Okay, once I made my pond substantially larger last year I had the obligatory algae bloom and then Clear Clear water. That was until I had an early autumn here in the midwest and a maple tree filled my pond with leaves (prior to me netting the pond). Since that time I've only had tea-colored water (!!!), and it has confounded me! I've cleared the leaves from the pond long ago but I still have tea colored water, it is now almost June of the following year. The Professor has pointed out that a nearby mulched garden bed could be fouling my water. It's a long shot but maybe. I'm working on curing that now by introducing a larger rock-lined edge around the pond. But I'm interested in some things that Sandy has said in another post about anerobic bacteria / die off of good bacteria / sulphur smell and lack of oxygen. It has made me think of this above posting by Watershaper talking about flocculent (sp)-- I think I know what this (flocculent) is but I'll have to do more research-- and activated carbon, as well as oxygenation. My setup is a 2800 gal pond focusing on aquatic plants, I have about 8 large marginals, and 8 hardy water lilies. I have a large Savio skimmer and an Atlantic Bio-Falls. The plants in the bio-falls are starting to root now. The other plants are doing so-so; larger ones have gotten fertilized with Highland Rim tabs for the first time this spring ( I didn't do this last year), but smaller plants seem to struggle. Of my overall 2800 gals most of this is in the lower pool, where I have the water lilies. The depth is about 34 inches with several shelves. I have a wide but short height falls between the upper and lower pools, only about six inches of falls by 40 inches wide (weir). The upper pool is approximately 200 gals. This is where I've put most of the marginals, the depth is only about 18 inches (deepest) with about 12" the norm. I have everything in pots in sandy-clay soil with pebbles or sand tops. I have the bio-falls up stream from the upper pool and about a five foot quick descending stream between them. It is lined with rounded cobbles. I have been fighting string algae all winter and spring. Again, I've been fighting STRING ALGAE ALL WINTER & SPRING! While I've gotten a hold of it in the lower (larger) pool, the stuff is still forming anew in the upper pool around the plants and rocks of the stream... this is coming right off the bio-falls! I haven't been able to figure this out. Why would the water coming off the vegetative filtration be the most prone to develop the algae?! I'VE ADDED SOME HYDROGEN PEROXIDE TO THE MORE STILL WATERS AND IT SEEMS TO KILL THE ALGAE, AT LEAST IT CLUMPS AND I CAN SCOOP IT OUT IN A DAY OR TWO. But why would my bio-falls and stream bed coming off the falls be so prone to algae just when the vegetative filter is starting to really grow? This should be the exact opposite, should it not! :( Next, I actually have two pumps in my Savio skimmer basin. One I have going to the Bio-Falls and the other I have going to a pipe with cut out holes that discharges just under the weir of the bio-falls to create a rapids effect. Both pumps are Laguna 3500 gph (I would estimate a 12 foot head, so they what, discharge about like a 2800 gph pump). Okay, so that's the setup. A few fish, 12 to 15. Mainly Fancy Goldfish of medium size, less than four inches. I test the water chemistry almost weekly. Here it is, without fail: pH: 8.5 ( I no longer try adjusting pH down ) KH: 9.25 degrees or 166ppm ( I buffer with Baking Soda as needed) GH: 3 to 5 degrees Nitrite: Nitrate: (hard to read the scale but no more than this) CO2: (not sure if the chart the Tetra Pond Test Kit gives is good for ponds because it says for aquariums on the CO2 sheet, but given the pH and KH it would be 0.8mg/lf Water Temp.: fluctuating this spring between 64 F and 73 F. The above results were from yesterday (almost any day) at 73 F in the late afternoon. So... Okay, I've had the "rapids-creating pump" off for a few days just to save electricity dollars. But I turn it on today after a good 2 weeks off. I get a huge plum of fine muck like sediment discharged thru my rapids pipe and into my stream & upper pool and there is a very strong sulphur smell that lingers for about 4 or 5 minutes, it makes me think of Sandy's previous post about anerobic bacteria creating the smell and killing the beneficial bacteria. Would this account for why my bio-falls is not "eating-up" my excess nutrients that cause my string algae (occurring IN and close to the falls)??? I have a lot of fine sediment on the bottom of my pond. It is only about quarter of an inch deep sediment but it seems to be stirred-up quickly by any kind of movement. Is this causing my water to be tea-colored? It's so fine. If I move the net into the lily pool to remove string algae I get a cloud of fine, brown debris. I believe this is what my second pump, when I turned it on for the rapids, sucked up the pipe to the cloud and stink-up (sulphur) my stream bed. So Watershaper says use a flocculent. I haven't goggled "flocculant" yet but I imagine it is something to bind particulate together. Okay. Might work. He also says add "activated carbon" which I believe is a form of charcoal. Where do you get this? I mean besides the pond store that sells it like gold? What else am I missing? Professor? Oh I know, I want to ask about Oxygen that's dispersed in the water. I believe the pond gets an oxygen boost from three sources in my pools. First I have the falls from the vegetative bio-filter, this is the Atlantic Bio-Falls; then I get oxygen (I think) from the rapids of the steep stream; then, I believe I get oxygen from the 6 inch falls located between the small upper pool and lily pond pool. My question is this: how does oxygen travel in a larger pool of water? If my lower pool is roughly 2400 gal. and all of the turbulence is on the west side, is the far east side of that lower pool being oxygentated? I wonder. Sandy indicated that she cleared water by adding a bubbler to smaller pools. Can it be that with one or two 2800 to 3500 gph pumps in this roughly 3000 gal pond that I'm still not getting enough oxygen to make things balance??? What you say?

