Water Gardening: the greening of a pond, 1 by fredrump

fredrump wrote:
Ok, my pond seems to be alive and well - too well. The fish are always hungry and have adjusted nicely to their new home. About a week or two ago the water started to get greener and greener and now I can't even see the bottom any more. The fish are invisible until I throw some food into the feed ring. Somehow they can see or smell food very quickly. They act as if they were water shovels and skim the food right off the edge of the ring, a foot or two at a time. It's quite amazing to watch. But that's not why I'm writing.

The pond folks, whose advice I've taken in my pond design, ( http://www.skippysstuff.com/index.html ) tell me that all is normal and that the pond SHOULD turn green as it equalizes itself to the environment. I should add more plants, bacteria and time and all will be well - eventually. I don't know if I should add more plants as I worry about becoming overcrowded as they mature in this heat and full sun. Like how many feet appart should I have water lilies to provide shade? Should I plant other things in the pond itself. I mean I have a concrete pond and everything needs to be in pots. Tall things need giant pots in order not to fall over in windy weather. I wanted to avoid that. We get strong winds and hurricanes around here.

But generally speaking how many plants are too many? And how long does it take to clear up a pond? My two 150 gallon tanks are slimey with growth and various marginals are growing in there. I suspect that the bio process is not quite ready to eat the algae and wonder about the whole process anyway. Does it really work?

Many of you must have had green ponds at one time or another. Do they really clean themselves up given enough time? How much time?