Floating scum all summer

[Meyer Jordan]

What are the other parameters of your source water mainly Nitrate?

 

[sissy]

You have frogs and fish spawning and it adds to the nutrient level .Cleaning the pond is not good for the fish and the pond store is out to make money by selling you stuff .The OH that didn't work so try this .Alga is normal until plants get growing good .How many fish do you have and what size are they since you say it is only 800 gallons .Could be since you say goldfish that since they breed so much that there are to many

 

[CharlotteSC]

I have an OASE Aqua Max Eco classic pump - water goes to Oase filto clear pressurized filter with UV ( I cant remember what size but it was rated for more than my pond) from there I re-installed my atlantic filter falls (after the mess I had last year without it) water enters at the bottom of the filter falls, comes up thru the media and exits at the waterfall. This is the same setup I've had for years with one exception.

My Danner pondmaster mini pond skimmer is not hooked into the system. It has a pondmaster mag 9.5 pump attached and basically skims and circulates water. I had wanted to be without a skimmer but that didnt work. It is not connected to the system because my oase filter required a stronger pump.

I've had this pond for 10 years and no problems until last year. I hoped adding the filter falls back into the system would help this year. I also covered 1/3 of the pond with shade fabric for the last 4-6 weeks to try to give the water lilies a chance to start. I have to fix this or tear it down, I'm not gonna look at scum all summer again. It is not a runoff issue.

Water parameters dont look bad to me except the screaming high ph which I had all last year too. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Thanks
Charlotte

 

[cas]

You have a very pretty pond.
I can tell you what works for me. My waterfall does not provide enough water circulation so I added an air stone to the bottom of the pond. You can see the ripples it creates in the picture below. This surface agitation and increased water circulation moves the loose algae to the skimmer where the net and filter pad pick up all the loose algae.

 

[Lisak1]

I was going to suggest the same as what @cas mentioned - perhaps adding an airstone would help. Additional oxygen may be the ticket. Good luck! Your pond is pretty!

 

[sissy]

air in a pond is your friend or at least more water movement to aerate the pond water more

 

[CharlotteSC]

I do have an airstone I could put in but my waterlilies dont like it.

 

[cas]

but my waterlilies dont like it

What do you mean? The air stone didn't seem to bother my water lilies.

 

[CharlotteSC]

Waterlilies dont like splashing water ? right ? Seriously this scum has to go and way is my ph so high. This problem started last year. 8 years before that.... no problem

 

[CharlotteSC]

True yours are beautiful. Maybe I am thinking of splashing waterfalls.

 

[Lisak1]

Yeah, they don't like splashing, but won't mind an airstone. I would give it a try.

 

[sissy]

Why did you put the airstone in the lily plant .You can get a net and remove the scum with a net .You will need to test the water to find out the source of this scum .There has to be a reason and you will just find it .

 

[Faebinder]

A comments that I believe may be helpful.

1) Sunlight, your pond is not shaded and that's algae's best friend. So you're gonna have to take other measures to favor plants to algae. Add a tarp to cover some of the pond during the summer. Another suggestion is to use water hyacinths and water lettuce. They love the sun and will shade the pond, blocking light to algae and consuming some of the nutrients for the scum. I would set a significant amount of them to run around the pond to give that shade. I saw one of your posts stating that you use them but the pictures don't show it.

2) I looked at all the pictures you got and it seems that you don't have enough plants for the pond. I don't know how many fish you have and how big they are but an 850 gallon pond will go green without a bog and a bunch of goldfish, even unfed ones. My advise: Hand build a bog if you can... even a small one can make a difference.

3) How good is the filter volume wise, what can it handle?

 

[CharlotteSC]

It's been a tough year algae wise for a lot of people, including me. Your numbers look Okay to me, so all of the nutrients are probably tied up in the algae. The filter your using (Oase Filto Clear 1600 filter with UV) is going to have a tough time doing any biological filtering, it looks like its mainly a mechanical filter. Those foam filter pads in it almost always get hopelessly clogged up before you get any bacteria populating the pads. You said your kH is high and normally it's low, the nitrification bacteria will consume carbonates as they clean the water, supporting my suspicion you're not getting enough biological filtration with your setup. I think you might get better results from using both the Oase Filto Clear 1600 filter with UV and the Atlantic FilterFalls, which has media bags for biological filtration. The skimmer should catch a lot of the scummy algae.
Make sure your doing 10% water changes each week and be patient.

I have done that for this year.

 

[CharlotteSC]

A comments that I believe may be helpful.

1) Sunlight, your pond is not shaded and that's algae's best friend. So you're gonna have to take other measures to favor plants to algae. Add a tarp to cover some of the pond during the summer. Another suggestion is to use water hyacinths and water lettuce. They love the sun and will shade the pond, blocking light to algae and consuming some of the nutrients for the scum. I would set a significant amount of them to run around the pond to give that shade. I saw one of your posts stating that you use them but the pictures don't show it.

2) I looked at all the pictures you got and it seems that you don't have enough plants for the pond. I don't know how many fish you have and how big they are but an 850 gallon pond will go green without a bog and a bunch of goldfish, even unfed ones. My advise: Hand build a bog if you can... even a small one can make a difference.

3) How good is the filter volume wise, what can it handle?

The filter should handle more than my gallons. I added a small bog at the top, then decided it might not be enough so I reinstalled my filterfalls in to bog area. Yes, I screwed up last year by thinning the lilies to much. My water so out of whack my few hyacinths died. Only a few goldfish- less than 10. Anyone have any hyacinth for sale?