Introduction
Pond Dye: amzn.to/3oWC8TB
Copper Sulfate: amzn.to/3meEQ2M
Bacteria Block - amzn.to/3PD006v
DIY Aerator Build:
Aerator - amzn.to/3ccw1E0
Cooling Fans - amzn.to/3ayHXiQ
Power Strip - amzn.to/3O07dfq
Pressure Gauge - amzn.to/3nTy7v1
Thermometer - amzn.to/3PmrhcW
Vent 6" - amzn.to/3Iw0Zml
Vent 4" - amzn.to/3yrbByc
DIY Floating Dock Build Video: www.youtube.com/watch
DIY Aerator Build Video: www.youtube.com/watch
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Our pond developed some filamentous algae this spring and we wanted it gone ASAP. Copper Sulfate to the rescue! I was amazed at how well it work. There are some precautions to take if you have aquatic life, but it is amazing. A fresh dose of pond dye will keep it looking great too. Aeration for our pond is on the short list! Please leave questions and comments below!
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Video
Hey, everyone welcome back to the channel adam here with indie, farmlife standing out on the dock and I'm going to do some long overdue maintenance on the pond.
Most of my time, this spring's been dedicated to the house.
So I really haven't done what I needed to do to keep this pond, looking nice.
So today, we're going to talk about algae, blooms how to prevent them and how to combat them if you have them.
So as we pan around the edge of the pond, you're gonna see that we have some filamentous algae that started to pop up on us.
Now, what this stuff does is it grows from the bottom up breaks apart and floats, and then will settle and reattach at the shoreline in other locations out there in the middle, you can see some floating, but the higher concentrations of it are definitely on the shoreline.
The silver lining to this kind of algae is that it's, not blue green algae, and that it's, not technically harmful, but still a nuisance.
So what gives rise to these algae blooms? Well, there are really three factors, one it's having low dissolved oxygen levels in your pond, which we currently do, because we have nothing turning the water yet aeration is something I'm going to be working on here shortly and I'll make some detailed videos about that decision in process.
The second factor is high nutrient levels in the water again.
We don't have anything turning the water, which means we don't have a lot of good bacteria in the water, which would consume these nutrients.
We don't have fish yet helping out either.
And the third is sunlight penetration into the shallows pond is a great way to prevent sunlight from reaching the bottom.
But as you can see behind me, the pond's kind of greened up right now and it's, not as blue as it once was so sunlight is able to penetrate into the shallows.
And like most things in life prevention is much easier with algae than controlling it.
Once you already have it and the best prevention methods are aeration and pondi.
I do have the latter, but the former I don't currently have.
And so we are where we are let's, talk about what we're gonna do to clean this pond up also while on the subject, I should mention that we don't have suspended algae in this pond.
This pond is green because of the dye or the remaining dye that's in there, I'll grab a water bottle, real quick and just show you how clean the water is in this pond.
First show, you guys some of this water there you go fairly clear stuff actually looks pretty darn good.
No suspended algae.
Just the floaters so what's, the answer, at least, I hope copper sulfate, never used it before, but like most things I do.
I did a lot of reading ahead of time.
And I've read lots of good things.
So you can buy this stuff in a lot of different places.
I know, tractor supply does carry it.
I got this from amazon shock.
These are little dried pellets and so just dissolve it in water and spray it on top of the algae.
I think from what I read roughly five pounds of this, which is what this one here is for a one acre pond, which is what we have, even though it's not completely full and dissolve it in about three to four gallons of water I'm, just gonna put it in a four gallon backpack sprayer and spray it on all of this a couple items to be aware of if you do go, this solution, you're only supposed to spray about half or a third of the pond in one round, because this will kill all the algae on contact and then deplete your oxygen levels.
This is mostly, if you have a lot of aquatic life, fish, etc, we don't so I'm, not really too concerned about depleting, the oxygen levels, they're already really low.
So I may go ape as I typically like to do for that very reason I just mentioned you're also supposed to wait about 14 days between applications again, not a factor in what I'm doing here.
So I'm, just gonna spray and pray baby and see what happens.
So I'll, uh, mix some of this up in a backpack sprayer, put that on.
It will turn the pond a little bit blue because of the color itself, but then I'm going to throw a lot of pawn dye in as well.
So I'll, first mix up that copper, sulfate and get that sprayed show you guys that process real quick and then we'll toss some dye in and I'll probably circle back in about 36 to 72 hours and give you guys a look at the pond.
Okay, so I got batch mixed up.
I ended up only going with half of the five pounds.
So two and a half pounds of copper sulfate into the four gallon tank.
There.
I probably end up spraying all of it anyway.
