Whether you have a small, lined backyard pond, a large natural-bottomed pond, or you live in a subdivision with a retention pond, at some point, you will likely be faced with the question of what you should do to maintain water quality in your pond. We often get called out to look at neglected or chemically maintained ponds of all sizes, and the discussion is always based on controlling the algae and plant growth in the pond.
Patience and Time
I will outline an action plan to help you manage your pond water with minimal work. These techniques are applicable to any size pond.
One of the most significant benefits of natural pond management is that it gets easier over time. The more balanced your pond water becomes, the more it takes care of itself. Ponds that can take care of themselves the way Mother Nature intended is the ultimate goal.
Our natural pond management approach is in stark contrast to the chemical treatment approach, which makes your pond chemically dependent and increasingly unbalanced as the years go on. Chemical dependency puts you in the position of applying more chemicals and having consistently deteriorating water quality.
Natural pond maintenance is never a quick fix. It took years to get your pond to where it is today, and it will take years to get it properly balanced. Any of the steps below will help to get you on the correct path, and the sooner you begin, the better off your pond will be.
One warning: If you have no patience and you are not able to tolerate some algae in your pond, then you may not want to bother with a natural approach. Spending time and money on natural methods only to become impatient and then resort to chemical treatments is certainly not a good idea. If you don’t stick with it, you will be wasting money on natural approaches, only to resort back to chemicals in the end.
Most people do nothing, or they chemically treat their ponds in a futile, short-sighted attempt to control the algae and plants. Over the years, this has become the norm because people simply don’t understand that they have other options, or they don’t want to spend the time and money necessary to implement the natural options.
Chemicals?
Chemically treating your ponds to kill unwanted algae is certainly the least expensive option, but chemical pond treatments kill much more than simply the algae. These treatments leave you with a chemically dependent pond that is accumulating dead plant material at the bottom. This thick layer of pond muck is high in nutrients and low in oxygen, which results in greater weed and algae problems when the chemicals wear off.
Chemically treating your pond does work to control weeds and algae, but only If the chemicals are applied consistently and continually. Sporadic or one-time applications are worse than doing nothing at all. Every time that you kill the algae in your pond using chemicals, all the dead algae will fall to the bottom of your pond and begin to decay. This simply provides more fertilizer for the next algae bloom.
The only way to successfully manage your pond using chemicals is to regularly treat the water so that there is never a time when the chemicals completely wear off, which will ensure that the unwanted algae and plants will not grow. Even with this approach, your pond will still be way out of balance due to all the ancillary, unintended damage that the pond chemicals will do to the other life in your pond.
Not Particularly Safe
You have probably guessed by now that continual chemical treatment of the earth’s water is not eco-friendly or particularly safe. The chemical water treatment industry would like you to think that if we aren’t killing the fish and plants, everything is okay. I would argue that this is far from the truth.
Now, I am no scientist—I’m a pond guy—but if you take some time to read through algaecide labels, I think you will begin to doubt the safety of these chemicals.
There are certainly many different varieties of pond chemicals, but over the years, I’ve found that most of these chemicals have big, bold writing on the front stating how safe the product is for fish and plants. On the other hand, if you read the back of the package or the second page of the safety brochure, you will find a different story.
On the front and the first page, you will find statements such as:
“Safe for use in freshwater lakes, potable water reservoirs, ponds (including golf course ponds), fish hatcheries, irrigation ditches and other such slow-moving or quiescent bodies of water.”
Followed by statements such as:
“Water treated with this chemical can be used immediately for recreational activities, for drinking, for watering livestock, and for irrigation of crops, golf courses, ornamental plantings, and turf areas.”
Then, lower down on the page or maybe on the next page, you will begin to see caution statements such as:
“If swallowed, call a poison control center or doctor immediately” and “If it gets on skin or clothing, wash immediately and call a poison control center.”
Further down the document in smaller print, on the back of the container or the second page, you find statements like:
“This pesticide is toxic to fish and aquatic invertebrates. Water treated with this product may be hazardous to aquatic organisms.”
Surely, it doesn’t take a genius to see the discrepancy here! How can all of the above statements be true? It isn’t at all logical that all these statements can apply to the same product.
