Those daylight hours are getting longer and longer as we go into spring/summertime. The birds are singing, there'south flower on the trees and the fish are active and hungry. Some are fifty-fifty spawning. Just as idyllic every bit it all seems, the nation's ponds are about to enter the trouble time for green algae problems.

Greenwater and Blanketweed

Green algae can be broken down into two primary types - Greenwater, and Blanketweed. Greenwater is the term for when the water in the pond turns green, like pea soup, and yous can't see the fish anymore. Blanketweed is the proper noun for the long, green, filamentous algae which attaches to the sides of the swimming and can eventually spread across the water similar thick, dark-green spiderwebs.

Both types can be problematic for fish equally really green water in strong sunlight can cause oxygen bubbles, or embolisms, to form on the fish's fins, and astringent blanketweed can trap, strangle and suffocate fish.

The cause

The master crusade of both afflictions is a combination of light and nutrients. All algae need light to survive and they feed on nutrients to fuel growth. In nature, nutrients are tightly cycled by plants and leaner, and then there isn't usually whatever spare for prolific algae growth. In the garden swimming, nutrients can exist added via several means including from tapwater, fish food and garden soil, and if yous don't remove those nutrients past chemical ways, or accept plenty plants to soak them all upwards, the opportunistic algae have reward and proliferate.

Natural remedies

The first choice to gainsay bad algae is to do nothing! In theory, the spare nutrients will be used by the algae bloom, information technology will run out of food and then beginning to die off. Modify water and you lot may bring in fresh nutrients which tin once once more fuel algae, but this tactic would only actually be viable on fishless, wild animals ponds, as fish volition always need food adding and fractional h2o changes.

Something that'due south also growing in usage in wildlife ponds is rainwater. Fill up the pond with rainwater and it shouldn't have the same level of nitrates, phosphates, micro and macroelements that tapwater does. And if you initially filled with tapwater, you could pump some out and start to supercede with rainwater instead, but its effectiveness will probably be quite mild.

Swimming plants

Next are to fight algae with live plants. Plants and algae have been competing with each other since the dawn of time, and heavily planted ponds (especially in total sun,) rarely experience the severe algae issues suffered by blank, unplanted ponds.

Plants fight algae in three ways. Firstly they create shade, so cutting down the amount of light hitting the surface of the pond. A combination of water lilies and marginal plants will cut down the amount of sun hitting the pond as information technology travels across the heaven. Less low-cal equals less algae.

Next, plants use all those nitrates, phosphates, macro and microelements as fertiliser (they actually need information technology,) so a pond that is loftier in organic pollutants can exist purified by adding lots of plants, especially fast-growing ones. By removing nutrients from the water cavalcade, the algae will exist starved of its food.

The 3rd is by chemical warfare, as some plants release allelochemicals into the water to retard algae growth. Information technology helps to prevent their own leaves from getting smothered in algae too. And then plant the pond quite heavily initially with a combination of marginal, oxygenating and deep water plants to naturally purify the water, assistance to prevent algae, or if the swimming is already full of algae, they will help to fight information technology off. Aim for a third of the surface of the pond to be covered past plants at all times. In one case information technology gets to two thirds, trim it back.

Manual removal

With blanketweed, manual removal goes a long fashion to helping to naturally control it. Utilise a blanketweed castor to collect the blanketweed similar candyfloss, so compost it. If you are worried that picayune aquatic creatures are in it, leave it at the side of the pond and they will crawl dorsum in. Remove as much blanketweed as you can, every bit often as you can, and that in itself is a form of nutrient consign. The blanketweed soaks up nitrate and phosphate and by you physically removing it, you lot as well remove the spare nutrients from the organization. As long equally y'all aren't too adding them by other means like fish food and via tapwater, that is.

Bacteria and enzymes

The utilise of bacterial pond products is likewise growing. Bacteria can be used to kick commencement new filters, convert ammonia and nitrite, and reduce sludge. Bacteria can also be used to help strip the h2o of nutrients which the algae would otherwise feed on, while at the same fourth dimension using enzymes to attack and interruption down algae strands. It'due south certainly all-natural, and some Blanketweed treatments will also incorporate enzymes to naturally fight Blanketweed. Give it a try!

Barley harbinger

Barley straw is a natural way to fight algae. On contact with h2o, the straw starts to break downwardly, and as it does so it releases peroxides into the water which combat algae. Available in mini bales, or as a concentrated extract of barley straw liquid, information technology's a natural fashion of chemically fighting algae. If you want more instant results, get for the liquid, equally the straw tin can take time to work.

Critters

Nature has its own army of animal helpers to help consume algae too. Ramshorn snails, if used in high plenty number, volition continually graze fine algae growth from the sides of the pond and institute stems, and hopefully, help to prevent blanketweed from taking concur.

Daphnia, also known as water fleas, are tiny freshwater filter feeders, which will turn green pond water to crystal clear in no time. The just snag with them is they are natural fish food so volition be eaten if added to a fish pond, and they'll also be sucked into the filter with any ponds employing swimming pumps, so i for fishless, unfiltered, wildlife ponds just. Only then they are very effective on greenwater.

Swan mussels are freshwater mussels which are bachelor for ponds. In nature they are fantabulous filter feeders, and their furnishings can be seen on many a YouTube video where they articulate a muddy tank of water in hours. In our ponds all the same they do struggle to get the right foods, so are only really suitable for large wild fauna ponds, with no other filtration, and a deep, muddy lesser for them burrow into.

Grass carp

Grass bother take been introduced to lakes for many years to control "weed." Nosotros also innovate them to garden ponds to naturally control Blanketweed, but unfortunately, they aren't very good at it, prefer to consume standard fish nutrient, grow to three feet in length, and similar to spring out. High numbers may be effective in large land-locked lakes but are best left out of average garden ponds.

Algae apocalypse!

In severe cases, many of the natural algae options listed above can exist used in combination. So if you have heavy blanketweed growth, remove as much as y'all can, plant heavily, add bacteria and enzymes, and use an excerpt of Barley straw. The effects should go apparent in a few weeks. For greenwater, extra plants plus bacteria and enzymes should showtime to run across it first to clear in a few weeks.

Note that all algae will be at its worst at the height of the summer solstice, with xviii hours of daylight and warm pond water. Algae is also most prevalent in new ponds, so allow the plants get established, follow all of the above measures, and your swimming should notice its residuum and start to control algae naturally, long term. Whatsoever you do, don't empty the swimming and start over again without changing some of the above factors, as without removing the cause, algae volition but return and proliferate just as it did before.