First, do you allow those gym clothes to dry out completely, before you toss them in the dirty clothes pile? This is really important. If they are even slightly damp, they are going to ferment. Second, washing sweaty clothing - even completely dried out ones - requires a slightly warmer temp than cold, at least lukewarm like 80 degrees F ... as warm as they can tolerate... in my opinion. I washed all my DH's wicking polyester golf shirts in CS for the past couple of years, and they don't have any odors. It gets HOT and HUMID where we live, and he's out there sweating for four hours at a time. I always make sure they are completely dry before they go into the hamper (lik, the next day). Now that I have a front-loader, I no longer use CS. It left a dusty white residue all over the drum the first and only time tried it. In my old top-loader, our whites got dingy over time, in spite of washing soda, borax and Calgon added in various combinations. I'm now using detergents with enzymes and they are cleaner than before. I doubt I'll ever go back to CS. This same subject was discussed recently, at the link below, and you might find some helpful information. Here is a link that might be useful: Funky smelling workout clothes

No water table issues here unless on the coast. Yes, it can be done with a lot of chlorine and real hard labor but if you want to be done quickly, direct application of chlorine on the shell is quickest. Here's the scenario in a foreclosure so you can't really use the common thought on clean up if you can't even see 12" into the water. These houses sit for close to a year or more. They went green and the county forced a drain early on in the process. House gets picked up by an agent after the bank takes possession. A listing occurs and the pool has to be filled to make things pretty. Offers fall away, pool goes green again. That pool has had so much dry time that you come along and treat it chemically for a hundred or more, and that's conservative, and then you find all kids of pretty cracks and waterline marks that you could have dealt with if you just drained it in the first place, water table permitting. i've found the strangest thing under that water on foreclosures. The stove, the pool heater, the pump and filter, mounds of dog doo doo. People get cranky when you tell them to leave their house.

You have a beautiful pool and the water color doesn't look green in an objectionable way to me...but I DO see that Day 7 looks greener than Day 1. As an owner of a pool with Ocean Blue PebbleSheen, I can tell you that my pool looks its bluest on sunny days with the sun directly overhead - and it looks to me like your Day 1 photos may have been taken in similar conditions. Your Day 7 photos look like they're taken later in the day, at more of an angle, and with less sun. My own pool looks a tad greener under those same conditions as well. Like your pool, I also have a good deal of landscaping around the pool that the surface reflects as a greener color at certain times of the day and with the sun at certain angles. Part of the charm of Pebble products, IMO, is the ever-changing look/colors...very, very natural. However, to be sure there's not anything else going on, recheck your "balanced" water, especially your FC (free chlorine) and CC (combined chloramines). Be certain that your FC level is appropriate for your level of conditioner/stabilizer. If you already have a stabilizer level that's higher (60-80) - in preparation for your SWG -then be sure you have a higher FC level (approx 7-9)in the interim. Also be sure your pH is in range, as it has a tendency to push upward in new pools, even Pebble ones. In my own pool, the color gets a bit greener if my pH is getting out of range. If I'm not mistaken, I think our start-up for Pebble was to have our pump/filter on 24/7 for 10-14 days. Be sure you're filtering enough now in the heat of the summer. Keep your skimmers clean and don't forget to clean out your pump's filter basket too. Here is a link that might be useful: Chlorine/CYA chart