Very green water

[evtubbergh]

Hiya

Things didn't go as planned and so our poor pond is still waiting.

I had drilled holes for the tubing but they didn't stay attached with just a little bit of silicon, especially because as it turns out the silicon gel doesn't stick to the silicon tubes. We went yesterday and bought tube connectors and installed those instead. The input we didn't seal because the water will simply pour in but we had to seal the output, which was difficult because the pipe is curved and the connecter has flat edges. We eventually melted it on a flame and moulded it to the curve.




Messy but hey it works.




We simply connected the tubing, which holds the connector in place without having to seal it.

Now that the silicon has cured enough to start I filled it up. First I used a mesh bath sponge to keep the perlite in. I got a small one for free with some soap and it's better because it's so small. I pushed it in with a stick and then poured the perlite in with a funnel and made a mess everywhere.

I tested it now by pouring water in the top and it runs out, albeit slowly. Perhaps this is too narrow? The perlite floats so I need another small mesh sponge to keep it in the top.



I will connect it all up later with the pump but right now I really have to get some work done.

[Koilady]

Make sure that your silicone is safe for fish which was why we suggest aquarium silicone. I can't wait to see your filter working. Keep us all posted.

Hugs, Lorraine

[Greener-Garden]

Sounds like you have some serious algae problem, mainly green water. Your pond is getting too much sunlight and contains too much nutrients, basically you pond if out of balance. Filters won't help much because the minerals will still remain solvent in the pond ad the algae grows too fast. Also, sometimes thoroughly cleaning your filter or changing it does more harm then good because you are removing the good bacterias needed to stabilize the pond. Try these methods below, some may sound impractical but they work:

* UV Sterilizer (if you got a big pond, get a sterilizer that moves water rapidly)
*50% water change
*Introduce nano algae eating fish (Siamese algae eaters are really good as long as your pond doesn't get too cold)
*Introduce more plants to absorb and recycle excess nutrients in your pond

I treat my pond like I treat my fish tank.

[evtubbergh]

Thanks Greener-Garden. The point of the filter is not to remove the algae by physical means but to introduce an environment where bacteria flourish and remove the nutrients so that algae cannot thrive in the pond itself. We have to clean our pump filter because it is a physical filter and would otherwise get blocked, hence why we built this one.

If you use a UV light to kill the algae then you don't actually remove the nutrients in the water and eventually you get an algal bloom anyway.

Our fish do eat algae but I think they prefer larger varieties and they definitely can't keep up with this algae. Remember for all the fish you add you also add waste, which in turn adds nutrients.

@ KoiLady. The filter was too skinny and too tall! The pump could not handle the height but if we got a new pump then the pipe filled with perlite would not have been able to handle the flow.

Funny enough the algae just died off one day. Probably over a week or 2 but we just didn't realise. I think it reached critical mass. So instead of thick green water we had thick brown water. We have been clearing it our off the bottom in bits because when we scoop and vacuum it up it all goes back up into the water. The good news is the water is fairly clear

We built a new filter out of a wider pipe anyway but now it is acting like a physical filter too and getting chocked. We have to go buy lava rock (cinder in the US) I think because the perlite is too fine.

So frustrating but we're almost there and almost ready for the summer algal bloom!

[Koilady]

Hi EV, so good to hear from you. I figured that the filter wouldn't work as well as you had hoped but, we all have to learn and we've certainly had our trials and tribulations with water clarity or way too much hair algae.

Over the last few years, I've been having my own troubles with water quality. I've been having trouble with the clarity in one of my ponds and for the life of me I couldn't understand what the heck was going on. In my defense, Hubby and I have gone through 4 knee replacements and I suspect that due to the pain I was in, I wasn't really paying attention to the quality of the water. So, this year I made it my goal to find out what the heck was going on.

The first thing I noticed was that the water level in this filter was only half of what it should have been. Again, what is going on. So, I decided to drain the filter and tilt it backward by placing a piece of foam there. What that did was to bring the water level up so that it is now back to where it used to be. Also, it dawned on me that the reason for the water lowering in the filter was due to the pipe which was taking the water back to the pond. Because there was too much of a drop from the filter to the pond, I inserted a 2" wide piece of abs piping, then an elbow, then an 18" piece of pipe and then another elbow. Now it works perfectly.

That certainly didn't get rid of the poor water quality in this pond though so I decided to look at my scrubbies and what I found was that because these scrubbies are 27 years old, they have started to break down so that long strings of plastic had become entangled, causing dead areas which was sucking the oxygen out of the filter.

So, I removed the scrubbies, cut out the tangled areas and now the water quality is perfect and those fish with ulcers have started to heal. It's always so much fun when you learn something new so that you can pass it along. This is the best filtering system we have ever used and if someone would like a copy, just let me know.

Hugs, Lorraine

[imafan26]

I know this might seem silly but what if you put some plecostomus in the pond to eat the algae. I would think you have to do the same kind of thing with ponds as you do with aquariums and balance the pH, and balance the different types of fish that occupy the space.

Does the pond get a lot of sun. I get green algae when there is a lot of light and the water is not running fast enough for the volume of the pond and if a lot of the vegetation that is either in the pond or falling into it is decomposing. Putting up a cover that shades the pond and keeps leaves from falling in stops feeding the algae and green algae will die off when it does not get enough light.

Has anyone tried the bokashi balls to clean ponds? I heard about them but I never tried it.

[Greener-Garden]

Plecostomus aren't very good algae eating fish. Otocinclus are the best algae eating cat fish. They're hardly and can stand pond conditions without a heater.

Detritus is also a huge problem when trying to create a self sustaining pond that requires little maintenance. Fortunately for me, all my pond fish are nano fish and my pond if fully planted underneath the surface. My ratio for plant to fish is 40 stem plants to 1 fish. I wish I had a good picture of what my pond looks lie underneath the surface, but unfortunately I don't. However, it should look similar to my aquarium below.....KIND OF SIMILAR!



I hope you get your pond crystal clear! I love ponds.