Green pond water

[Steve2324]

pond is finally finished and I have had the bog filter/ waterfall running for around 2 weeks now.

At first the water was crystal clear i could see 1.2m down with ease.

Now it's starting to turn green with algae and I havnt even put any fish in yet.

I know my bog filter doesn't have many plants yet I have 2 horsetails and 2 small Irises which are starting to grow. On the shelves I have a forgetme not that has doubled in size in 2 weeks and on the bottom of the pond a large lily that's already sent a pad to the surface.

Do I simply not have enough plants or is this just a natural process that is trying to find a balance?

Maybe I was naive but I thought all the algae would get sucked into the bog filter and not make it through the gravel.

 

[Jhn]

Completely typical in new ponds, it is establishing a natural balance, your pond water will clear in time. Let it do its thing green water is harmless and will establish the base of the food chain in your pond.

How bogs work is the plants use up the available nutrients, leaving nothing for algae to consume, so the algae disappears overtime. The bog itself will not trap algae as it is too small and just flows through the gravel with the water. Besides you don’t want the gravel trapping stuff as it will quickly clog up.

 

[qclabrat]

have you been testing your water? Green water is not unhealthy water and could sustain fish if it is stable. It's important that. I took a while, about 2 months before my water cycled last summer and water cleared almost overnight. At this point, stay patient and if you know the water is safe you fish, add a few and monitor the water chemistry every day. That's what I did last year and all my fish made it though the green water phase okay. I had more problems wintering the pond, where I lost 2. Others here may have differing opinions

 

[Lisak1]

New pond = green water. It's nature's way. Until you get fish in the pond you won't have a complete system. Your plants will struggle to grow.

 

[Sparky]

No worries. For a short period there you could walk across the water in my new pond. Been 2 weeks and started noticing improvement a couple of days ago. My residents are already in there. So far the NH hasn’t even touched the scale. But watch it daily. Very important. My small 355 could turn on a dime if something goes a little out. Until it establishes ( which it may not ) I treat it like a new aquarium. Btw, it gets emptied for winter.

 

[Steve2324]

Thanks for all the replies the reason there is no fish in there at the moment is because I simply can't buy the ones I want until November the only stockist I can find nearby is now out of stock until then. I was too late in finishing my pond by a couple of days and he ran out.

The water as far as I can tell is perfectly fine for fish now? What tests are you referring to? Aquarium tests ph ammonia nitrites and nitrates?

My main concern at the moment is my plants I've got on the pond floor I have ludwigia growing on the floor and the green water I'm sure is completely blocking out sun from it.

I assume this will completely kill all my ludwigia?

 

[Sparky]

Yes the master kit. Your plants I don’t have an answer to. Good question.

 

[Lisak1]

I don't know how the green water will affect your underwater plants exactly, but the lack of nutrients in the pond will make it tough for them to survive. What type of fish do you plan to add?

 

[Steve2324]

I want to get the golden variety of rainbow trout. Along with some minnows as potential food for the trout. Minnows will have plenty of hiding places amongst the underwater plants and the shelf.

I may have to try and find a very cheap fish that I can just add for now and hope they die out rather than overtake the pond when I add the trout.

Do you have any recommendations of what fish I should buy to put in there for now?

 

[Lisak1]

Do you have any recommendations of what fish I should buy to put in there for now?

Well, you won't find many fans of the "I'll buy some fish and hope they die" approach here but what if you added some goldfish with the idea of re-homing them when you are able to get the fish you hope to eventually keep?

Tell us a bit more about your pond - how big, what kind of filtration, etc. I don't know a whole lot about keeping trout in a manmade pond - do you know anyone who does it? I always think of trout as stream or river fish, but @Troutredds keeps trout in a pond - maybe he will pop in and have some advice here.

 

[Steve2324]

Well, you won't find many fans of the "I'll buy some fish and hope they die" approach here but what if you added some goldfish with the idea of re-homing them when you are able to get the fish you hope to eventually keep?

Tell us a bit more about your pond - how big, what kind of filtration, etc. I don't know a whole lot about keeping trout in a manmade pond - do you know anyone who does it? I always think of trout as stream or river fish, but @Troutredds keeps trout in a pond - maybe he will pop in and have some advice here.

Well in nature all fish are the prey of another. A natural pond will always have some fish becoming prey unfortunately.

Yeah from research I've done trout are perfectly fine in ponds. I have a 9000l pond it's more long than wide and a waterfall with a bog filter at the end.

I have 35000 lph water pumping to the bottom of the bog that filters through the gravel and then overflows over the waterfall. The water is moving extremely fast so should be very good for the trout.

I have a tank with my minnows in at the moment in the house than I am trying to breed for the pond as I could only afford 10 of them on the budget I'm on.
Once I have a few babies being produced I'll be putting them in the pond.

 

[Lisak1]

OK - no snark here, but how much do you pay for minnows over there? Here I can go to any bait shop and buy a bucket of them for like $5 - and that includes the bucket! Maybe these are special minnows?

Anyway - you are correct. In nature, everyone is food for someone else. So maybe add the goldfish and then let it be survival of the fittest when your trout go in the pond. Or get those minnows in the pond and let them start breeding right in their new home! I mean, minnows won't add much to the pond cycle but it's better than nothing!

 

[Steve2324]

Well I wanted colourful minnows so the ones I have are actually rainbow shiners - not technically a minnow but very similar. They cost 7 pounds each in uk money but I've just been looking for a simple minnow supplier and it's still 2 pound each and I reckon I'd need a lot more than 10 minnows to make a difference so our price is nearly 3 usd per minnow I could probably go down the local river and figure out how to catch a bucket full. I might do that

 

[Troutredds]

Hi @Steve2324, I hope your plans work to expectation. You have a system that is 2377.55 gallons (9000 liters), that is circulating approx. 9246 gallons (35000l) per hour? That’s a screaming rate of turnover! I’d love to see pictures of the pump that provides such high flow rate. In action, it sounds like your system resembles a recirculating stream-type setup. Cheers!

 

[Steve2324]

It's just two 18,000 lph pumps side by side pumping the water to the bottom of my bog.


Do you think those rates of turnover are too much?

It's just two of these pond pumps:
https://www.allpondsolutions.co.uk/18000lh/