Introduction

[Shelley]

Hello

June of ast year my husband and I were fortunate enough to buy a home with a beautiful water feature. It is basically a large circular shape cut into the steep slope of a hill and has two water falls cascadindind down each side emptying into a pond. When I adopted the pond I knew NOTHING about keeping a pond but I have been working hard to get up to speed on how to care for it.

Last year I reconditioned the water and after rigorous testing decided to try three fish. Well, the fish did well and even though the pond froze during the winter except for the water falls flowing into a narrow slit the fish survived into spring. After my initial success I added 9 more fish. So Now my fish family includes 5 Sarasha Comets, three Shubunkin, one comet, three koi, 10 giant pond snails, one bull frog tadpole and several Pickerile frogs that adopted us.

The pond gets full sun in the afternoon and for this rason I tried to get a lot of plants for shade. I have five varieties of Lillies, a papyrus, dwarf palm, some violet stemmed taro, aztec arrow, hyacynths, pond lettuce and a couple of left over volunteer parrot feather from last year.

My BIG problem is STRING ALGAE!!!!! HELP me!! Please. It is a constant battle. I reead something on the forum last night about how much I am feeding my fish and that because of this they are not eating any algae and that their waste is upsetting the balance of the pond and counteracting my efforts to beat back the algae.

My question is this: since I have been spoiling my fish by feeding them peas, koi pellets, flakes and krill will it hurt them to drastically cut back on this amount of food?

 

[Mmathis]

Hello, and welcome!

No, it won't hurt your fish, though it may hurt your relationship with them, LOL! There will be plenty of algae for them to snack on. In fact, it will help them because over-feeding is one of the main causes of poor water quality.

Tell us a little more about your pond and where do you live? How big is it? It sounds lovely, and would love to see pictures.

And as to adding fish, if you haven't already come across it, you will be strongly advised to quarantine any new fish before adding them to your pond. This helps avoid introducing harmful fishy diseases into your pond. And be sure not to add too many fish, too fast. You want to give your bio-filter a chance to adjust to the increase.

 

[JohnHuff]

Welcome to the forum!
Yes, tell us more about your pond, how big, what kind of filter you have, how much and how often you fee them, etc.
Your pond sounds lovely! A few pics of it would help as well.
PS, you need to buy a testing kit as well. It will tell us/you the chemistry of the pond and what needs to be done.

 

[Shelley]

Hello and thanks.

I am from Knoxville, Tennessee. I think(?) that the pond is about 1600-2000 gallons but I may be way off.I will send you a picture of the full pond and maybe you can advise as to exactly how to estimate.

Yes, I love my fish and spoil them. My 10 year old will also be very upset not to be able to enjoy the "Show" during the feeding of the peas and krill. I guess I will just have to take the hit to my relationship to the fish. :-(. Should I still feed them anything? If so what? The first pic. Is one but of algae from the upper pond. From this morning. Some of it I actually pulled directly off the Barley straw bale.

Thanks,

Shelley

 

[RobAmy]

Welcome, nice pond. I turned your picture of the pond for you

 

[Shelley]

Welcome, nice pond. I turned your picture of the pond for you

View attachment 71449

Thank you. I am having some difficulty navigating this site.

 

[Mmathis]

It is very nice -- love the multiple falls!

 

[JohnHuff]

¡uʍop əpısdn ɐɹəɯɐɔ ɹnoʎ ƃuıploɥ əɹ,noʎ ʞuıɥʇ ı 'ʎəlləɥs 'ɯn

 

[Fishylove]

Lol! John. Welcome to our forum Shelley! Your pond is beautiful!
Do what I do, cut back on the amount of food you feed them, (say what you would feed them in the morning) and split that into three feedings over the day. This way they are still spoiled by you, and they will start eating the algae my stinkers keep the algae cleaned up pretty well
Again welcome! And please post pics of your fishies

 

[Fishylove]

Oh and don't worry, my pictures post sideways and have no idea why

 

[JohnHuff]

Oh and don't worry, my pictures post sideways and have no idea why

Have you taking your pictures sideways? Then they'll show up correct on the forum.

 

[Fishylove]

Haha! No haven't tried that yet

 

[j.w]

Shelley
Nice looking pond and love all the rock work! You can go forever on not feeding the goldfish type fish but not sure about doing that w/ the koi. Maybe some nice big sucking up nutrient plant like the Yellow flag Iris or some of the reed or rush type plants might help w/ the algae also. I have all 3 of those plants in my pond and no big algae problems. Course we don't get tons of sun here either..............unfortunately

 

[Shelley]

I am getting so frustrated with the string algae.

 

[JohnHuff]

I am getting so frustrated with the string algae.

Don't!
String algae is the easiest algae to remove. Just use a stick to pick it up. And remember that whenever you remove algae from the pond, you are removing waste/organics that would otherwise be detrimental to your fish.

Also, algae uptakes ammonia and other nutrients which are not beneficial to your pond environment.

If you wanna continue feeding your fish, just feed less every time.