Hmmmm... I need to turn on some lights first to help me find that link.... I know you put it down here some place!!!!!!! Well... I'm sure it will turn up sooner or later!!
The only problem with the hyacinths is they are a tad bit illegal here. I remember getting some for our pond when I was a kid from the guadalupe river. That was about 3 floods ago, they are all probably in the gulf of mexico by now. I do have it stuffed with quite a collection however. about 6 water lillies, a couple of locally acquired specimins of undetermined submergent variety and a store bought oxygenator that is doing very well.
I guess we will see what course mother nature is going to run. So far... no more dead fish. We will keep our fingers crossed... thanks for all the advice... Tom
String Algae and peroxide
Very informative, I guess I will have to check out the creek and see what I can find.
I did another peroxide treatment today and I could see some results within a few hours, maybe it is finally getting down to managable levels. The bubbling seems to be getting worse, before the peroxide treatment at least, will see what it looks like tomorrow.
Thanks again for the help... Tom
Well small pond is still as clear as a bell no more treatments and it looks like new water i am in love with Tom for the info. I cleared the big pond of all potted plants seemed even with fert. tabs the lillies and lotus just got smaller and smaller, even the foxtails didn't bloom last year, so yanked it all out and now am doing just floaters for this year.
Tom brought the $400 vaccum I mention before boy oh boy does it work on the muck in the bottom, it has been at least 5 years and the 1200 gallon pond was a mess stating to go bad, well i cleaned with the new gadget twice now and I am impressed with it also, I think at my age this might be a life safer.
JoAnn
DRH2
I collected some moss from the creek, definitely had some daphnia in it. I dumped it all in the pond. The fish acted like cattle being fed hay in the middle of winter. I wasn't sure if they were eating the moss or critters in the moss. I hope some of the daphnia survived!!!... Tom
I've been learning lots by lerking on this thread. We had a terrible string algae problem. I was surprised how much would grow during our first zone 4 winter with a pond. The hydrogen peroxide got rid of the string algae almost over night. I loved the idea as it is cheap, easy and safe for the fish and other plants since our pond is 12,000 gallons. We had a large fish die off over the winter. I was surprised despite the 4 feet depth of the pond and aeration throughout the winter. I had 18 fish and we are now down to 4. I have tested our water and everything seems pretty good except for the hardness to be high at 300 (we have well water,) pH about 8 and alkalinity at 300. It looks like you use baking soda to raise the alkalinity, do I need to worry about the alkalinity being too high? If I do need to worry about it, how do I change it?
I am looking for a stream to get some critters. Sounds like a great idea.
Thanks for all of the information!
Tom, I’ve attached a couple of other websites that may also add a bit of interesting reading. The first one:
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/Algae/competition.html
Talks about the balance of nutrients and the potential impact on algae blooms - namely that it isn’t just about the phosphorous available but also the nitrogen to phosphorous ratio. To a certain extent I play around with this. During the summer I add about 1 tablespoon of muriate of potash/1000 gallons about every other week(potassium chloride or you can use potassium sulfate both of which are generally available at a local feed and grain store or a good quality garden center). This adds potassium which tends to help the vascular plants out-compete the algae for phosphorus and nitrates.
For more on the daphnia/amphipod story here’s a Master’s thesis from a few years back that may be of interest.
http://staff.washington.edu/tofty/toft_ms.pdf
The major points of interest in this thing are, in my mind: a.) the roots of water hyacinths are major source of daphnia/amphipod growth, b.) when fish were captured and their guts examined that they found that daphnia/amphipods represented a substantial portion of the diet, c.) for every square foot of surface coverage there was approximately 10 square feet of root surface in the water.
I guess my point is this - I’m positive that daphnia/amphipods are not the sole controlling factor in algae growth but what intrigues me the most is that they appear to be ‘a factor’ and definitely appear to fall under the “no harm/no foul” rule that I keep in the back of my mind if I’m going to do anything or add anything to my pond. Tom, your observation about the moss is exactly the same thing I see when I toss in a water hyacinth (I apologize for not picking up on where you live and realizing that water hyacinths are prohibited in your state). Some people say “oh, look, the Koi and other fish are eating the plant!”. I’m sure that they do eat some of it but I’d be willing to bet that part of the feeding frenzy that you and I observe is that they are really HOT to get at the critters! Can you grow water lettuce? That should give a root mass for the little critters to hide and grow in. But I highly doubt that they got all of them out of your moss - remember they breed and grow at a very fast rate.
Epazota, your alkalinity is fine - you won’t need to worry about a pH crash!!! The hardness is nothing to worry about either as far as I can tell. The only thing would be the total salt (not as in table salt but the sum of all the cations and anions) - it gets too high you may have trouble with some plants. Some will keep salt in the pond at a level of 0.1% all the time but I prefer not to do that. You may want to invest in a ‘cheapy’ salinity meter to keep tabs on that if you think you are near that level. Sorry to hear about the loss of your fish. I use an aerator all winter long and haven’t lost any of the big guys. Lost a few of the little comets (less than 1" or so) but frankly we needed to lose them. The Koi eat some but still need to get them out to keep the stocking level down. If you had a heavy string or suspended algae load going into winter you may not have had sufficient aeration or you had some hydrogen sulfide production as the ‘stuff’ decays. You might want to check out Koivet.com for symptoms as related to what you saw in your fish ‘cause that’s an area that I don’t have too much knowledge about.
Its been several days since the last application of peroxide, no signs of string algea anymore. No clumps of algae coming to surface either. We have a couple of lillies fixin to bloom also... can't wait!!
well David, you now have two very happy people to add to your list for removing string algae. LOL. I keep reading this thread so I can try to keep up with all this knowledge you keep giving us. Thank you so much.
JoAnn