Hair algae - stop feeding?

[Jkm]

Hi, my pond is in its first summer - about 10,000 gallons, about 30’ diameter, most of the surface gets sunlight all day, 18 goldfish 5-6”, a half-dozen new baby goldfish 2”, thousands of rosy red minnows, 3 Chinese hi-fin banded sharks 5”, and a few crawfish 3”.
Running 2 50w UV lights which totally keep the green water algae gone.
Water chemistry is 0-0-0 and pH 7.4+.

My problem is hair algae - LOTS of hair algae. On the surface of the small bog filter, on all the plants, the young water lilies, all over the roots of the water hyacinths (which are not doing too well).

Question - do I need to convince my husband that we(he) must stop feeding the fish? And, should I add more fish? More goldfish?

I think that the goldfish pond does not need feeding, but this being the first year we(he) worried the fish would starve. So I’m looking for support or other answers if not feeding is the wrong answer.

Also, do I need to worry about the big Ultima biofilter getting clogged with hair algae?

Julia

 

[Tula]

UV lights do not work on hair / string alage. Your pond is very large, so can't imagine it's over stocked. I also wouldn't be too concerned with light feeding......I wouldn't feed heavily. Are you able to provide any shade to the pond, sometimes too much sun produces aglae.

Those things said, the fish won't starve if you don't feed them, especially gold fish....they'll munch on algae, bugs and microscopic stuff. I don't know anything about hi-fin banded sharks .

 

[mrsclem]

I would stop feeding. Guessing within 2 weeks your algae problem will disappear.

 

[Jkm]

Thanks - with you guys backing me up I’ve convinced my husband to stop feeding the fish.

 

[addy1]

lol my husband says the pond it mine, do what I want. Mine get fed once in a blue moon. I watch them on the cams eating up the eggs laid on the hornwort.

 

[Faebinder]

Your pond is overloaded with fish. Stop feeding the fish and get rid of the baby goldfish. Improve your bog. It's the first summer so perhaps your plants are not going strong?

 

[Ray G]

photo would be good! But 1000s of rosy red minnows could be a problem but your test results show no nitrates but I would keep an eye on that. I reckon the hair algae problem will reduce with time as everything settles in. Once your plants start growing that should keep the hair algae under control. There will always be some and fish do love eating it.

 

[GBBUDD]

I am in my first year or a month past first. and i have been battling hair algae as well. i have TONS of plants . tons of filtration . parameters are spot on with the exception of phosphates. My town adds it to the water and walahhhh Hair algae they do this to help keep the pipes from corrosion. Any who i have found two solutions one is called Nualgea it transformed the algae from 6 foot long strands to very loose and week strands. as well as it would become dark and float to the surface. but. What has really done the job was i added air to the snorkel tube of my bog. the idea was to give the bacteria in the bog as much o2 as possible this would allow it to crank and multiply. Adding an air stone to the pond will do the same principle.

The other was to remove as much co2 from the water that aquatic plants need to grow. 3 weeks latter hair algae is gone in the pond i do not feed the fish any more except for a treat one fish was in the upper pond no food what so ever and it has doubled in size from the spring to now .

 

[Jkm]

Wow - you do have a lot of plants! It looks wonderful!

I’m having a dreadful time getting my pond plants to grow in the pond water. Everything I planted this spring, except for two cannas in the bog and lots of creeping Jenny on all the edge shelves, died. And even the creeping Jennys took a long time to get started and still some of them are sickly. And I ordered 300 water hyacinth plants, and large quantities of hornwort, parrot feathers, and anacharis. The water hyacinths never got big or reproduced much, and their roots are covered with hair algae which I remove almost every day, I don’t see any more hornwort or anacharis (could have been eaten) and am constantly cleaning hair algae off the floating parrot feathers. I really don’t know what or how to plant this large pond in north Idaho. Oh - three water lilies that I bought full grown in April, and they are doing okay, with occasional flowers, but aren’t any bigger than when I bought them.

I’m perplexed.

 

[GBBUDD]

Stop feeding is a god start, keep an eye on your fish they should all start biting " feeding " on the hair algae. if all species do then your in good shape. Try the Nualgae and the air while the Nualgae is not cheap and a good air pump will run you a minimum of 250 for a nitto c45 i am using the 45 now i was using a nitto 120 "three times the air of or more. These required a few more bucks but in 3 weeks i went from hair algae to this while some will tell you the pond just reaches a point and the occupants just need some patience. Oh and vacuuming the pond couldn't hurt either.
Good luck