How Can This Be?
I’m guessing that big chemical companies have spent big dollars to ensure that the regulators allow them to make the first few sales headlines. The regulators justify this and make themselves feel better by requiring them to add a few truths further down the page or on the backside of the container.
I don’t know about you, but I’m guessing that if you should call a poison center if you come into contact with the product, your fish and other pond animals are likely not enjoying it too much.
It’s About the Balance
Every time we chemically treat water, we throw the ecosystem out of balance and kill off many other forms of life that the average person doesn’t even know exist in their natural body of water.
Natural bodies of water will maintain themselves if Mother Nature is left to maintain them. Everything in nature will always balance out eventually, and the larger the body of water, the more easily it will balance. It is easy to see unbalance in a small, man-made pond with a bare bottom, no water circulation, and nutrient-rich runoff entering the pond. The larger the ecosystem, the harder it is for humans to throw it out of balance.
Every subdivision has retention ponds, which are required as part of the site development. The ponds are planned to catch runoff from the many homes and roads in the neighborhood, but the developers don’t plan how they will be maintained. It’s a real shame that they set these ponds up to fail rather than starting them down the right path from the beginning.
Natural pond management is a long-term commitment, not a quick fix
All of the options below will help improve water quality and reduce algae growth individually, with the greatest results seen when using multiple options. As with any natural pond treatment, more is always better, but some is much better than none. Feel free to start implementing any or all of these tactics as your time and budget allow. Your pond and its inhabitants will thank you for it.
We never treat ponds using chemicals. We strive to balance ponds naturally through the use of water circulation, oxygenation, bacterial inoculation, and plants. The circulation, oxygenation, and bacterial treatments help break down the muck on the pond bottom, as well as any new debris that enters the pond. The bacteria and plants work to take excess nutrients out of the pond water, which leaves less nutrients for the algae.
We want to control algae, not kill algae. Algae is a vital part of our ecosystem, so managing it is much more eco-friendly than killing it.
Natural Solutions
The following natural pond balance solutions are in the suggested order of importance and application. If money is not a problem, we can start all of these approaches at the same time, but if you need to pick and choose, I’d suggest starting at the top and working your way down the list.
A Note on Runoff
An important aspect of natural pond management is working to reduce the amount of chemicals and nutrients entering the pond due to runoff. People often enjoy the look of lush green lawn that is mowed right up to the pond edge, but this usually results in fertilizer and chemicals entering the pond during storm events.
The more runoff water that can be filtered through plants before it reaches the pond, the less nutrients will enter the pond. For instance, rather than running a drainage culvert directly into a pond, it could be run into a planted water filtration area where the water can slow down, causing it to lose some of its suspended solids. Slowing down the water in a planted area will also give the plants some time to absorb nutrients from the water. This will result in less algae. Refraining from applying lawn fertilizers and chemicals anywhere uphill from the pond will also help to ensure a healthy pond.
Aeration
If your pond doesn’t have any moving water, such as a waterfall or fountain, the installation of a bottom aeration system can be very beneficial to the ecosystem. If your pond does have a waterfall but is more than 4′ deep, bottom aeration will undoubtedly help.
Bottom aeration usually consists of an electric air pump on the shore that pumps air through a weighted airline, which connects to diffusers at the pond’s bottom. Depending on the pond, these systems will vary in cost, size, and complexity. If you have ever watched bubbles rise to the surface of a fish tank, you were watching a small aeration system at work.
For larger ponds and lakes, there is a new type of bottom aeration called oxygen saturation technology. This new technology produces very fine air bubbles that can blanket the pond bottom, greatly increasing the oxygen levels right down at the pond bottom where it provides the most benefit.
Installing an aeration system in your pond helps to increase oxygen levels in the pond water, which will, in turn, make the bacteria more effective at breaking down the muck at the bottom of the pond. More oxygen will mean your water will support higher levels of bacteria and will be healthier for all of the animal life in the pond. More oxygen, more bacteria, and less muck will result in less nutrients in the water which will result in less algae in your pond.
