Algae covering my plants

[timvz]

So, I have a relatively new pond. I started it late summer to early fall. I'm in the desert and we have pretty mild winters. Very little freezing. The pond is aproximately 1800 gallons, minus some volume for rocks. Relatively shallow, 2 ft. About 14 goldfish on the small side, and lots of algae covering everything that doesn't move. My question is about the algae. It's not very stringy, more "clumpish" and brownish green. It covers most of my underwater plants. Is that anything I should be concerned about? If the algae isn't a concern for plant health, then I'm not too worried about it. It's just not so pretty. I understand that it does compete with my plants for nutrients. So, far I've had success with watercress, saggitaria, hornwart, and hawthorn. But, if it's underwater, it's covered in algae.

Some chemistry from my last test:
ph=8.2
ammonia=0.25ppm
Nitrite=0
Nitrate=0
Thanks!

 

[JohnHuff]

First welcome to the forum. Lots of comments:
-That's a very shallow pond for that volume, I'd expect lots of evaporation, which may not be good for your water bill
-There shouldn't be any ammonia in it at all. It's possible that it hasn't completely cycled yet(?)
-I would do a 25% water change immediately and again in a few days until the ammonia (NH3) is zero
-Do you have a filter?
-You might be overfeeding the fish
-Being in the desert, I would recommend some shade for your pond, to cut down on evaporation and inhibit algae growth
-Normally, I'd remove the algae, but if you did, NH3 might spike up and kill your fish, since algae consumes NH3

So in order of importance, water change to lower NH3, add a filter if you don't have one and rig up some shade.

 

[timvz]

I have mechanical filters. Three mesh disks and a bag of lava rocks in the waterfall, brushes in the skimmer, and a protein skimmer coming off the top of the waterfall. I've added beneficial bacteria periodically. I don't feed the fish very much right now because they don't eat much when the temps are down. By "cycle" are you refering to the nitrogen cycle? How do I detect when that starts moving, other than NH3 going down? I've had a pretty steady ammonia value of .25 for a while now. And, I do pull 1-2 gallons out every day to water plants around the falls with a little pump and a timer. Doesn't come close to 25%, though.

Evaporation is a function of surface area and splashing in the falls, not depth, correct? I know it's shallow, though. I had some obstructions underneath from a stupid in-ground pool that used to be there. Thanks for the advice!

 

[JohnHuff]

-I don't think you have enough filtration for a pond that big. Of course that depends on how big those 14 fish on the small side are and how much nitrogen is going into the pond. But with that NH3 reading, nitrogen is getting in there somehow.
-It could also be what you're measuring it with. Do you use sticks or liquid testing?
-N cycle, usually detect NH3, then that disappears and you see nitrites, then that goes away and you see nitrates
-1-2g out of 1800 is not a lot. Use your pond water as fertilizer water. That's what I do, instead of watering the plants, I water the pond and use pond water to water the plants.
-Evaporation is a function of surface area, a 1800g pond that's only 2ft deep means you'll have a pretty big surface area.

So yes, give your plants a treat of NH3 water!

 

[timvz]

I used a liquid testing kit. The only other way I know of that nitrogen could be getting in is through my fertilizer tabs. I don't know if that would cause NH3 levels to rise. Plants don't do well on there own quite yet without a little kick.

I do water several of my plants/flowers surrounding the waterfall with pond water. I just dropped a little pump in above the waterfall and hooked it up to an irrigation hose. I put a yard light timer on it to fire the pump up for about one minute per day, and presto - fertilizer water for plants!

 

[Koilady]

Hi Tim. I had the same trouble with algae many, many years ago. In some of my ponds, the water was so green that the only time we saw our Koi was when we brought them inside for the winter. In other ponds the hair algae was so long that it would actually trap the Koi fry and many of them would die.
I started to learn about filtration from a friend of ours who was having the same trouble. He was looking in books and on the net for any information that could help us with this problem. We found out that if we had a good bio-filter, algaes wouldn't be a problem for us. It is also very important for me to say that I have seen more Koi/Goldfish die in crystal clear ponds than in green ones or ones with hair algae. The reason for this is that these algaes remove toxins/nutrients in the water to keep it healthy. Unfortunately, we want to see our fish and we don't want to have to clean the sides of the ponds or pots, etc. all the time. When we were breeding Koi, I used to have green water in most of the ponds and my Koi would grow much faster in these ponds than in clear ponds because the fry would also have this algae flowing through their digestive tracks. The algae is high in Vitamin C and it acts as a natural colour enhancer and from what I have heard, strengthens their immune system. All good points as far as I was concerned.
So, the first filter we tried was an upflow with lava rock. My goodness, in about a week we could see a change in the length of the hair algae and a clarity in the ponds with suspended algae. In two weeks the ponds cleared right up and the hair algae became shorter and shorter until there was a nice layer of algae along the sides of the pond.
I can't tell you how happy I was. Then, one day I noticed that some of the ponds were getting green again and some of the hair algae in the other ponds was growing long again.
In those days I didn't have bottom drains so I used to dump the barrels with the dirty water and the lava rock. I'd hose everything down and in a few weeks everything would be fine again, until it wasn't.
A friend of mine found a new filter on the net, we built it and since then we have never suffered from algaes again. As a matter of fact, in some of our ponds, there is little to no algae of any kind. I hope that this helps.

Hugs, Lorraine

 

[timvz]

What kind of filter did you build?