Blue water dye? Is it a good thing?

[Sandy Wood]

I just stumbled across an add for blue water dye for ponds that is supposed to help reflect sunlight and suppress algae growth. I've got a small pond, about 700 gallons. Only water lilies and some mosquito fish. Wondering if this is a good option to keep algae growth down.

 

[Lisak1]

Personally I'm not a fan of dyed pond water. I love the natural look of a pond, algae and all. I'm not even convinced dye would work - the algae will grow in sunlight or shade... maybe a different variety but nature has her ways.

A better approach would be to add more plants to your pond to control the algae growth. The plants will out compete the algae for whatever is feeding it and are pretty to look at!

 

[Sandy Wood]

Thanks for the feedback. I'm inclined to not dye my pond but will consider anything to help with algae growth. Here in SoCal, the sun creates a lot of algae for me. I've added more lilies and am hoping they'll spread out and cover more of the water for me.

 

[JMJ]

I’ve usually seen pond dye used by folks who have larger scale(half acre+) ponds stocked w bluegill/bass/catfish as recreational and food fishing. I always questioned the effectiveness of it on algae prevention, but when you’re combat agricultural fertilizer runoff and other things during storms I guess you‘ll try anything.

 

[GBBUDD]

Not a fan

 

[WaterGardener]

Shade sails over the pond will help, or any type of shade cloth. Enough sun will still get to the plants.