Cloudy pond

[chunkyrice]

Can anyone help me identify what this is collecting around my pond plants and how I can get rid of it? It gets really muddy and separates when I run my fingers through it.

I also have very very cloudy water and not sure how best to get rid of it. I can't see my fish anymore and I've found out I have 3 frogs living in my pond and worried they might have eaten the fish?

I'm a complete newbie to all this and would really appreciate any help as I don't want to lose my fish! Just moved house and would want to continue to care for the fish from the previous owners.

 

[j.w]

and welcome @chunkyrice
Looks like scum from detritus, dead plant material , fish waste etc.
You could take a large plastic basket, anything w/holes in it and line it w/that white upholstery batting and put tubing on a pump and suck up the scum w/the pump and set the end of the tubing over the top of the basket and let the scummy water run through the batting and back into the pond and this will help get rid of it. You will have to clean off the batting a lot when it gets full of the muck w/ a water hose and then do it all over again. You may have to stir up the water so the muck gets sucked up by the pump throughout the pond.

 

[chunkyrice]

View attachment 153262and welcome @chunkyrice
Looks like scum from detritus, dead plant material , fish waste etc.
You could take a large plastic basket, anything w/holes in it and line it w/that white upholstery batting and put tubing on a pump and suck up the scum w/the pump and set the end of the tubing over the top of the basket and let the scummy water run through the batting and back into the pond and this will help get rid of it. You will have to clean off the batting a lot when it gets full of the muck w/ a water hose and then do it all over again. You may have to stir up the water so the muck gets sucked up by the pump throughout the pond.

Thanks for your reply! I was thinking maybe I need to clear out the whole pond and refill with fresh water to combat the problem

 

[Lisak1]

No clean outs! That water is maturing - let it be.

Get a filter on it - you’ve just got a lot of fine sediment going on. Do you have a filter currently? How big is this pond? Are there spots where you could be getting runoff into the pond? That’s a lot of dirt…

Don’t worry about the frogs - most will leave the fish alone. They’re after the bugs

 

[chunkyrice]

No clean outs! That water is maturing - let it be.

Get a filter on it - you’ve just got a lot of fine sediment going on. Do you have a filter currently? How big is this pond? Are there spots where you could be getting runoff into the pond? That’s a lot of dirt…

Don’t worry about the frogs - most will leave the fish alone. They’re after the bugs

Thanks for the advice. Got a filter running but not sure if it's beneficial. The pond is 600 litres so not very big at all. Do you think it would clear using pond treatment?

 

[poconojoe]

Thanks for the advice. Got a filter running but not sure if it's beneficial. The pond is 600 litres so not very big at all. Do you think it would clear using pond treatment?

No chemicals please!
Too many horror stories when people have added algecides. Many have killed off their fish and it probably would also be bad for the frogs.

Pumping the water into quilt batting is a good idea. It might be tedious because you'll be rinsing the batting a lot, but eventually you'll get most of it.

All that growth is most likely due to excess nutrients in the water caused by fish waste, inadequate filtration and lack of plants.
Algae is plant life that nature puts there to compensate for lack of plant life. Plants compete with algae and by adding enough plants they will starve out the algae.
But you will also need adequate filtration.

That being said, what time of year was that picture taken?
Because my pond will get a similar coating in the Spring and it goes away once all the plants and beneficial bacteria wake up from winter.

 

[GBBUDD]

View attachment 153262and welcome @chunkyrice
Looks like scum from detritus, dead plant material , fish waste etc.
You could take a large plastic basket, anything w/holes in it and line it w/that white upholstery batting and put tubing on a pump and suck up the scum w/the pump and set the end of the tubing over the top of the basket and let the scummy water run through the batting and back into the pond and this will help get rid of it. You will have to clean off the batting a lot when it gets full of the muck w/ a water hose and then do it all over again. You may have to stir up the water so the muck gets sucked up by the pump throughout the pond.

One note make sure the batting is not fire treated . you don't want that in the pond