Green algae experiment.

[archimedes]

So my pond has been having a very bad green algae "phase" (lets hope it's just a phase)

In expectation of receiving some water lilies from Addy (thanks!) I filled a large container (probably 15 gallons) with green pond water. I wasn't going to be home when the lilies arrived so I asked a neighbor to receive the package of lilies and just dump them in the container until I returned several days later.

Well I got back about 5-6 days after the lilies arrived and the pond is still green, but the water in the container, where all the lilies are, is crystal clear water!

I ask my neighbor if he added anything the container, and he said he just dumped the lilies and the water they came in into my container (previously filled with green water by me) like I asked.

So why did the container water clear, and the pond stay green?

 

[RobAmy]

The roots sucked up the nutrients in the water, being only 15 gallons this will happen very quickly. Your pond is much larger so you would need more roots to do the same job and as quickly thus the benefit of a bog filter. Also your pond most likely has stuff in it to help the algae thrive but because the container is clean to start off then the roots of the lily worked quickly.

 

[RobAmy]

Also the lilies I was sent from Addy had some healthy roots, they where huge

 

[dieselplower]

Also I assume you have fish producing algae food in the pond but not the container?
It's not uncommon for plants to outcompete algae. The plants may have also shaded the container blocking Sun to the water. Or the container was in more shade?
At the garden center I frequent the water tub with plants for sale in it is always much more clear the the one without.

 

[Waterbug]

Or you could measure the nutrients in the water of both containers and find out something interesting...there are plenty of nutrients for green water algae to grow. The nutrient level in the clear water is much more likely to be much higher than the green water. That's because green water algae consumes nutrients much faster and more completely than higher plants.

Over the years I've read the plant starving algae theory probably more than 1000 times, I've seen it defended at length using pretty nasty language. What I've never read once is a single person ever suggesting they test the actual nutrient level water to confirm the theory. I've never read a post where a single person promoting the theory has ever said they ever tested their water. The theory is simply repeated...over and over.

The lily is growing. If it lowered nutrients to a level single cell algae couldn't reproduce why doesn't the lily die too? It's using nutrients in the soil? And these nutrients can't get into the water? Doesn't really make too much sense.

Nutrients are mainly used for growth. All plants, including green water algae, can stay alive for weeks without any nutrients, they just can't produce new cells (growth). The water would remain basically green, and would slowly clear over weeks as old algae cells died of old age. Of course what happens when algae dies...they break down pretty fast into nutrients. Take pretty much any higher plant and wash off its roots completely and then plant the roots in a container of distilled water and it will live for days/weeks (with water changes). Even cut flowers will "live" in water for days even more than a week in perfect conditions.

Another fun experiment you can do is fill 4 clear water glasses wit 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% water from the green pond. Top off the first 3 glasses with water from the clear pond, the 4th remains the control. See what happens. Put white paper behind the glasses to see any change in the level of green.

Another experiment is to add fertilizer to the clear water container...a lot of fertilizer. It will remain clear..

There are many ways to disprove the theory that higher plants remove enough nutrients to kill all green water algae.

Then why clear? Was there any macro algae on the lily? You betcha. It produces a chemical that makes the water toxic to green water algae. Which is why the green in the water glasses will normally clear in proportion to the amount of clear water added. It's a simple way to measure how toxic the clear water is.

Pretty simple experiments and you'll be able to learn what 99% of pond keepers don't know.

 

[archimedes]

Or you could measure the nutrients in the water of both containers and find out something interesting...there are plenty of nutrients for green water algae to grow. The nutrient level in the clear water is much more likely to be much higher than the green water. That's because green water algae consumes nutrients much faster and more completely than higher plants..

I just went and tested the ammonia level of both pond and container, and they are pretty much the same. It is hard to tell with those test kits because the colors are somewhat subjective. But both are either 0 to .25

I don't disagree with your theory, actually I was hoping to see a big difference, but there just wasn't. But every time I have had a green water outbreak in the pond the ammonia level has never exceeded .25 And again that is subjective due to the test, it could actually be closer to zero.

If the theory that nutrient increase causes an algae bloom is true, then why do I get nearly no ammonia reading during, before, or after an algae bloom?

So what do you think will happen if I dump the 15 gallons of clear water in my 1500 gallon pond? Is that too little volume (in the container) to effect the pond?

 

[dieselplower]

Or you could measure the nutrients in the water of both containers and find out something interesting...there are plenty of nutrients for green water algae to grow. The nutrient level in the clear water is much more likely to be much higher than the green water. That's because green water algae consumes nutrients much faster and more completely than higher plants.

