Brown “slime”

[Garden girl 143]

Hi! Please forgive me if this post is too wordy, it’s my first post. I’m a newbie with a pondless waterfall flowing into a 22’ long stream. I’m located in Sacramento, CA and my set up gets morning sun for a bit, shade the rest of the day until late afternoon at which point it gets a solid two hours of sun.
I’m pretty sure I had diatoms recently. All the rocks within the the stream were turning brown. Not that hairy looking type of brown stuff, just brownish rust color. I turned off my stream for about a month, removed all the rocks and scrubbed everything down. I just turned everything back on last week and I can see spots appearing on the rocks just like last time. Since I’m pondless I don’t have fish but I do have 4 plants in the stream at different spots along the length of the stream.
I don’t have pictures when everything under water was covered with the brown slime. I panicked and didn’t think about taking a pic. I do have a pic of the spots that just appeared. The rocks in the pictures are used for the bottom of the stream. I’ve already turned everything off so the rocks are dry and the spots look more yellow. When the water was covering them they looked brown/slightly green.
Any ideas on what I should do. I have barely been able to enjoy my stream.

 

[Lisak1]

Welcome to the GPF @Garden girl 143 !

I'm a little confused why you panicked at the sight of algae. It's basically par for the course when you have water.

 

[Garden girl 143]

Welcome to the GPF @Garden girl 143 !

I'm a little confused why you panicked at the sight of algae. It's basically par for the course when you have water.

Thank you!
Maybe I should edit my post, I didn’t literally panic. In addition to being a newbie here, I have never had any type of water feature, neither does anyone I know. So although I didn’t literally panic it was shocking to see my entire stream covered in this stuff within a couple of weeks of it being installed. I mean everything under water was covered and the same color! Especially shocking because every professional I spoke with from supply stores to installers all assured me “pondless features are basically maintenance free”, “just an annual cleaning”.
Do you happen to have a solution or suggestion to help me at least try and minimize my issue?

 

[Lisak1]

Sure! You can try hydrogen peroxide. Shut it all down. Spray the whole thing down. Let it sit for a few minutes and start it up again. And since you have no fish, you could also use an algaecide, but peroxide is cheap, effective, and safe for all wildlife.

 

[Garden girl 143]

Sure! You can try hydrogen peroxide. Shut it all down. Spray the whole thing down. Let it sit for a few minutes and start it up again. And since you have no fish, you could also use an algaecide, but peroxide is cheap, effective, and safe for all wildlife.

Thank you so much!!! I will try it today. I definitely want something safe for wildlife. I have all kinds of little critters that come and visit for a drink or to cool off, including my dog!
Thank you for taking the time to answer, google wasn’t any help.

 

[Lisak1]

You can also try routinely adding a few bottles of H2O2 to your water feature to stave off the growth of algae. But like I said, it kind of comes with the territory. I use sodium per carbonate on my waterfalls when a bit of the slimy stuff starts to grow - it's basically powdered hydrogen peroxide. Also very safe to use.

Adding more plants to your water feature may help control it somewhat, but even a bucket of water left in the sun will grow some algae.

 

[j.w]

@Garden girl 143
Would love to see photo's of your pondless water garden.

 

[Garden girl 143]

View attachment 122915@Garden girl 143
Would love to see photo's of your pondless water garden.

Thank you!! I will definitely post some later today!! It’s a labor of love so I hope I can keep up with the beautiful pictures I see on here.

 

[Garden girl 143]

You can also try routinely adding a few bottles of H2O2 to your water feature to stave off the growth of algae. But like I said, it kind of comes with the territory. I use sodium per carbonate on my waterfalls when a bit of the slimy stuff starts to grow - it's basically powdered hydrogen peroxide. Also very safe to use.

Adding more plants to your water feature may help control it somewhat, but even a bucket of water left in the sun will grow some algae.

OK I will definitely take your advice. My stream is pretty fast moving, not on purpose lol. Nevertheless it moves pretty quick so I thought that might help as well, I guess not. Ha!
Thanks again for the advice, I was really feeling like I was doing something wrong.