got ethical husbandry?

Any pond experts?

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sfsuphysics

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Now while I haven't started an "official" pond, what I have been doing is collecting RO/DI waste water in a 300g rubbermade, then I connected a hose to that to water plants and stuff at my time schedule. Now I'm using gravity to pull water out which means it's an above ground pond, so I haven't exactly prettied it up (nor do I know if I'm going to at this point...).

So since I have this huge vat of fresh water, I really wanted to keep the mosquito factor out of the equation so I tossed in a bunch of feeder goldfish (I haven't seen a mosquito yet... although not quite sure this is the mosquito season).

However it seems I've hit that point in every pond owners life they dread... the water starts turning a murky green color. I thought since I'd drain a portion and refill it this wouldn't be much of a problem but I was wrong. So I'm wondering what possibilities I could use to try and rectify this.

Some ideas I came up with (but not sure how effective they'd be)

Ozone- I have this ozone maker I was going to hook up to the reef tank, but in all honesty never got around to using it, thought I could use ozone on the pond water. However I'm not sure if I'd set it up in the same way, that's to say requiring carbon and all that good junk to keep the fish alive.

Carbon- Fairly straight forward, run carbon through a "reactor", and let chemistry do the rest. Downside of this is I'm not quite sure how much carbon I'd need to use (and as a result replace), or if it'd work at all.

Protein skimmer- Can this work on freshwater? I know bubbles tend to be MUCH bigger in FW than SW, but I have an old junky skimmer I could try :D

Plants- Apparently the planted tank folk simply go the out-compete route when it comes to algae, I've scene those floating plants, and I guess those would be the best bet as far as simply letting them cover the pond (I like this idea the most because it seems the most efficient route, plus it adds some pretty). However not sure if this is the time of year to buy those pond plants (i've seen them at lowes/hd usually at the beginning of summer)

Do nothing- So I have a vat of murky green water... *shrug*... I'm guessing *ahem* someone else in the household might not like this terribly much. Plus chemistry problems aside I'm wondering if the algae would potentially suck up the available oxygen and kill the fish at night.

Do nothing with a lid- Ditch the fish, ditch the idea of any sort of garden piece, and simply put a thick dark lid on the whole thing, no algae to worry about, no mosquitoes to worry about.

Comments? Suggestions? Plans?
 
i vote for the ozone and plant method!

i mothers house in marin had a pond that was not "ideal" and would grow algae like there was no tomorrow. she had feeder goldfish and koi in it. i ended putting two dozen of those hyacinth plants and a uv sterilizer to finally eradicate the problem. I think an ozonizer would surely work a lot better! i think the trick to ponds is to keep the water shaded and cool.

you may also want to net your pond if you have it exposed so that the birds don't eat your fish.
 
From what I've read on the subject, plants are the way to go. Not only do they use up nutrients, but many aquatic plants release allelochemicals that inhibit algae growth. You'll want to avoid running carbon in order to take advantage of that.

Also, go with plants that float on the surface of the water. The air and direct sunlight will allow them to grow much more quickly and they'll shade the algae, further slowing its growth.
 
I'll worry about the net when I loose stuff, I'm not going to put in anything particularly pricey in it, so at this point I don't care. I do have a couple (family?) resident skunks that wander the various backyards (unsure how they get all over the place unless they burrow under the fences (which have concrete on the bottom), but I have a feeling anything that goes in, is going to stay in due to the steepness of the walls

Allelochemicals, ooh I like the sound of that, even though I don't quite know what it means, it sounds super cool :D

I would do UV if I had UV handy, I don't however, and would like to minimize purchases for this if possible, I mean hell the end result is I'm using this to water my garden.

There is a hole in the bottom, how do you think I plumbed in a hose :D
 
Drill another hole while you still have a chance! :bigsmile:
I tried a pond about 10 years ago.
First the birds (egrets) then the raccoons.
Finally the raccoons punctured the liner.
I then filled it back up with dirt and nice looking gravel.
 
Green water is an odd one. In the FW planted world, once you get it, you usually need to use UV or diatom filters.

For now, I would use a floating type of plant. Not only are they usually good nutrient exporters compared to most underwater plants, but they also block sunlight (again good for the anti algae cause). There is a non rooting drifting plant which seems to be strong in the anti algae mojo (Allelochemicals chems are strong with this one) which you should look into. I think it is Hornwort (Ceratophyllum demersum ) but not 100% sure.
 