Over the years I've read the plant starving algae theory probably more than 1000 times, I've seen it defended at length using pretty nasty language. What I've never read once is a single person ever suggesting they test the actual nutrient level water to confirm the theory. I've never read a post where a single person promoting the theory has ever said they ever tested their water. The theory is simply repeated...over and over.

The lily is growing. If it lowered nutrients to a level single cell algae couldn't reproduce why doesn't the lily die too? It's using nutrients in the soil? And these nutrients can't get into the water? Doesn't really make too much sense.

Nutrients are mainly used for growth. All plants, including green water algae, can stay alive for weeks without any nutrients, they just can't produce new cells (growth). The water would remain basically green, and would slowly clear over weeks as old algae cells died of old age. Of course what happens when algae dies...they break down pretty fast into nutrients. Take pretty much any higher plant and wash off its roots completely and then plant the roots in a container of distilled water and it will live for days/weeks (with water changes). Even cut flowers will "live" in water for days even more than a week in perfect conditions.

Another fun experiment you can do is fill 4 clear water glasses wit 25%, 50%, 75% and 100% water from the green pond. Top off the first 3 glasses with water from the clear pond, the 4th remains the control. See what happens. Put white paper behind the glasses to see any change in the level of green.

Another experiment is to add fertilizer to the clear water container...a lot of fertilizer. It will remain clear..

There are many ways to disprove the theory that higher plants remove enough nutrients to kill all green water algae.

Then why clear? Was there any macro algae on the lily? You betcha. It produces a chemical that makes the water toxic to green water algae. Which is why the green in the water glasses will normally clear in proportion to the amount of clear water added. It's a simple way to measure how toxic the clear water is.

Pretty simple experiments and you'll be able to learn what 99% of pond keepers don't know.

Waterbug, is the chimical you say is produced the same one you said you could not prove is produced within the last couple days? It is a good theory if it can be proven.

 

[crsublette]

I just went and tested the ammonia level of both pond and container, and they are pretty much the same. It is hard to tell with those test kits because the colors are somewhat subjective. But both are either 0 to .25

I don't disagree with your theory, actually I was hoping to see a big difference, but there just wasn't. But every time I have had a green water outbreak in the pond the ammonia level has never exceeded .25 And again that is subjective due to the test, it could actually be closer to zero.

1) If the theory that nutrient increase causes an algae bloom is true, then why do I get nearly no ammonia reading during, before, or after an algae bloom?

2) So what do you think will happen if I dump the 15 gallons of clear water in my 1500 gallon pond? Is that too little volume (in the container) to effect the pond?

I guarantee you that most folks, if not everyone, bought aquatic plants that also came with string or some other algae in it. Yet, we still know of green water blooms from these ponds.

Personally, I would much rather have green water rather than the more complex alga's since the green water is tremendously easier to control.


1) If the theory that nutrient increase causes an algae bloom is true, then why do I get nearly no ammonia reading during, before, or after an algae bloom?

It does not take much nutrients for algae blooms to begin. The more appropriate questions are...

How dense does it become? How long does it last until it "collapses" ? Are there any "bugs" in the water that slow it down or stops it from growing?

There are more invasive algae species, mainly of the string variant, that is actually self efficient in producing its own nutrients and only requires very minimal micro-nutrients. So, only way to control this stuff is through human or "bug"/fish intervention or with terrestrial plant intervention that emits toxins from their roots, that essentially the toxins makes the algae "sick", until the sickness forces the algae to starve or "collapse" thus allowing the plants a better absorption of the nutrients that the algae needs to simply survive since there is always a constant regeneration of cells that is required for any plant to stay alive and function. This is actually exactly how particular string algae species can kill terrestrial aquatic plants and the toxins from a huge algae density, from particular species, can even make livestock significantly sick. So, there is a battle going back and forth.


2) So what do you think will happen if I dump the 15 gallons of clear water in my 1500 gallon pond? Is that too little volume (in the container) to effect the pond?

Worth a try.

Since it is only 15 gallons, it quite likely will do nothing due to chemical dilution in a 1500 gallon pond and other more dominant toxins already present in your pond that would significantly disable or kill anything that allowed the 15 gallon container to become clear. This is why these allelopathic toxins are so incredibly tough to prove "in the real word" since there is far far much more synergistic reactions and other microorganisms occurring in "real world" water and more dilution in "real world" water that is never experienced in a terrestrial soil environment, which the terrestrial soil context is what persuaded folk to look into an aquatic environment for the same reactions from these type of toxins.



