STRING ALGAE?!

[mrtrumpet]

Best product I have ever found in 6 years of ponding and 2 ponds is GreenClean. When used as directed it worked like a charm for me. Never had major string algae after I started using it. Whenever it appeared I would dust the areas on the stream, let it sit for about 20 min, restart the falls, and voila! It was gone... http://www.amazon.com/GreenClean-Granular-Algaecide-2-5-pounds/dp/B0009YHU5U

 

[gello22]

I tend to get string algae in the spring after the water starts to warm before the plants have taken off. It is temporary for me as it goes away when the plants really start to grow. I deal with it two ways. Remove mechanically: a cordless drill and a 3/8" 3-4foot long wooden dowel in the drill make pretty quick work of it. It winds up real nice on the dowel. I cut off the dowel with a pocket knife in big piles. When I have removed most of it I treat with hydrogen peroxide. The plants usually take care of it from there.

 

[addy1]

Your tests results show NO nutrients, yet the algae is still present and growing so it must be getting nutrients from somewhere.

Brand new test kits, results still the same all read zero, except phosphate, that reads 0.1 lowest reading on the scale, just barely turns color. Still have sting in the small pond where it is welcome to stay, a lot of critters live in it. My best guess is it is a warm slow water moving pond, maybe just perfect conditions for string to grow.

Simple logic says that the test results must be wrong.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Brand new test kits, results still the same all read zero, except phosphate, that reads 0.1 lowest reading on the scale, just barely turns color. Still have sting in the small pond where it is welcome to stay, a lot of critters live in it. My best guess is it is a warm slow water moving pond, maybe just perfect conditions for string to grow.

It must have a source of nutrients.

 

[Meyer Jordan]

Brand new test kits, results still the same all read zero, except phosphate, that reads 0.1 lowest reading on the scale, just barely turns color. Still have sting in the small pond where it is welcome to stay, a lot of critters live in it. My best guess is it is a warm slow water moving pond, maybe just perfect conditions for string to grow.

How much detritus/sediment accumulation is in this little slow-moving pond?

 

[addy1]

It must have a source of nutrients.

Totally agree, something the tests kits don't pick up , oh well at least I know my water is in good shape for fish

 

[Lisak1]

Best product I have ever found in 6 years of ponding and 2 ponds is GreenClean

GreenClean is simply sodium percarbonate packaged for ponds and water features. The Amazon link lists it for just under $12 a pound - I pay $1.50 a pound from a soap making supply house. And I agree - this is the only product we use in our pond and we never have an algae issue.

@Meyer Jordan Welcome Back! Hope you're making a swift recovery!

 

[addy1]

Yes welcome back Meyer! Glad to see you typing again!

 

[johan]

Plant a few buckets of rooted water cress. Water cress is extraordinarily efficient in capturing excess nitrates

 

[addy1]

Thanks, I have so many plants growing in and out of the pond , yellow flag, lilies, rushes a 25x4.5 foot long bog, etc etc not even concerned about the small amount of string that is in my small warm ponds. If my ponds with fish were overwhelmed with it then I would work harder at removing it. But that is not the case.

Plant a few buckets of rooted water cress. Water cress is extraordinarily efficient in capturing excess nitrates

 

[johan]

Cool

 

[MitchM]

Algae is a natural part of any aquatic system. Don't about it in small quantities.

(welcome back, Meyer, hope all went well)

 

[Meyer Jordan]

@Meyer Jordan Welcome Back! Hope you're making a swift recovery!

Yes welcome back Meyer! Glad to see you typing again!

(welcome back, Meyer, hope all went well)

Thanks all. Yes I am back, if only barely. Surgery successful. Other post-op complications which are being controlled. Gonna be a long recovery period, but what the hey, I don't have anything else to do!!

 

[Dave 54]

Cool

Hi Johan and welcome to the forum where abouts in the UK are you from the wife and i are way down in the South West of the UK plymouth .
Been keeping koi for around 28 years or so now yourself ?


Dave

 

[johan]

I'm in Surrey, just a little up from Cranleigh - moved here when I got married (she's a Surrey gal, I'm Dutch). I'm hardly a pond expert although I do remember building my first (very bad!) one when I was 15 or so - many many moons ago . But, nowadays, I do have couple of ponds in the garden which seem to do ok