How long

[ashirley]

We moved the fish to the new pond yesterday. After the power being out for 2 days, the water is grass green but I got the pump and filter started early and added Microbe lift. We moved all of the established plants over from the old pond and did a water test which was right on. I also moved the lava rock bags from the established filter to the new one. Fish are up and active this morning. My question is any idea how long before the water clears. It has cleared some overnight but we can still only see a few inches down.

 

[koidaddy]

Do you mean clear from alge? That could take months without a uv clearifer. The new pond needs to establish itself. Add as many water plant as you can to help combat this.If it is just cloudy then it should settle in a few days.

 

[vertigo72]

AFAIK, green algae only live for a few days (of course they reproduce like crazy). If you put enough plants in there, especially floaters to compete with the algae for nutrition, and if you can kill most algae with an UV, it could clear up rather fast. Usually it seems to take a while though before the new plants really start growing.

 

[addy1]

get some parrots feather, hyacinths, water lettuce, even water cress from the grocery store and float in your pond. That will really help with the algae control. And they all grow great.

If you have a air pump, add some air stones to the pond, get more air in and it helps with the algae control

 

[shakaho]

Use clay in the plant pots. It seems to have some activity against algae. It would also be a good idea not to feed the algae. Basically any organic material you put in the pond produces algae food. The includes all those pond products, "beneficial bacteria products," and fish food. Algae killed with UV decomposes into algae food.

If I see excess algae in the pond, my fish go on a diet. If they are hungry they can eat the algae. Feeding fish in a healthy pond is a recreational activity, not a requirement. The problem is -- it's so much fun.

 

[vertigo72]

Its often claimed clay or kitty litter helps control algae. This never made any sense to me, if anything I thought it would provide food for algae, but now Im wondering if the reason does not lie with the anoxic filtration discussed elsewhere on this forum.

Anoxic filter baskets basically contain kitty litter (=clay) and laterite to get it started and proponents of this system claim it massively reduces nitrates, which is algae food. So perhaps it does make sense, and many of us have been using anoxic filtration without realizing it, or even ever having heard of it?

If that is indeed the case, then one should best use non clumping kitty litter, apply it in perforated plant baskets (with or without plants in them) and ideally add some laterite. It should also be noted that these filters take some time to start, though Im unsure how long. Just dont expect the algae to go away overnight if this is the principle that makes kitty litter fight algae.

 

[shakaho]

When I tried to grow duckweed in tubs, it kept getting out-competed by algae. Once the duckweed gets established, it will shade the water completely, and no more problem, but it wan't getting established. I had some algaecide that I bought when I was totally ignorant, and tried that in the tub. It didn't do a thing.

Everyone was talking about clay for algae right then, so a threw about a cup of kitty litter in the tub and swirled it around a bit. The next day the algae was gone. It has grown back some, but the duckweed is now covering the surface.

The most usual suggestion for how clay reduces algae is that it binds to the cells. Clay binds all kinds of stuff. It could stick the "green water" algae together into filterable masses. It could bind to critical sites on the cell wall. In any case, I think to get the full effect, you have to make the water cloudy with clay. Put some in a bucket of water and swish it around until you get a thick slurry. Then pour this in the pond. It will look awful for a while, but when the clay settles the water will be noticeably clearer, whether or not the algae is all gone.