dieselplower said:
My pond is behaving a little differently so far this year than it was last year. Last year the water was not as mechanically clean but I did not have much algae growth, just a light cover on the liner. This year I have a heavy layer of carpet algae on the liner, and I also get the string algae growing off of nearly everything.... The plants, the pots, the hoses, etc. I imagine my BB's reduced significantly over the MI Winter but I would think they would have reestablished by now and should be out competing the algae. I've also noticed that when I get home from work in the evening, the algae is at its worst. I usually net out what is floating, but a lot remains attached to items in the pond. When I go out there in the morning, what was left there the following evening is almost completely gone. I imagine it has to do with Sun light? Maybe my pond needs more shade?
Sure, it could be all of those, and also including what Shadako said about the fish's growth and the fish consuming more food, which causes the fish to produce more food for the algae.
Yep, the pond needing more shade could be part of it; if it is something that is doable, then I would install a small awning of some sort over the pond. I mainly say this due to indoor aquariums, with thier controlled light spectrum, generally do not have as a heavy algae issue, that is of different species, and this allows them to use dipottasium phosphate as a buffer without the concern of very heavy algae presence to the extent that we battle in our ponds. I think, in this regard of light and algae, we can learn quite a bit from the aquarium hobby about the types of light spectrums and suns influence on algae. I know folk generally also try to keep their aquariums away from windows as well to help reduce that particular spectrum of light interacting with the water.
As far as BB's (beneficial bacteria for folk that don't know) starving algae, without plants, I think this is only half true since alge blooms still do occur, which indicates to me the pond's turn over rate and pond aeration makes a difference and the particular bacteria species we grow only consume particular nutrients to a particular level. I have often seen increase bio-filtration reduce algae, except not entirely preventing it. As far as I understand it, heterotroph bacteria consume particular nutrients such as organics, phosphates, nitrates, and other trace minerals much better than autotroph bacteria, and autotroph bacteria consumes the inorganic chemicals, that is ammonia and nitrite, better than heterotroph bacteria. The typical bio-filter we setup is typically in a highly aerobic environment, which benefits the autotrophs and is slightly more harmful to the heterotrophs, but there are aerobic heterotroph bacteria, that act in a dimorphic state, competing with space on the surface area with autotroph bacteria and, since autotroph bacteria is organic, these dimorphic heterotrophs can consume the autotroph bacteria as food when the autotrophs die. However, these dimorphic aerobic heterotrophs can not survive too well in very highly oxygenated environments. So, there is always this battle for space on the surface area between autotrophs and heterotroph, but, if the bio-filter is properly built to be highly oxygenated, then this encourages the autotroph bacteria to ultimately win, although there will always be some presence of the heterotrophs. So, the bio-filter construction is extremely important and different bio-filters provide different environments. I have only seen increased mechanized bio-filters reduce algae's presence, but, by itself without plants, I have never seen it completely prevent algae from appearing nor growing.
Now, there are algae's that are bacterial algae's, which grow from a bacteria spore, that then, once allowed to settle in stagnant water (such as behind an object or in a crevice), grows to the extent that it can establish self nitrogen fixing processes. "Self nitrogen fixing" essentially means the algae just needs the very basic necessities, such as oxygen, inorganic carbons, trace minerals, and a spectrum of light, to produce its own food. I think the stagnant water and trace minerals is where we must focus if we want to try to reduce this algae's presence. So, increase the pond's water currents, turn over rate, and increase bio-filtration with multiple bio-filtration types including plants. The plants and increased bio-filtration will allow more different species of bacteria to grow so to further reduce the trace minerals. To attack the algae's bacteria spores, then we must implement an oxidizer or microbicides (which is like an aquatic herbicide) or UV sterilizer or bacterial anti-biotic for that specie of bacteria algae.
I think what is important about algae is how we view algae's role, that is of a bio-filter, food, and a noxious weed. It is nice to have it as a bio-filter when the fish toxic nitrogens accumulate. It is nice to have it during the winter as a food for the fish. However, since most folk have ponds for their own luxury and not a luxury for their fish, then algae should be viewed as a noxious weed. As with any prevention of a noxious weed or plant,
proper prevention management practices work with nature, not against nature, and should be followed, which I believe prevention involves everything I listed above.
Notice all the qualifiers I am using here. This is just me thinking out loud my best guess.
