Droppings from Racoons squirrels birds etc.

[Pond skipper]

hi all, I'm new to the forum, and relativity new to ponding. Loving it, my wife thinks it must be the playoffs or something because she doesn't see me anymore, unless she looks out at the pond I guess this is the first real question I'm posting. I built my pond last summer but didn't really get passed the water filling stage... This year I am starting to plant the edges both in the water and outside the pond... Trying to get things that really spread to hide the liner. Problem is our 2 year old golden retriever got really sick and had liver failure and had to be put down.. that was about 2 weeks after she started back to swimming in the pond this year. My wife is convinced it is due to something in the pond water. Squirrel or bird or racoon droppings or such. Our pond is 18x6x about 1.5-2 feet deep. But it is situated under two large trees. (The only area I had to build it.) It has a home made skimmer with a1250gph pump that feeds water to a home made bio mechanical filter (of the garbage can variety) which feeds a water fall, which falls into a pea gravel bog garden ( no real vegetation in bog yet though ) and flows from there back into the pond. I even have a secondary 800gph pump in the bottom of the pond to help make sure the water is circulated well. Does anyone know or have you ever heard of pets getting sick from a filtered back yard pond and if so is there any way to protect against it as we now have a new puppy that will probably discover what fun swimming is soon enough. Thanks in advance

 

[MitchM]

Welcome Pond Skipper.
The first thing that comes to mind regarding water quality and our pets is cyanobacteria. That is poisonous to our pets and ourselves.
Usually it's a result of little water flow and excess nutrients.
Cyanobacteria is sometimes called "blue green algae" and looks like green slime. It's not stringy or suspended, more like it lays on top of submerged surfaces and is easily disturbed by water motion.
Sometimes it can look like paint floating on the surface of the pond.

I think you would need a lot of animal droppings with no filtration to reach a toxic level for pets.

Have you noticed anything like the cyanobacteria I mentioned above?

 

[Pond skipper]

Welcome Pond Skipper.
The first thing that comes to mind regarding water quality and our pets is cyanobacteria. That is poisonous to our pets and ourselves.
Usually it's a result of little water flow and excess nutrients.
Cyanobacteria is sometimes called "blue green algae" and looks like green slime. It's not stringy or suspended, more like it lays on top of submerged surfaces and is easily disturbed by water motion.
Sometimes it can look like paint floating on the surface of the pond.

I think you would need a lot of animal droppings with no filtration to reach a toxic level for pets.

Have you noticed anything like the cyanobacteria I mentioned above?

Hi thanks for the reply.. my pond is very shady... So I don't get much algae so far although there is some green, paint looking stuff on some of the water fall rocks right in the water flow but nothing floating on the surface and very little on waterfall... But the stuff on the waterfall rocks looks like a green sunburn when the water is off lol but dog didn't go near that anyway.. pic included

 

[Lisak1]

Welcome to the GPF! I am so sorry to hear about your dog. It's never easy to lose a pet, and especially suddenly like that.

That looks like normal algae to me @Pond skipper . It will stain the rocks and remain even when dry. And I agree with @MitchM - you would need a whole lot of droppings to contaminate a pond. Our dogs drink from our pond all the time - they frequently will ask to go out JUST to get a drink from the pond even though they have fresh water in their bowls - and none of them have ever gotten sick as a result.

Do you ever see mushrooms growing in your yard? I know it's a long shot, but dogs can become very suddenly ill from ingesting certain kinds of mushrooms that grow in the wild - liver failure is often a result. Just throwing it out there as another possibility.

 

[Pond skipper]

Welcome Pond Skipper.
The first thing that comes to mind regarding water quality and our pets is cyanobacteria. That is poisonous to our pets and ourselves.
Usually it's a result of little water flow and excess nutrients.
Cyanobacteria is sometimes called "blue green algae" and looks like green slime. It's not stringy or suspended, more like it lays on top of submerged surfaces and is easily disturbed by water motion.
Sometimes it can look like paint floating on the surface of the pond.

I think you would need a lot of animal droppings with no filtration to reach a toxic level for pets.

Have you noticed anything like the cyanobacteria I mentio

Thanks , I did see a big wide flat white mushroom today while cutting the grass but that's the first one I've seen this year.. it's a possibility though thank you for the idea. I think what my wife is worried about is if the squirrels have some sort of disease and it's getting passed on by their droppings.. im pretty sure it's not the pond. It's fresh water new this year and it's good and clear.. only 8 goldfish in it and two filter types and good circulation.. I'm just trying to get as much input from people to try and make her realize it's probably not the pond

 

[addy1]

Sorry you lost your pup. It doesn't sound like a pond water issue. Our little yorkie, when she was a pup, ate a lot of rabbit etc poo out in the yard. Luckily she finally grew out of that stage.

 

[Pond skipper]

Sorry you lost your pup. It doesn't sound like a pond water issue. Our little yorkie, when she was a pup, ate a lot of rabbit etc poo out in the yard. Luckily she finally grew out of that stage.

Yes now that you mention it ours used to get into the cats litter box too. Lol we finally moved the litter to a place the pup couldn't get..