How to Make a Pond Clear

Keep your pond clear

Property owners have varied goals for ponds---whether the water is maintained for swimming, fishing, boating or aesthetics. If you're interested in raising big fish, you want a strong algae bloom to provide lots of food and oxygen. Alternatively, if swimming or aesthetics are your aim in keeping your water as clean and clear as possible, there are a few guidelines to take care of it.

Things You'll Need

• Bottom-based aeration system
• V-style weed cutter
• Weed rake
• Grass carp
• Pond dye
• Native aquatic vegetation
• Buffered aluminum sulfate

Instructions

1. Install a bottom-based aeration system. Mount your compressor inside a ventilated, weatherproof enclosure on the shoreline or wherever power is available. Connect one free end of weighted tubing to the compressor; connect the other end to your diffuser's hose barb. Use a stainless-steel clamp to secure the connection. Maneuver your boat out to the deepest area of the pond and slowly lower the diffuser to the bottom, so that it rests right side up. Aeration serves to uniformly distribute oxygen throughout the pond while drastically reducing algae growth and increasing bacterial decomposition of bottom sludge.

2. 

   Remove aquatic weeds

   Drag a V-style cutter along the pond bottom to cut weeds as close to their roots as possible to discourage regrowth. Then, rake the floating debris out of the pond. Large volumes of decomposing vegetation consume high levels of oxygen and can lead to poor water quality and a fish kill.

3. 

   Grass carp

   Stock your pond with the minimum effective quantity of triploid (sterile) grass carp for future weed control. Contact a local lake management company or state agency to determine the quantity per acre for your area.

4. Add pond dye to shade out algae and exotic submersed weeds. Blue or black is completely nontoxic to fish. Remember it is a dye, not a stain, and it simply filters out sunlight to inhibit photosynthesis by aquatic weeds.

5. 

   Aquatic plants prevent erosion

   Plant native aquatic vegetation along the shoreline for erosion control. Local flora will develop healthy, well-proportioned ecosystems while their roots cling to the soil beneath, preventing it from washing into the pond. Shoreline plants will absorb incoming nutrients from your watershed, protecting your pond from excess external nutrient loads, which can lead to algae blooms and fish kills.

6. Apply a buffered aluminum sulfate, or alum, product that won't affect your pH. These products remove nutrients from the water that would otherwise fuel algae blooms. Alum also causes suspended solids such as dirt to clump and sink to the bottom, thereby increasing your pond's water clarity.

Tips & Warnings

• Ramp up your aeration system slowly, running it no more than 15 minutes the first day, 30 minutes the second day and double the run time every day thereafter until you reach continuous operation. Immediately running your aeration system continuously can stir up a high amount of poor quality, low oxygen water and spread it throughout your pond, potentially causing a fish kill.

References

• Nebraska State Pond Guide
• Ohio State University Extension: Fact Sheet
• The Lake Experts