It is easy to prove these toxins exist when testing in just a small container or a glass of water or in a laboratory, except that is not the "real world".



So, all of this starts to significantly change once these toxins are actually studied in a real world environment due to the presence of chemical dilution and other toxins and microorganisms and other disadvantageous or advantageous synergistic reactions, that exist outside of a glass of water or laboratory. There is also a half life, which means the chemical degrades becoming inactive, to these toxins so they come and go. This is also why microbiology is incredibly tough to study in the "real world" outside of a glass of water or laboratory.

Smaller ponds are much more likely to experience these beneficial effects rather than larger ponds due to the reasons stated above.

 

[Waterbug]

I don't disagree with your theory, actually I was hoping to see a big difference, but there just wasn't. But every time I have had a green water outbreak in the pond the ammonia level has never exceeded .25 And again that is subjective due to the test, it could actually be closer to zero.

If the theory that nutrient increase causes an algae bloom is true, then why do I get nearly no ammonia reading during, before, or after an algae bloom?

I agree with you. These tests aren't digital or perfect so I'd say the ammonia is zero or near zero if you prefer.

Ammonia isn't the only nutrient to test. Nitrate and phosphorus (phosphate) would need to be tested too. If you really wanted to know then additional things like potassium, magnesium, calcium, sulfate, etc., could be tested too. But the big 3 are ammonia, nitrate and phosphorus. That's what algae is using the most of to divide. When you start looking at the more trace nutrients the concept of higher plants removing 100% of these really gets silly.

Algae prefer to consume ammonia directly (ammonium more specifically). So it is indeed rare for a green pond to have an elevated ammonia level. When a pond clears suddenly, like you saw with the lily or a UV filter, there can be an ammonia spike. Really there is always an ammonia spike, but it depends on other things whether it can be measured in a test. As bacteria convert the dead algae into ammonia the ammonia may be consumed almost immediately by bacteria or string algae or other ways. So even though a lot of ammonia is produced it doesn't mean it will appear in a test.

This is also another nail in the coffin of the starving algae theory. The theory requires zero nutrients, or more specifically zero of any one nutrient algae needs to reproduce. Well the concept that a pond would have zero ammonia or nitrate is super strange. Testing a zero level doesn't mean the pond isn't producing tons of nutrients. It only means the nutrients aren't accumulating in the water. So then were back to the higher plants removing 100% of phosphorus or some required trace element. There's been lots of studies on making phosphorus unavailable because in the past phosphorus was an even bigger pollutant. Those studies were all about reducing algae growth rates. What we see in ponds that are gin clear is not reduced growth but an almost total lack of growth. That the water is toxic to algae.

So what do you think will happen if I dump the 15 gallons of clear water in my 1500 gallon pond? Is that too little volume (in the container) to effect the pond?

15 gals would be 1% clear to 99% green and I've never read or done that mix. Based on results from the 25,50,75% tests I assume you would see no change.

However moving the lily to the green pond could have a dramatic result. I once threw a softball size clump of string algae into a 1000 gal pond and it cleared overnight. However, I've also done many other experiments where the water remained green and the string algae slowly died. It's easy to see when single cell algae die, but macro algae is difficult to tell.

My problem is I couldn't come up with a definitive test. I had a lot of trouble making water turn green or getting string algae to grow. People of course think algae (all species) are easy to grow, but try it sometime. After a pond cleared I had to really clean the liner in order for the water to turn green. It was all these problems, in addition to what science has proven about plant behavior in general, that lead me to believe there's a whole lot more going on than algae being starved. That one was easy to disprove.

I was doing these experiments because this was back before UV filters were common and cheap. Green water was a serious problem back then. My plan was to come up with a way to reliably grow string algae. Turned out to not be that easy. After awhile UV filter dropped in price and the need for a string algae filter was no longer needed. The cool thing is in the past 10 years the concept has caught on with aquarists and they're super serious so maybe the answer will be proven or disproved someday.

The easiest experiment for you to do is add fertilizer to the clear water container. No harm. That test I've done several times and it never failed. That doesn't mean it couldn't fail, but either way it would be more data.

 

[Waterbug]

Waterbug, is the chimical you say is produced the same one you said you could not prove is produced within the last couple days?

Probably. I don't know what post you're thinking of.

It is a good theory if it can be proven.

If it could be proven it wouldn't be a theory. But then some theories can never be proven to some people.

