Clear to Brown overnight

Meyer Jordan

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That applies to any pollen. I am not sure that quilt batten will help though. The brownish color of the water is caused by tannins which are released into the water. These are weak acids and cannot be filtered mechanically. They do degrade quite rapidly when exposed to sunlight.
 
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Batting didn't work. It must be tannins. Way above my pond are branches from an old oak tree (previously my favorite tree). When ever it rains, rain will run off the leaves and into my pond. Hopefully, after pollen season it will not be this bad. For now, I will have to take the charcoal route (which will get pretty expensive if this is a chronic condition).
 

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Water running off living leaves will not introduce tannins. Tannins get in through tannin containing solids such as the pollen,dead leaves ,branches ,nuts,etc. You want it out,use carbon. Batting works for particulate. It's also been my experiance that it does not just clear in its own,with sunlight or not. My water at the moment looks just like weak lipton tea and it will not clear till I do something about it . On a positive note it works the same way as adding dye to your water. I have zero algae of any sort as it decreases light penetration by a big amount . I'm watching my fish if they don't mind then I'm gonna leave it in from here out.
 
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Being new to ponds, even weak tea would bug me (can't see through this). I want to stare at my new fish. But if I could get it to the color of weak tea, I could live with it. In regard to the leaves, everything in my yard is covered with pollen. I would guess that the leaves are as well and that is why it went from clear to dark brown in a couple of hours. It happened after the previous rain as well but I didn't have any fish so I replaced the water.
 

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I did a ltitle test tonight for water clarity. My pond net is white ,I submerged it to the bottom which is just about 4ft down when I have the water level at max. I really could not see my net that well at that depth. My water is now at the strong black breakfast tea look!
 

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Geeze tea water what next coffee .I have never had that problem .Just a little green color when pollen is at it's worst
 
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I honestly can't see any fish unless they come to the top for food. Quite the anti-climatic moment after a year of construction Though my family has pointed out that I spent the past year staring at a big hole so this is an improvement over that. What can I say? I'm easily amused :)
 

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I honestly can't see any fish unless they come to the top for food. Quite the anti-climatic moment after a year of construction Though my family has pointed out that I spent the past year staring at a big hole so this is an improvement over that. What can I say? I'm easily amused :)
Geez,kine isn't that dark. I seriously question just pollen destination did that. My tannin is caused mostly by the whole pollen sack falling in. I net out 20 lbs of that goop everyday. Post a picture with some sort of reference item in the water please.
 

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? how are you filtering your pond also and how much are you feeding your fish .I have seen people here that were feeding there fish 4 or 5 times a day everyday and they could not figure out why the water was so green and dark colored .They thought the fish were hungry all the time ,there is plenty to eat in the pond .I feed mine only 3 or 4 times a week and in spring I have the food that has garlic in it
 

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Geez,mine isn't that dark. I seriously question just pollen dust did that. My tannin is caused mostly by the whole pollen sack falling in,I net out 20 lbs of that goop everyday. Post a picture with some sort of reference item in the water please.



I just HAD to fix that!!!
 
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OK. I'll do that tomorrow. Today I visited the guy that sold me my Koi. He has several small ponds. Same thing. He said this is the worst he has seen it. We (Massachusetts) had a very easy winter. The pollen count is very high. What else could it be? The quilt batting didn't help. The pond is new. It is above ground. Water is new. What ever it is, it had to come from above. There are no oak leaves floating in the pond.

Only other option is my neighbor (who is a total jerk). But he is too dumb to come up with something this baffling. If I found the fish floating belly up, that would be his style.
 

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I suppose it must be airborne pollen then. Good lord I would have to have allergys in yiu neck of the woods!
 

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We get a lot of pine pollen and then you get stuff from all the forresting here .They cut trees down all winter and then you get the poor animals that get driven out of there homes .They are now doing a thousand acres here .
 
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Update:

Fact Review:
Pond is above and below ground. About 1600-1800 gallons. It was filled with fresh water about 2.5 weeks ago, There is nothing on the bottom but liner. There is a ledge that runs around the pond. It has rocks on it (that were power washed before adding). There is also a big stack of rocks under the waterfall. There is a bottom drain; a skimmer; and a waterfall filter. The pump is more powerful then required. Filter in the waterfall are the green mesh, and the blue mesh kind. On top of those are two bags of filter floss. Between the mesh is activated charcoal.

I think things are getting worse. I don’t think the water is any darker, but the fish are not swimming anywhere that I can see them. Previously, there were very active. They also don’t seem to be eating.

About 2 weeks ago (before I had fish) the ph was 8.0. Today I took a water sample to the pet store (I have a test kit but am colorblind. My son was not around to read it). The ph is 6.8. I assume this is because of all the rain. He said the ammonia level was a little high but not bad (whatever that means).

Two days ago I put 10 lbs of activated charcoal in the waterfall. The pond is only 1600-1800 gallons so that is a pretty good amount (yeah, I washed it :- ) I also did a partial water change (just a small amount). I also added more of that bacteria starter stuff (I read it is BS, but since I paid for it anyway …)

I cleaned all the filters in the waterfall. They were not clogged. Whatever this stuff is, it is small.

I did a lot of “googling”. I found four posts where people had similar issues. Two of those were also above ground ponds. One was new like mine. Since there are no leaves, mud, or any residue on the bottom, these folks reached a different conclusion. I thought it was the pollen. But one thing we had in common was that our ponds are under trees. Also, it started after a hard rain. Their hypotheses is this: Rain hits leaves. There is tannin in the substance that coats leaves as well as the cells. The rain probably was not hard enough to damage cells, but the “coating” is water soluble and the tannins probably came from there. For some reason, a woman had buckets of pond water nearby that also turned brown.

So, the only hard fact I’ve got is that the PH is low. I’ve read enough posts here so as not to do a knee-jerk reaction (like dumping in baking soda).

I ordered some barley straw and Microbe Lift 4-Pound Pond Calicium Montmorillonite. Don’t know if it will help, but from what I have read, it can’t hurt.

What else can I do? Does anyone thing I am at a point where I should add baking soda or do any other thing labeled “knee jerk” in other posts?

The following are photos taken at different times of the day to get an idea of the color. They were taken two days ago (when I could still see fish).

Thanks again for the replies!

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