Posts Tagged “pond care”
For many lake owners, changing the color of their lake from green or brown to a pleasanter hue is the final step in lake restoration. But it can also be the most difficult step, especially for those not familiar with lake and pond color solutions. Unlike removing weeds and large debris, you can’t cut or spoon away poor water color. Instead, you have to target lake maintenance products and solutions that target murky water. Below, we list five such solutions, how they work, and what they’re used for.
1. Algaecide
While some algae is necessary to support water life, too much can turn your lake a murky green. To prevent this from happening, apply eco friendly algaecide according to your lake’s acre feet of water. In doing so, you’ll also prevent excessive algae from leeching the water of oxygen that fish and other life forms need to survive and thrive.
2. Pond Dyes
Ideal for lakes whose excess algae has been removed, eco friendly pond dyes change the color of your lake’s water, with the most popular colors being: blue, aqua, dark blue, and reflective black. Like algaecide, pond dye is applied according to your lake’s acre feet of water, with a single application usually lasting 6-8 weeks, depending on your lake’s water turnover rate.
3. Silt Fencing
Silt fencing isn’t a water solution proper, but it can prevent the murkiness that results from construction site runoff. Construction site runoff turns lakes the color of the dirt involved in the run off, making them looked like clogged sinkholes instead of lakes. Barriers of silt fence lined with hay bales can prevent the majority of runoff sediments from reaching your lake; trapping them and making them accrue against the fence. In some cases, more than one line of fence may be needed.
4. Buffer Alum Compounds
If your lake suffers from churned up bottom sediments, applying buffer alum compounds can send the sediments back to the bottom. Two situations that justify buffer alum compounds are earthquakes and heavy rains. Churned up sediments produced by these and other events usually settle in a few days or weeks. But if they persist, buffer alum compounds are an easy remedy. If your lake has fish, be sure to apply “buffer” alum compounds, as opposed to regular alum compounds.
5. Reduction of “Trash Fish”
The term “trash fish” refers to fish that swim along the bottom in search of food or resting areas (e.g., carp and bullhead), churning up sediments as they go. The two most popular methods for reducing a lake’s trash fish population are: restocking, which solves the problem quickly, albeit at some expense; and increasing the population of trash fish predators (e.g., catfish and bass), which solves the problem gradually.
If your property features a pond, maintaining it can make your property appealing to potential buyers, and enjoyable to plan days and evenings around in warm weather. Maintaining your pond requires more than one measure. But one measure that can benefit all ponds is the application of pond dye additives. By itself, pond dye can’t dramatically improve an unkempt pond. But when combined with removal or large water debris, herbicide to kill overgrown water plants, algaecide to kill overgrown algae, and the trimming and mowing of banks, it can have dramatic benefits. Below, we list some of the benefits that come with dyeing your pond.
1. Improvement of Color
The biggest benefit of applying dyes is obvious: they improve your water’s color. Left untended, most natural water bodies assume a greenish brown hue that looks in keeping with the wilderness but isn’t appealing in backyard or manicured woods settings. How much colorant you apply to change your water’s color depends on the acre feet of liquid it contains. How often you need to apply colorant depends on its water turnover ratio, the rate at which existing water cycles out as new cycles in.
2. Variety of Color
Lake colorant gives you several choices with which to improve your water’s color, with light blue, aqua, dark blue, and reflective black being some of the most popular. In some cases, property owners change the color of their pond with the seasons, choosing lighter colors for warmer months and dark colors for colder ones. Because most dyeing applications cycle away in 6-8 weeks, changing your water’s color with the seasons, or more than once within the same season, is easy.
3. Can help to Protect Fish Stock
Water dyes aren’t intended to protect against predators of fish, but they can help to protect fish against aerial and shoreline predators by making fish harder to see, especially when a full application is maintained. Regardless of their level of application, the dyes, which are food grade dyes, don’t stain or otherwise adversely affect fish, animals, people, or pond equipment.
4. Can Help to Preserve the Effects Algaecide
Although some dyes advertise as algae inhibitors, dye isn’t intended to replace algaecide. It can, however, help to preserve the effects of algaecide by limiting the sunlight received by deep growing algae. If your pond has an algae growth problem that affects its appearance and leeches away oxygen needed by other water life, your first move should be applying algaecide. But pond dye additives, if supplied in sufficient quantity, can help to preserve algaecide’s effects in the deepest parts of your pond.
Caring for your garden pond is similar to caring for some of the perennials that might surround it: certain measures are taken in colder months to ensure its hardiness during warmer months; and during warmer months, certain measures are taken to sustain that hardiness, the most important of which deal with the pond itself.
One important pond care measure is to remove dead foliage and excessive algae from the pond, as the former can clog a water filter and too much of the latter can hurt fish by drawing too much oxygen out of the water. If you have a larger garden pond that contains algae in hard to reach places, you can use organic pond dye to control the amount of sunlight your pond receives in its depths. Pond dye can also improve the appearance of your pond water, creating a blue, blue/black or black hue that can be as opaque or transparent as you please.
If your pond contains fish, another important pond care measure is to ensure that it receives maximum aeration in warm weather. Warm water contains less oxygen than cool water, and fish consume more oxygen in warm water. Therefore, it’s a good idea to aerate your pond 24 hours a day during warm months.
Another important measure is to clean your pond’s filter regularly, as a partially occluded filter can leave unwanted accumulations in the water that foster the growth of other unwanted accumulations. However, don’t clean your filter too thoroughly, as it contains bacteria that bolster the health of your fish and aquatic plants. Practicing these tips along other helpful tips that you’ve picked up along the way should keep your garden pond in prime condition, making it the worthy centerpiece of your garden that you want it to be.