Pond string algae in cold weather

[brokensword]

A pond 6"x6" x 36" deep would have 5.6 gallons. A pond 36" x 36" x 36" would have 202 gallons. A circular pond 4 ft in diameter and 3 ft deep would have 282 gallons. This 4 ft diameter circular pond might be closest to 250 gallons because it may not be 3 ft deep everywhere.

The constant should be 7.48. When using this constant all units should be feet (not inches)

Btw, I'm scratching my head trying to figure out the dimensions of your pond if it has 250 gallons and is 3' deep. Either it's very small surface area or the gallonage/depth is in error. I get 6" x 6" surface x 36" depth if you have 250 gallons. (LxWxAVG D x 7.43 = total gallons)

ah, yeah; should have been the square root of 11, and in feet. Sorry for the confusion. I have a client with a preformed about 4'x4' but 18" deep and he's told me it was a 300 gallon pond. Just hadn't seen anything at 36" deep and imagined a smaller surface area then. Thanks for correcting the math!

 

[Lisak1]

One thing I wanted to point out was the picture @cas posted - look at all that algae, but also check out how crystal clear that water is. String algae is great for collecting fine sediment and trapping it - my water is always beautifully clear when I have string algae on the waterfall. I try to be careful when I pull it out so I don't release it back into the pond.

 

[milocat2012]

My pond is around 3200 gallons and a few years back I had really bad string algae problems in the winter-spring. At that time i did shut off pump for the winter and by the spring the algae was so long that after filter was restarted it completely clogged up all the prefilter baskets and filter media. (see attached photos). Created terrible mess and lots of hard clean up. I bought the algae removal tool and tried to remove as much sting algae as possible. but since then i'm running the filter all winter and use preventative measures for string algae like Biosafe GreenClean Granular Algaecide and Biosafe Systems GreenClean Tablets. I mostly use the tablets just to prevent algae from growing and between running filter and preventative measures it works well. I do shut off all my waterfalls for the winter, so filter runs thru only one winterized pipe i made. I replace the same pipe in the summer with venturi action pipe i made to get more oxygen for fish pumped to the bottom of the pond. my pump is the external 1/2 HP (about 7500 GPH if you run it full force) i control the flow by valve and run it in the winter only half flow and full flow in the summer and it easy powers on 1 bead filter, 4 waterfall filters and venturi pipe. In the summer i don't have any string algae problems as my koi eat most of it. Except the waterfalls but i control it in waterfalls by sprinkle granular algaecide about ones a week as water temperature warms up. Before i started to use granular algaecide my waterfalls were green mess as well, but now i don't let the algae grow. It's easier to use the granular algaecide and spiracle it before algae grows, because if it's already big it'd kill it but long dead strings would create huge mess in the pond. Since i started to run pump and filer thru the winter i don't have lots of problems with string algae and also my spring start up is much easier: no huge ammonia spikes like i use to have before. The photos are from a few years ago then i had bad problem

 

[milocat2012]

And here is the first photo how the algae in the pond now. So it's big difference between what i had 4-5 years back and i was battling it for a few years. also that was how my waterfalls looked like before i was preventing algae growth and the last as it always looks now with granular prevention. it's many companies make granular algaecide and i've tried a few different brands, they all work the same, so i buy now whichever one is cheaper. I but bigger buckets, as it come out cheaper and it'll last for longer time as i use it weekly in the summer.