This may sound like a very stupid query, but can too many/much oxygenating plants actually make the greening of a pond worse?

I've noticed the green intensity of the water is getting worse and yet the pond is full of pond weed - I haven't thinned it out as I was hoping it would help deplete the algae - was this a bad move? There is about 40-50% coverage on the surface with water lillies and other deep aqautics, but still an emerald pond persists... I added some more barley straw a couple of weeks ago as the first lot was very early spring and the effect may have been suppressed by the excessive pond weed, but it's a bit soon to see en effect yet I think. I am very grateful I (so far) don't have any blanket weed, but I'm concerned that it won't be long if this carries on.....

Any suggestions or thoughts please?

but the plants will fight over the oxygen in the pond.

but the over concept is the fishes colours come out in green ponds so u can leave it green as i did for the first few months the turn the UV on to see the display of wonderful colours.

-------------david--------fishmaduk------------------

Note that the barley straw should keep blanket weed at bay, but it does nothing for green water (different kind of algae).

Is it a newish pond? With so many plants and nearly 50% surface coverage, I wouldn't expect big problems with green water. But new planting with soil/compost will add massive amounts of nutrients that feeds algae, for a loooong time.
And a pond can take several years to reach a balance where the green water algae is kept at bay by plants using up nutrients, and cutting the amount of light available to algae.

What filtering do you use, if any? And do you put large amounts of top-up water into the pond?

--------david---------fishmaduk-----------------------

if biofilters is the cure for your pond it may work for u but all ponds r different size/location/water that comes from your tap/rain even where u live in the uk.

so UV works 4 me and a lot of other people i know.

---------david--------------fishmaduk-----------------

If you can find something else that works, well the advantages are: you save a bit on your electricy bills, you never need to buy new UV bulbs... and in the case of a Skippy filter you never need to clean it, empty it, or backflush it etc.

The disadvantage is, I think the "natural" alternatives generally take up more space - my Skippy filter is WAY bigger than your average commercial biofilter, and "Veggie" filters take a fair bit of space too. Not to say they need to be intrusive, a veggie filter could look like a bog garden or part of a waterfall run... and my Skippy filter is mostly buried (and with the surrounding rockery, planting, and watercress growing in the top of it, you wouldn't know it was there). But it does mean they take a bit more planning and work to set up, than a plug-in-and-go commercial filter.

Thanks for the comments, I realy appreciate the feedback.

It's a new pond in effect as we had it revamped last winter, new liner, beach adding etc. It's very shallow at one end at the beach and then a bit more than a foot deep at the other side - but I have replanted the pond with lots of new things, as before it was just flag iris and lillies, so the extra (aquatic) compost used would give lots of potential for the algae I guess, even if it is aquatic, with about 10-15 new baskest that's a lot to cope with at once. It's really a wildlife pond (hence no filters at the moment) although I'm not sure that the planting is convincingly wildlife!

Also thanks for the comment about the barley straw - I think I had the same thing as dampflippers one year (before the revamp) I added the barley straw and suddenly the water cleared - so it seems like this was just a coincidence and I can stop buying barley straw!

The frogs seem to like it OK and they are one of the main things I love about the pond, so I guess it's a case of wait and see - and hope that by 4th of July it's looking better!

Thanks again!

Almost forgot - based in Cheshire

Anyhoo, I found that the Barley straw pouches worked really well for me to keep the blanket weed away, but as someone has already said it won't affect greenwater.

Following my pond pump packing up I recently went out and bought a Maximum Pump 4000, and a Green Genie 12000, (which icorporates UV lamp, mechanical filtration and bio medium). My pond is only 2000 litres, (440 Gal.), but I decided to oversize as much as I could realisticly afford in case I get the chance to increase my pond size soon :)

For the first week, (when you have to run without the UV lamp on to let the benficitial bacteria grow in the filter), I was impressed by the mechanical filtering of the water, but it stayed SO green. I didn't have much faith in the UV you see, just thought it was another 'gimick' to try. Well the day finally came that I could switch on the UV... After two days I could see a definate clearing of the water. After 1 week I could see at least 4-5" into the water.... now nearly 2 weeks later I can see the bottom of my pond, (and all my messy in-pond piping!), but most importantly I can see all my fish. I am now SO PLEASED with it :)

I got a pretty good price on both items, so if you are interested let me know and I'll e-mail you a link to where I got them from.

Phil V - Happy happy happy :)

I guess I'll have to live with an emerald pond for the moment and hope that the balance gets sorted out - otherwise I'll need to start planning for UV!!!