Activated Charcoal is normally the correct solution to tea colored water. Is it possible some of your plants are in pots with lots of peat moss? That and composted manure are often used in nursery plantings and will absolutely produce tannin which is tea colored. The Activated Charcoal should be placed in some sort of container that permits water to flow freely through it. I tried pantyhose, too and it didn't work. While the water finally did get into the bag to wet the charcoal, it didn't move through it and the water just flowed around the bag. The pots sold for water gardening that have lots of openings (slits) are good. Get two and fasten them top to top with the AC inside (3 or 4 twist ties are good enough) and place where the water is flowing. I put mine in the Skippy Filter. Clearing should be evident in an hour or two. 1000 gallons of water should be clear in 24 hours. I use at least 1/2 gallon of AC and it lasts the whole season. You might have more or less tannin than I do. We have a lot of oak trees. You don't mention using a test kit. Ammonia can be a factor and the other tests are important, as well. Sandy

In answer to all of the above - I can't add anything to the present pump and tubing. The pump is submersed in three feet of water under several heavy rocks, and the tubing runs up and around under the waterfall. The guy who installed it was planning on "bleeding" me each Spring by removing the fish, emptying the pond, scrubbing it, refilling, etc. He told me to turn it off periodically to backwash it, which would clear the pre-filter. The way this thing is put together, I either have to run a second pump, and figure out how to camouflage it, and its tubing, or wait till this pump dies, take everything apart, and put in a better system. I am not happy about even having someone try to maneuver the tubing - the waterfall might have to be taken apart, to some extent. Today I climbed all over the waterfall, pulling off handfuls of string algae which was covered in brown muck. Most of the dirt washed down into the pond while I was working. I also added a load of extra rocks and pebbles in the three areas at the top of the waterfall which the water flows through before streaming down into the pond, hoping that some of the dirt would settle to the bottom up there, and the water would wash over the rocks, bringing down clearer water. For some reason, a lot of the rocks up there have either settled in, fallen in, leaving just open pools where the water just builds up, and then flows back into the pond. I know there are pond clarifiers out there which supposedly bind particles together, and cause them to sink to the bottom. Any suggestions? Is there a type of mechanical filter I could set up with a separate pump on the edge of the pond, to use occasionally, for some period of time, to clear some of the debris out? I can't put a skimmer in without pulling up all the landscaping, and cutting an opening in the liner, which comes out fairly far from the pond itself. I was wondering if there was a type of filter which I could just put into place occasionally - the equivalent of using a large pond vac.

Hey there, Peter. All wood contains tannin but some contains more than others so it would all depend on what kind of wood your driftwood is. Oak of course is usually the worst. I hate it when I accidentally get a fragment of a dried leaf trapped in clothing in the washer. Most of the time the cloth is ruined. Cypress, Mangrove and similar trees have less tannin. Hickory, ironwood and black walnut have a lot. I don't know what the relationship is exactly. Maybe someone else can tell you. My grandfather, a farmer who worked winters in a tannery, said the bark contains the most tannin and even though he wore protective gloves his hands were always stained. I tried the kitty litter clay and wound up with a mud puddle for three weeks thanks to the koi and the raccoons. Time to go back to the expensive Schultz water garden soil until I can figure out something else. If you got a glass of water out of the waterfall directly past the batting, I bet it would be tea colored. The charcoal should be still working unless it is overwhelmed by the chemicals and impurities in the water. Since the impurities don't penetrate the pieces of charcoal and simply bond to the surface, you can start it working again by whopping the bag with the flat side of a hammer to break it up into smaller pieces. That gives you plenty of new surface area exposed to bond with the tannins.With care, you can extend the usefulness of the charcoal for a long time. I won't talk about the rocks on the bottom. That gets enough space and time without me discussing it further. Sandy

Peter, my pond goes through this a few times a year when the oak trees are at their worst littering (which they seem to be always doing) stages. Even in spring, when it's just the pollen and catkins, the water gets that clear "strong tea" color. The water test results remain in the desirable ranges. Four years ago I was advised it won't hurt the fish and they certainly seem to be doing fine, so I just live with it. As you said, it does look more natural. Are there any trees nearby that could be dropping anything from pollen to twigs into the pond and is there any way to exclude that? A partial water change might lighten the color a bit, but you want to be careful about stressing the fish with changes in water temperature and chemistry. I hope someone has a more promising answer for you than I can give. Diane