No More Dirty Water!
Some quick and easy tips to help you get your pond water "Sparkling Clean and Clear"!
An easy way to clean the water in your pond is to connect a small basin near your pond, fill it with marginal bog plants and recirculate your pond water through this basin. The basin should be a minimum, 1/10th the size of your pond, the plants become a filter, filtering out all the nutrients and algae causing bacteria. Soon your water will be crystal clear without the use of chemicals. It may take a few weeks, but your filtering plants will be lush and healthy and your pond water will be clean.
The best plants for your basin are iris, water mint, water celery, papyrus, umbrella palm, pickerel rush, sedge, canna, water hyacinths and water lettuce. Always clean your filter late fall or early spring. Discard any plants that did not survive the season and clean any debris from basin.
Your plants will be acting as a biological filter, helping to filter out solids and clearing the water. Plant roots are great for filtering out nitrifying bacteria. The only time you may have green water is when the plants are dormant, this occurs in late spring and early fall. Once the plants begin their uptake of nutrients, your water will be clean again in no time!
You should always use a mechanical filter when the plants are dormant!
If you have fish in your pond, reconsider how much you should be feeding them, if at all! Many people tend to overfeed their fish and then wonder why they are subject to so many algae blooms and algae issues. The reason for this is because fish excrete their waste directly into the water. If there are not enough plants in your pond to use all of the nitrogen that the fish are producing, the nitrogen will fuel algae. Believe it or not your fish do not need to be fed. Fish feed off of the naturally occurring algae in the water, along with mosquito larvae and other insect larvae. Most people enjoy watching the fish come up to feed and enjoy the colors, fancy fins and patterns of their goldfish and koi. They tend to overfeed their fish during this process. Trust me, the fish will still come up when you throw 5-10 pellets into the water rather than a handful. Your fish will be healthier as well! They will be much easier to see when the water is crystal clear!
Enjoy your pond, plants, fish and flowers this year, along with crystal clear water!
