My Lagoon

[buckry]

So I have a black liner and when I first put the water in it it looked like a bottomless pit. Was cool, but not the beautify tropical lagoon I was hoping for. Now that some algae has formed on the sides and bottom the water looks really green even though it's not the water, it's the walls and bottom. You can see the rocks I have on the bottom of the liner holding the flaps down, you can see all of the junk in my filter buckets, and most importantly you can see the fish no matter where they are in the pond, but the whole thing looks a bit on the stagnant side because of this. It's not a huge deal, but I thought I'd ask is this just they way it will be? I'm certainly not going to scrub the walls of the pond or anything, but my 200 gallon goldfish pond has algae everywhere too but that pond appears to be crystal clear.

 

[sissy]

thats not the bad stuff that is the good stuff and it is loved by the fish and taddies .I just went out by my pond and the scent is amazing all my sweet pea flowers are blooming and I planted tons of seeds of them and even though they are vining plant they look great in planter baskets hanging down .You have to try them .

 

[addy1]

That is good stuff, good for the pond and critters. I forgot about the sweet peas, they do smell wonderful

 

[sissy]

Yep put them in hanging baskets and just give them a haircut every couple of days and the scent is amazing .The different colors just add to it .I also planted nasturtiums by my pond and great just take a few flowers add them to my salad for a great peppery taste .I think these make great cheap all around plants .

 

[JohnHuff]

I leave the algae. The amount of algae on my sides and bottom vary, but they uptake nutrients and keep the pond water clear. It would be a mistake to try and clean that algae off. Think of it as a beautiful algae lagoon!

 

[buckry]

I know the algae is good, I'm just upset that it is making my water look green. I was just wondering if this illusion would go away, or if this is just the way my pond will look forever.

 

[sissy]

certain times of the year it will look clearer and when tadpoles come along even clearer .The thing you may have to change is your filtering system as your fish get bigger you will need more or you will get a large algae bloom and string algae and string algae is a bear to get rid of . .In the pond filters never work for long and require a lot more time to clean than a filter out of the water .

 

[buckry]

Why would an in pond filter take longer to clean than an out of pond filter? They're both filtering the water the same. I cleaned one of mine out yesterday, took 2 minutes maybe. Didn't really need to clean it I was just curious how long it would take, and even if I have to spend double that I'm not worried, besides don't you have inpond filters? Milk crates and lava rocks as I recall?

 

[sissy]

That is just there to keep babies from being sucked into the pump and then up to the filter and keep taddies safe .In pond filter ,like it means in pond and stuff is staying in the pond and out of the pond filters pick up the stuff and the heavy stuff settles to the bottom and you have a drain there and all you have to do is turn it on and drain out any stuff that settles to the bottom .No filter media right on the bottom ,it has to be held off the bottom to allow stuff to settle .All the good stuff that settles to the bottom goes in my flower beds.I lost a baby fish last year because i forgot to put it in

 

[buckry]

I see, so your internal is just a coarse prefilter. . I'm planning on using my current filter as a prefilter for a skippy filter later, but there will never be any need to drain it, sticks and leaves will still be stuck on my bucket, the water in the skippy will just have micro organisms in it, shouldn't be any dirt at all in there. But if that turns out not to be useful I'll convert my inpond prefilters to a much more coarse filter to allow much more stuff through.

 

[Shdwdrgn]

Welcome to the joys of the first year of your pond. It does take time, but eventually the algae will hide all those imperfections in the liner. I have a variety of river rocks piled up around mine, and with the algae on them, everything tends to blend together and disappear. Now I'm just trying to figure out how to get the sediment out of my water and get it cleared up again.

 

[buckry]

So you're saying not to get my hopes up this first year? Just do my best and it will get better next year? I can live with that.

 

[don't ask]

you will probably have days where your water is per say crystal clear and days where the bloom will take over and viewing will not be as desirable

 

[JohnHuff]

The pond is a dynamic environment and changes. Just this morning I noticed that the short string algae on my liner has mostly disappeared but I'm sure it will come back again. Now I'm worried about what the fish will eat!

 

[buckry]

It's been really decent the last 2 days, today especially, it was smoldering out and the floating algae in the water is minimal. I'm SUPER pleased with it right now, but I guess you're right, backtracking is always possible. I'm adding a third pump soon and a bio filter, that should be a definite improvement.