What The HELL ! :(:(:(:(:(

[sissy]

It may get washed between the rocks.It cam make it's way through the smallest places if it is all the fine stuff .Heavier stuff may move but not through the rocks

 

[JenH]

I think it looks more like dirt then mulch. We just spread a truck load of dk brown dyed mulch around our pond, and the last two days it's been so windy that tons of it has blown into the pond, being sucked into my new skimmer (so glad I bought that thing!). And my water isn't the color of yours. I have a lot of dirt that has settled on the rocks in my pond (I think this was the pieces of mulch dust and tiny pieces to small to float, and the water has a slightly brownish tint to it. It is still crystal clear though and I can see the bottom and the fish very clearly. Now before the mulch when we would get winds like this my pond would look like yours does. That was dirt blowing in. Since the rebuild, all the the gravel in my bog has been wonderful for clearing up the dirt within a few hours to a day depending on how bad it is. Before the rebuild though my homemade skippy type filter didn't have a prayer for cleaning that out and I would use the quilt batting. Also I know a lot of people here frown upon additives, but I have used the coagulators (AccuClear) and they do help, especially if you combine them with the batting. I've also heard amazing things about Microbe-Lift products. I really would try those things if you really have no way right now to try to fix whatever is wrong, patience is not a virtue of mine. Kuddos to you doing all this with morning sickness, cause I absolutely could not imagine doing any of the work ponding has entailed when I was sick and pregnant with my twins. I think I would have died.

Here is a pic of my water with 2 days worth of fresh dyed mulch getting blown in. It's still super windy, you can see the waves some in the pic and some of the blur is due to that motion and my camera, not the clarity of my water.

 

[addy1]

I agree with Sissy about the landscape cloth, I do not use it, water does not soak in, dirt gathers on top and the weeds nicely grow right through it, hard to pull because now they are attached to the fabric. That stuff is not cheap if you get the good stuff.

I put some in and yanked it back out.

Your water looks like mine when I had a low spot that let rain water run in with some mud, made a mess, but my bog cleaned it right up. I then put in some french drains to direct the water flow.

 

[sissy]

I think we all made that same mistake addy with landscape fabric and sure plenty more will .Landscape fabric only is good for steep hills that you are going to rock or behind retaining wall block as a silt catcher so it does not plug up the drain field you put in .Think most can say been there done that and wish i could say it is funny but it is not ,especially if your the one taking it out .

 

[Waterbug]

I got really screwed.

Probably. If you want you can PM me the company's contact info and I'll talk to them to try and understand what's going on. Unfortunately it is also true that clients can get confused too as they don't understand, or want to understand, the entire process. I will only try and understand both sides and try and find a solution.

They are coming Thursday to check everything. But they will never redrain it at their cost so... that's it.

That doesn't make sense to me. They'd rather go to small claims court than drain and refill a pond? Sounds like there's some miscommunication.

I consider clear if I can see the bottom and the fish... far from being the case now. I don't think we'll be doing any more work for these ponds this year. Either it will settle and next year cleaning we'll try to improve it. But right now...

If the problem is fixed so no future soil gets in (if that's what it is) I would expect the water to settle on its own in that time frame to be that clear (although I don't know how deep the pond is.

Next house I'll have my pond built by a real pro... with concrete and everything.

As long as you do your homework and don't settle. Very difficult finding and checking out a builder. Lots of stories of $100k pond projects going south. I've just been following one on Koiphen. Good builder, was trying, but expertise was in pools not ponds. Both builder and owner thought they knew enough when started but didn't. Lucky for the owner he got wise as the pond was being built, a few little things, and he started researching and the more he found the more he realized both he and the builder were over their heads. He got lots of info, studied and learned, and fixed a lot of issues. Ended up with a great pond.

I've added some biological stuff yesterday to help the particles settle. The two other ponds are exactly in the same situation... cloudy water.

I didn't realize there are other ponds. Are they all connected? Were they all cleaned?

"Biological stuff" isn't even advertised to eat clay. So not sure what the goal is there. In theory it's suppose to eat organic matter, but that was disproven in studies. The studies showed it was just eaten by other bacteria in the pond, the kind of bacteria you don't want, the kind that eats the bacteria you do want. Not that big a deal as long as cash is no issue.

 

[Waterbug]

Also would a pond vacuum or pool vacuum be helpful to get rid of the mud and debris once they settled at the bottom ?

Sure. Here are some options.

 

[JenH]

Addy and Sissy, good info about landscaping fabric. We ripped out our original front landscaping and plan to redo it once I decide what I want to do, I was planning to use landscaping fabric once we finally get to that stage. Now I know it's a bad idea. Seems to me if water can't even drain through it it couldn't be very good for your plants either. Wouldn't they start to die after a while?

 

[addy1]

They stay to cut around the stems of plants by xx inches, that is to let some water in. I poured water on it, it does just flow right off, no real going through.

 

[sissy]

Yep and like addy says if a weed gets rooted in the fabric it gets it's roots tangled in the stuff and you have to twist a pull like crazy to get the weed out and end up ripping and cutting the liner to get it out .Do that with every weed and you don't have much of the fabric left on the ground .

 

[j.w]

jw the ripper here also and man when stuff collects on top of that fabric and roots grow all over the top of it down through the bark and you've installed it under 80 Arbovitae trees you are p.o'd to say the least! I've used the stuff in the plant baskets for the pond too and the lily roots stuck to it like glue. The only thing I would ever use it for was under rocks w/ potted plants only sitting on the rocks and not in the soil! Or under any rocks but just rocks! Then you can spray vinegar on hot sunny days to kill any weeds that collect on top of the cloth and not worry about killing plants!

 

[JenH]

Vinegar kills weeds?

 

[addy1]

Vinegar kills weeds?

Does a great job, I used it in arizona all of the time. Vinegar is acidic, pick a nice sunny day, warm, spray the plants they die. One thing nice is it is safe to use around your pond, roundup kills frogs and toads, vinegar won't.

I was going to use preen for seed germination control, found out the ingredient in preen is deadly to ponds. So vinegar and pulling weeds, mulch is the only weed control I can use in the back yard.

 

[JenH]

So you just use straight white vinegar then, not mixed with water? We get little weeds that pop up between my concrete patio and house foundation all the time. I made the mistake to not pay attention to what I was yanking out and grabbed a thistle with my bare hands the other day! I think we need a gardening category on here too! I need all the help I can get in all things outside!

 

[rebelangel_3733]

yup viniger works have heard that antic and have used it too...pretty safe weed control

 

[addy1]

So you just use straight white vinegar then, not mixed with water? We get little weeds that pop up between my concrete patio and house foundation all the time. I made the mistake to not pay attention to what I was yanking out and grabbed a thistle with my bare hands the other day! I think we need a gardening category on here too! I need all the help I can get in all things outside!

Straight vinegar works great and good sun