string algae

16 years ago

I got the uv which cleared the water up in no time, but with the green water gone it seems the string algae is taking off.

I don't mind some of it, I know it's normal & natural but man.

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Comments (5)

larryl
16 years ago
The UV kills the suspended algae, but doesn't correct the nutrient imbalance that caused the algal bloom. These nutrients are still available to the string algae. The UV will have no effect on the string algae.

Algae is nature's way of providing you with plants. What other plants do you have in your pond? How are they doing?

The most effective plants for nutrient control are the floating plants, like water hyacinths, that use nutrients directly from the water. If they are healthy and rapidly growing, as they should be at this time of year, they will remove phosphates from your pond and reduce the algal growth.

The other option is to remove the algae by hand.
lefty7
16 years ago
I use a product called Pond Balance works great no string algae so far this year.Does not hurt fish or other plants.I
also took rocks off bottom of pond and I also made a filter for the skimmer out of nylon scrub pads from dollar store.Someone suggested this on the forum and it works really good.My water has been crystal clear and no algae blooms.
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missa7
Original Author
16 years ago
I know the uv won't do anything on the string algae. I remove it by hand when needed. My lettuce & hyacinth have never done very good. Everything looks good except my variegated cattail, it's starting to look a little peaked & the lotuses aren't doing as well as I'd like (meaning they're sending up lots of floaters but no aerials yet & it's July). The fish look good.

I was just commenting on the string algae was all.
will_2006
16 years ago
I had a big problem with string algae this year. It is now completely under control. I put in water lettuce and hyacinth which took off better than ever before. What happened is these plants removed the nutrients out of the water and deprived the algae of much needed sun light. A wonderful solution, all natural, and looks great. More so the fish love it. Or so it may seem. The other nice thing will be when the hyacinth blooms out. And I will still not have string algae.
reg
larryl
16 years ago
If your water hyacinths are not doing well at this time of year I would suspect they are not getting one of the necessary nutrients. If they aren't growing well they can't remove the phosphate that fuels the algae. If you can figure out what they are deficient in you can add that nutrient and they will resume growing.

If the hyacinths are sort of olive drab in color with long root systems they are probably deficient in potash. If they are a sickly yellow with veining on the leaves and a lot of dead plant parts it is probably an iron deficiency. In both cases there will be smallish plant tops with few new plantlets.

If you can fix this your algae problem will diminish because the hyacinths will again be able to use the phosphate.