There are lots of things many people consider to be facts, earth is round, dinosaurs were on earth in the past, etc., while still a majority of humans on the planet currently consider some of these to be "theories". And when they use the term "theory" what they really mean is they believe the theory is false though they know they have no basis.

I consider the allelopathy theory to be true for pond algae. Not exactly a huge leap since allelopathy in plants has been proven and allelopathy in marine algae has been proven (to science types). I've done enough tests and research with pond algae that I'm satisfied. If a better theory ever came along I'd be interested. The plant starving algae theory to me isn't even a theory. It's never had any basis and is so easy to disprove. That's just a myth repeated many times.

But I certainly don't want to try and convince the pond community. Present something like that where 99.999% of people believe plants starve algae is really more time than I care to waste these days. A long time along I spent about 3 years in pond forums battling the concrete kills fish myth. That myth was even easier to disprove...just measure the pH. Hundreds and hundreds of posts. Finally that myth started to die out. I can't imagine the effort it would take to get people to do any of the algae tests I described to maybe change dogma even a little. Certainly not a cause I'm interested in taking up.

 

[archimedes]

Interesting stuff

However moving the lily to the green pond could have a dramatic result. I once threw a softball size clump of string algae into a 1000 gal pond and it cleared overnight. However, I've also done many other experiments where the water remained green and the string algae slowly died. It's easy to see when single cell algae die, but macro algae is difficult to tell.

.

So this begs the question, should I abort my plans to disinfect the plants with potassium permanganate, for parasites and such, but in so doing I kill all the good stuff (string algae I assume in this case) that is somehow kill the green algae?

 

[archimedes]

I dump all the water in the container out. Refilled it again, with green pond water, to see if it would happen again. Just curious.

Btw, I did test for nitrites and nitrates, both were zero.

 

[Waterbug]

So this begs the question, should I abort my plans to disinfect the plants with potassium permanganate, for parasites and such, but in so doing I kill all the good stuff (string algae I assume in this case) that is somehow kill the green algae?

There's the $64,000 question. Many people want to keep string algae out of their pond as long as possible. Controlling green water is super easy and cheap today thanks to UV filters. So most people would see no benefit to string algae.

I wonder if you could even kill all the string algae with PP. Treated ponds seem to bounce back fast.

 

[Waterbug]

I dump all the water in the container out. Refilled it again, with green pond water, to see if it would happen again. Just curious.

That's a good test I hadn't considered. I would think that gives the string algae (macro algae is a better term in this case) the best chance to survive the chemicals in the green water that are toxic to the macro algae.

Btw, I did test for nitrites and nitrates, both were zero.

In the green or clear pond/container?

Zero ammonia and nitrates would together be one of the macro nutrients most algae would need to reproduce. But like I said in an earlier post, a zero level only means there isn't a surplus of these accumulating in the water. The pond is no doubt actually producing these nutrients all the time.

 

[Waterbug]

Waterbug, is the chimical you say is produced the same one you said you could not prove is produced within the last couple days? It is a good theory if it can be proven.

It was pointed out to me in a private message that the word spin you're trying for was the phrase "said you could not prove". I can't prove many things. I can't prove the earth is round. Other people can/have which I can learn about and decide whether I choose to believe them or not.

Allelopathy has been proven at least to me and many people. Whether allelopathy is used by algae in freshwater ponds has been proven or disproved I don't know. Maybe it has been and I haven't run into the research yet.It certainly has been proven in saltwater algae. And then of course even if proven in freshwater algae the science haters can always say it was only proved for a few species. Some people just prefer fantasy. It's an easier read that's for sure.

It is the research already done on allelopathy in many plant species that supports my belief it's occurring in ponds. It fits way better than other theories. I mean there hasn't been a study done on every single species of green plant to determine if they all use photosynthesis, but I'm OK in believing all green plants use photosynthesis. Maybe someday someone will discover a green plant that doesn't use photosynthesis (bacteria type "plants" aside) and I'll adjust by view. But between now and I'm OK with believing current research.

I mean when compared to "plants starve algae" repeated thousands of times and not once anyone bothering to offer any kind of test at all and plus all the studies that show green water ponds have near zero nutrient levels while clear have high, plus, plus, plus. Come on, it isn't even close.

Or that pumps clear ponds. Or barley. Or peroxide. Or caterpillar droppings. Or magnets. Or bacteria in a bottle. Or pH pill. None have any science at all behind them and plenty of science disproving them. I just down see the point of ignoring science if a person wants to understand these things.