But I want to make sure I have enough coverage.
I don't spray through the four gallons too quickly.
So it may take me a little bit longer to spray it since I'm gonna maybe go through it twice.
But I wanted to make sure at least got coverage on everything.
Once plus, I thought I'd dissolve a little easier.
I did like a gallon a half of water, hot water, and then poured that in and then topped it off.
I am putting on some latex gloves, some black ones to help pull the sun in a little bit more since it's, you know, 80 degrees, and I've got a four gallons of hot water in my back.
Now, this stuff can be absorbed through the skin though so the device will stay out of the water for about 24 hours after you spray by then most the copper sulfate will have dropped to the bottom of the pond.
No longer be suspended.
It's gonna take a while.
So I was able to make almost a full lap around the pond with that first batch now I'm gonna mix up the second batch and hit it again.
I won't video that part.
But you guys got the idea actually, even right here in front of me, looks like it's already kind of making some of the stuff sink to the bottom.
It could have been just a spray, though knocking it down also when I do go to put the dye in well, two things one, I think I might put it in an old sprayer.
I have because I think it'd be really cool to see dye sprayed into a pond.
As opposed to tossing.
It I'll show you the far side of the pond, where the edges are a lot steeper, much less algae growth over there than in the shallows, where sunlight can penetrate I'm, not sure if I mentioned that or not but that's, something you could always do whenever you build a pond is cut your edges, even steeper like that far side.
So you don't have to fight this stuff.
Okay, I got all that sprayed in.
You can see some of the blue floating there.
But now it's time for the real blue.
And the stuff that's more fun.
I'm gonna put a gallon of pond dye in that sprayer probably against my better judgment, but sounds like fun could be an absolute mess, but I'm gonna go to the far east side of the pond, where the wind always comes in this way off that field.
So won't be spraying against the wind, hopefully, and it could be fun also if you've never used pondai before or ever seen in action.
I encourage you to flip back to the video I posted last year and I'll link it above.
Uh.
When I first put this dye in the pond was completely fresh and had no dye in it.
It was pretty incredible to see it work its way through the pond and to go from nothing to a tropical oasis, get a nice green color.
Now, this baby's going to be as blue as that raft over there by the end of the day all right, wind, don't fail me.
Now this could be a disaster, nope, it's, awesome.
That might be the coolest thing I've ever done out here.
I like the shelf that makes as it makes its way across the pond.
I spray a little bit over on that far side where all the algae was just.
So I know that we got it covered.
Well, I got probably about a quarter gallon left.
I think that's all I'm going to put in I'm not going to probably do any more than that given that it already had some color.
I think it didn't take as much as it did last summer.
Can't, take it out once you put it in okay.
So I got a gallon or just over sprayed into the pond.
I don't know if the camera will pick up the shelf cloud that's kind of moving toward us in the water or not, but it's making its way over see how my algae's blue over there.
Now.
And here I'll give you up close of it.
And a high concentration very very potent stuff.
A lot of times in the comments, my other video, people will ask how do you swim in that surely it stains your clothes and skin right? Well in the undiluted form, yeah, absolutely but 24.
48 hours.
It'll.
Be fully dissolved in the water and it.
Doesn't stain your swimsuit.
Your skin won't hurt any fish, it's, great stuff, and it looks really pretty okay.
So the copper sulfate is in hopefully it does its job.
Uh, that's kind of a band-aid it's, not really the fix that we're after, but should at least clean things up for a while until I get some air out here to start turning things.
The dye is a preventative measure it along with air go a long way, but I'll circle back in probably 48 hours 36 hours something like that and give you guys a shot of the pond, hopefully I have good news all right.
So here we are about 72 hours later, obviously, the dye did a wonderful job.
And the algae's starting to die off.
You can still see quite a bit floating out in the pond, but that's, actually a good thing.
As you look at the shoreline, you can see that it's dying from where it was actually attached, and then just kind of floating.
So that stuff should sink to the bottom and be clear before too awful long, maybe 24 hours or so.
But you can see the shoreline here, how thinned out it is now.
So the copper sulfate seems to be doing its job thus far, again, more of a band-aid than a permanent fix, but I'm pleased with the results so far.
So if I have to use this on occasion, I definitely will in the future, but getting some aeration out here to turn this water is the in-game goal, hopefully that was helpful and informative for some of you out there who might be in a similar situation.
And if I did anything wrong or way off base, please comment below I love hearing from you guys and learning from the experience of others.
So if you would hit that subscribe button, come back and see us we'll, see you guys next time and for further documentation purposes, this is after five days, looks a whole lot better and look for a video regarding our new canopy for the dock here in the next couple weeks, big improvement.
