Dead algae suggestions
Question:
My pond has been clear until recently. The pond has loose algae on the sides and the bottom of the pond. When the fish move, you can see the liner is clear. How do I correct the problem. I have aqua uv (25)watt, fishmate 2000 with uv and 2000 little giant pump. I have used algaefix/ecofix in the pond and I tried green clean. I guess I need to know how to pick this stuff up. I thought about the muck vac but dont know if we have 50psi. Any suggestions will be appreicated.
Answer:
There could be a couple of problems at play here. It seems your UV is killing the algae (the lose stuff floating around is most likely dead algae), so using Algae Fix will not help (the algae is already dead). Your filter is not picking up the dead algae, which may be due to the fact that the pump is too large for the filter. The Fishmate 2000 has a flow rate of 1000 gph, so the water is flowing through it too fast.
A contributing factor may be a high pH level. When the pH in the pond is too high the beneficial bacteria do not multiply sufficiently to digest all the dead, decomposing matter in the pond (the floating dead algae).
A pond vac will not pick this floating matter up. The best thing to do is ….
a) measure and adjust the pH to within normal range (7.0-8.0) b) add a good beneficial bacteria to digest the dead algae c) change the pump/filter configuration (either use a smaller pond pump or a pond filter with a higher flow rate).