Aquatic Plants
If you have a lined pond, I would highly recommend planting hardy aquatic marginal plants around the perimeter of the pond and water lilies at the bottom of the pond. Be aware that most hardy aquatic plants tend to spread readily. This is a good thing because rapid growth means they are pulling a lot of nutrients out of the water. The downside to rapid growth is that eventually, the plant outgrows its location and then needs to be thinned out and cut back. We plant directly on the pond liner without any sort of pot and then cover the roots with rock and gravel. This allows the plant to spread and take in nutrients more efficiently.
If you have a natural-bottomed pond, you can plant aquatic plants also, but be aware that they are very hard, if not impossible, to control in a natural-bottomed pond. Because they are growing in the ground, they pull most of their nutrients from the ground rather than the water. This also makes them very hard to remove when they become overgrown. They will certainly help, but I would choose floating plant islands over direct planting in a natural bottomed pond.
Floating plant islands are great because they allow you to get large quantities of plants in your pond without the worry that they will spread and fill in the pond.
Either way, when planting, avoid some of the most aggressive plants, such as cattails, aquatic celery, floating heart, phragmites, giant reeds, parrot feather, etc.
Bacterial Treatments
Adding bacteria to your pond will simply boost the amount and the diversity of bacteria in it. All pond water already has bacteria in it, but more bacteria is good because bacteria help to break down any organic debris that enters the pond and pulls nutrients from the water.
There are many different forms and types of pond bacteria. For the most part, the sinking bacteria tablets are great for helping to break down the muck and debris at the pond bottom, while liquid and powdered bacteria are more well-suited to treating the body of water itself. Less organic matter and more bacteria in the pond will mean less nutrients in the water which will mean less algae.
Barley Straw Bales
It is said that putting barley straw in your pond can be beneficial because the decaying barley straw gives off a substance that discourages algae growth. I would guess the barley straw will also provide more surface area for bacteria to colonize.
In small ponds, small, biodegradable pouches of barley straw are often installed into waterfall boxes and wetland filters and buried under waterfalls or in streams. In larger ponds, barley straw bales are usually anchored in the pond just below the pond surface. You want the barley straw to get a lot of oxygen so that it can more readily begin to decompose and break down. Barley bales remain in the pond for the winter and need to be replaced each spring.
BioBoost Nest
BioBoost Nests are scientifically designed plastic structures built for maximum surface area, allowing heavy loads of bacteria to colonize the units. These units are typically placed near aeration diffusers at the pond bottom to get the maximum benefit from them and ensure high bacteria levels at the pond bottom. These units will make any additional bacterial applications more effective and efficient.
When adding additional bacteria to your pond, giving the bacteria more area to live and grow will mean that your pond can hold more overall bacteria, which will result in better water quality and fewer unwanted plants and algae. These units are also great for fish cover. There are different units to choose from, and they should be sized according to the size of your pond.
Floating Plant Islands
Floating plant islands mimic nature’s floating bogs, with aquatic plant roots growing through the anchored island and hanging down into the water. The plants absorb nutrients and provide fish cover and animal habitat.
The more aquatic plants we have growing in our pond, the less nutrients will be available for the algae to grow, reducing algae. The floating islands provide a great way to install large masses of aquatic plants into natural bottomed ponds without worrying about the plants spreading into neighboring areas.
The islands come in many different shapes and sizes and can be designed to suit the needs of any pond, large or small. Multiple plant islands can be grouped together or kept separate. Plant islands remain in the pond over winter. For optimal nutrient removal, the fading greens can be cut off in late fall and composted on land to avoid allowing those nutrients to re-enter the water.
Conclusion
As you can see, we have many ways to help our ponds balance out and be chemically free ecosystems, but one of the major factors is the pond owner’s commitment to and attitude toward their pond and the life within it.
The many varieties of algae are some of the most prolific plants on our planet, and they play an integral role in balancing our ecosystem as a whole. We need to commit to letting our ponds be the life-filled, natural, and beautiful bodies of water that nature would have them be. We need to have the patience and understanding required to allow our ponds to thrive.
Implement some of the above approaches, step back, and give your pond some time. In the short term, you may be disappointed, having more algae than you would like, but over the long term, you will be delighted with how beautiful, natural, and easy to maintain your pond can be.