Theresa'a mom's pond had a biological filter to help grow bacteria. Maybe add porous rock in bottom, kinda like live rock in our tanks?? Might be wrong though.
 
May I suggest algaefix. If you not want to invest in more filtrations: beads, biological, and skimmer, dose this. I am currently using this to assist with biological and mechanical filtrations during summer because pea fish soup is a sore eye.
 
Chemicals will drop the floating algae out of the water column. True. Raccoons will get your fish sooner than later. True. You can spend as much or more getting a pond right as you do on SW system. True.

I kind of like green, it is a color of healing, so your area should promote good health. Just accept it and watch your blood pressure go down, which I have heard is healing.

I am into SW because I live in an apartment and could not build another Koi pond. Steve is right about the rock filled biological filter system. Fairly easy to build and maintain, double as waterfall feature. Cut back on the fish numbers would be my first suggestion, if they are only there for mosquito control. Just wait for the raccoon's, see above. Feed minimally if at all. Best thing going is a gravity fed three container mechanical/biological filter. Not that easy to build, but cleans up the water. You got to love it when you order pumps by horse power.

Lotus Land Koi Farm in North Carolina has been a wealth of information for me.
 
Mike,

Richard is right, you need to have some kind of biological filtration on a pond to help with the algae. Also, you typically want somewhere between 60 and 70 percent coverage of the surface area of the pond with some kind of plant. Most people go with water lilies and if you search online there are many places that sell all kinds of varieties with the full gamet of colored flowers. Just like SW you will need good water circulation(IIRC somewhere between 10x up to 20x).

In the past I made a couple ponds and ran both successfully without the need for UV or chemical algaecides. The one was 14' x 8' and almost 4 feet deep using 2 food grade 55 gallon drums filled with hand sized rock for filtration. I could see to the bottom of the pond clearly and only rarely had algae problems which seemed to occur for a short time with the seasonal change from spring to summer. Hope this is of some help.
 
Mike, I'm with Michael.

I helped build a pond (ok, I gave them the idea and executed it for them with their funding) for my girlfriend's folks down in San Diego. They of course ran into the problem of green water, being pretty darn green in summer time. After trying a few different chemicals, I ended up just installing a quick and easy biological filter. The pond is ~6'x4'x2' deep in full sun. An old 20g acrylic sump put in plain sunlight and filled with a box of old bioballs from from Phong with water pumped in and overflowing out worked just fine to clear the pond up. Took about a week or two to see improvement, but it worked pretty nicely. So I'd go with a pump and some sort of biological filtration (external filter? Or just a submerged bucket full of bioballs with water pumped into it?). I'd also look into getting some mosquito fish (what I used to call guppies growing up). They're livebearers and seem to thrive off of practically nothing. Also would toss in some floating plants. Duckweed, hyacinth, water lettuce etc depending on how much sun it gets.
 
I had a pond back in Michigan for years. :) I somehow managed to keep crystal clear water. The only mechanics I had in it was a circulation pump with a sponge filter. I would have to clean out the sponge filter every 3-7 days which would suck up a lot of green slime. :Sp There was algae on the walls and I had a Koi which had gotten pretty big. In the fall I had to place a net over the top to catch the leaves and in the winter I would remove the fountain head and filter, place the pump on a ledge and let it run continuously to keep it from freezing all winter long. :bigsmile:
 
Oi! All of this just to try and save some water from my RO unit... the pain of saltwater strikes again.

Ok I'll figure something out, see if I have something sitting around I could work on for biofiltration (no deepsand bed :D), I did toss my old Seio 2600 in it.. that's keeping the surface moving pretty well. Ironically I do have a 3 tiered "waterfall" preformed liner from back when I did have a pond, maybe I can make use of that to hold the filtration media.
 
why worry about green water, it's just being used to home goldfish which I think eat the algae and water plants, in which case it isn't doing any harm.

Most ponds I have seen (natualy occuring) had green water, and I think it comes from lack of movement and a lot of light
 
I'll just toss a 150w DE bulb with no glass shield over it :D

Seriously, 300 gallons I'd need a helluva large UV light I'm guessing. And those boogers aren't cheap, considering they're basically just a fluorescent bulb without any phosphor coating on the inside of the glass tube.
 
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