Coming up on a month. Water still bleh

[texmaster]

This is driving me nuts. Nearly one month and my pond water is still puke green. I've been shading the water for the past month, got tons of filtration, UV, bacteria to eat the green baddies but still nothing.

What am I missing?

 

[JohnHuff]

What kind of filtration do you have and how much?
More information would be helpful.
Is the water puke green but clear or murky?
What do you have in the pond and how big?

 

[texmaster]

Puke Green.

Its approx 10x12x3.5 feet around 3000 gallons.

The pump in the skimmer is an SKP5000 and the pump running the filter is a 5800SEQ21. 65 watt UV light, Ultima II 4000 Filter
http://www.aquaultraviolet.com/products/filters/ultima2/4000

 

[adavisus]

Just a thought, if you have a microscope see if the particles are algae, or very finely puree'd sediments.

 

[Mucky_Waters]

This is driving me nuts. Nearly one month and my pond water is still puke green. I've been shading the water for the past month, got tons of filtration, UV, bacteria to eat the green baddies but still nothing.

What am I missing?

You do know that bacteria doesn't eat green water (planktonic) algae, right? At least not live algae anyway.

That pump you sighted pumps about 5800 gph, do you have that full 5800 gph going though your UV unit? If so it's far too fast a flow for the UV light to kill the algae, you need some method of reducing or diverting the flow so that the water that flows though the UV is less then say 2000 gph.
Also, once you get the flow right you'll want to have a fine straining mechanical filter to filter out all the dead algae that will be starting to clump together and become more easy to filter out. Otherwise you'll still have murky water for a while, it will just be a more browny color the green. Also, you should make sure you are doing frequent partial water changes, that will help speed up the process.

 

[Big Lou]

Have you considered using a plant and fish safe liquid algaecide? Works great for me. Be sure to follow the manufactures directions. Doing so rewards you with a clear pond and healthy plants and fish.

 

[JohnHuff]

I think you need to add mechanical filtration to your set up.
The Ultima purports to be a biomechanical filter, but there isn't such a thing.
A mechanical filter is supposed to catch suspended particles and will lose surface area and get clogged up as it catches these suspended particles.
A biofilter is supposed to have a large surface area that doesn't get clogged up.
You can't have one thing that does both well, it's like asking for a lineman to also be a safety. The UItima is a biofilter.
Can you add a mechanical filter upstream to it?

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Do you have any fish? Are there any live plants in the pond? As mentioned, you need to greatly reduce the flow rate to the UV, however I also looked up the Ultima II 4000 filter that you mentioned above. This looks like the body might be 50 gallon at the most? The company's recommendation of 2000gph minimum is highly overrated, and should actually be considered the maximum flow rate. Just like the UV, you want water moving slowly through a biological filter so the bacteria has time to clean it. My own setup is two 55-gal barrels, and I have a flow rate of about 1200gph through each one.

I would start by dividing your water flow. Push 1/3 of it through the filters, and let the rest go straight out to a waterfall or other feature. The high flow of water is great for oxygenation (if you have fish), but otherwise undesirable for filtration. Also if you have fish, I would be on the lookout for a second filter. Your filters should be at least 5-10% of the volume of your pond (the more fish, the higher a volume of filtration is needed). But for your immediate algae problem, fixing the flow through the UV will make a huge difference, and adding a lot of live plants will help long-term.

Even with a lot of help, a month is not unusual for the algae bloom to persist in a new pond. Mine took longer than that, even with a lot of plants put in around the edges. However once the plants started growing, the green algae has never come back. (I wish I could say the same for the string algae though.)