside of it, which has the spout molded in.

 

[dieselplower]

The long string algae is back but my water is crystal clear. Clearest I have ever seen it. I believe it is due to the cooling water temperature.

 

[rebelangel_3733]

yours and mine both...was fighting it this afternoon with a toilet bowl brush...needless to say my water is clear just my liner is green and the fish seem to be enjoying themselves munching on it

 

[adavisus]

Left to its own devices, a pond with a bit of fertility dissolved will swing from one phase to another.

Algae is the usual first opportunist to take off. When that has gobbled up all the fertility it reaches a threshold, collapses, depleting fertility faster than it is replaced

Look at a drop of pond water through the season x50 mag, the ratio of algae and the intsy wintsy things that munch algae...

With a little help from the likes of fish, small algae eating organisms eg daphnia, cyclops, mussels tip the balance (in turn eaten by the fish) and keep it that way,

Until something comes along to upset the balance, like, fish food in spring, excess nitrates, phosphates in the water supply

Where did the algae go? the handfull of minerals has probably gone somewhere. Silt settled, filtered out, plumper fish...

Regards, andy
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