Newbie needs a lot of advice...

[Fishinapond]

Hi! Great forum! I'm sure you'll all be able to help me out a lot.

Here's the deal. I moved into a house last fall with a pond. We weren't looking for a pond, but it was a big plus! However, it was pretty cloudy and green when we got here and it's only gotten worse. I had a pond guy help out with winterizing and spring cleanup, but I'm not working at the moment and kind of controlling so I'd like to take care of it myself. The pond is 30'x20'x?. The depth is questionable. It's about 2' around the edges with about a 40 degree slope towards the middle. I'm told it's around 4' in the middle but since it's been so murky I don't know how much of it is that deep. I'm treating it as if it's 10,000 gallons for now.

The pump blew up this weekend, so we went to a garden center with a pond specialist to get a new one and found out that the system we had was good for about a 3,000 gallon pond. We got a bigger pump, but we're still only up to 6,000 gallons an hour. I'm hoping to reduce the water volumn by putting boulders or something solid but lighter (suggestions?) in the middle to make plant shelves since it's hard to put them around the edge because of the slope.

It's quite barren. No plants in the water and just a few hostas around the water fall. I now realize this is a big part of the reason for the green water. We put in some bleeding hearts, a hardy water lily and some anarcharis but it needs a lot more (suggestions?).

Also, I'm 4 days into a 2 week bacteria treatment (I forget the brand) and We added a big bag of barley straw about 2 months ago. Hopefully, by the end of the treatment I'll be able to tell what lives in there. I've seen a few smaller (5") goldfish, several frogs and some salamanders so far.

I hope you made all the way through that and I didn't bore you to much.

I'll upload some pictures of what we started with into my gallery.

All opinions are welcome!!!

Thanks, bunch!!

 

[Guest]

I'm hoping to reduce the water volumn by putting boulders or something solid but lighter (suggestions?) in the middle to make plant shelves

Geez, 4 ft. deep! I use milk crates to put pots with plants in the middle of my pond, but that will probablt still be pretty deep for you.

30x20, I'm jealous!

You want more water lilies, for sure, plus floating plants, Water Hyacinth, and Water lettuce. Reasons for these as follows: they use nutrients otherwise available to algae, they take up surface area and block sunlight from the algae also. The foalters multiply very rapidly in the heat of summer, you'll soon have a lot! Water lettuce and Hyacinth must be replaced every year, not winter hardy.

More submerged Aquatic Vegetation(SAV) too! hardy stuff, like American Saggitaria, Hardy Vaisineria, and Millfoil. These are all very good "nutrient sponges" again, they use the nutrients before the algae can, and if you use hardy ones as suggested, they will come back every year.

Also, I think that pump will be enough, pump size is over-rated in the hobby, IMO. As long as you are happy with the waterfall, good enough. Any pump will clog regularly, I have to clean mine 1-3 times a month.