Algae is awful!

 My second to last post was about Kevin and Josh cleaning out the ponds in front of our and Janet's places. We all had such high hopes of getting rid of what Janet so delicately calls green snot - the ghastly algae that was really prevalent in our pond but not in Janet's. And we were excited to be able to see the bottom of the ponds and the rocks and the fish and the frogs.

But somehow our dreams were dashed - within a week or so a different kind of algae took over both of our ponds - a dark green almost microscopic algae that just totally discoloured the water so that it was pea-soup green - after about 4 weeks, we couldn't see below the surface of the water and we could barely see the fish when they came up to feed in the mornings.

At first, I relied on Kevin to clean out the newly installed filter/pump. But with all the other gardening work around the village, he was only able to come about once a month. and when I watched him clearing the filters out in situ one day, I could see that it was a hiding to nothing having it be his task.

You can barely see the oxygen weed near the top left of the photo.

 

I also realised that there was no way the filter could get rid of this stuff on its own - it needed chemicals! And it had to be chemicals that did not harm the fish.

So I looked on the net and discovered a place in Napier that advertised Algaefix that purported to be safe for fish; I rang and spoke to Andre a very helpful guy and organsied to purchase said Algaefix and two tubs of Sludge Destroyer to be used when the algae had mostly karked it.

For 3 weeks-ish, I dosed both ponds with Algaefix, and before doing so each time, David and I pulled the pump apart, took the filters off and I carted them into the laundry to clean them out.

For the last couple of weeks, I've been dosing the ponds with the Sludge Destroyer - it's a powdery mix of bacteria (that love to eat dead algae) and barley.

This is what they look like when I take them out of the pump - I think this is dead algae/sludge because it looks a bit browner than the algae and it smells...

 

And this is them after a big squeeze to get the surface muck off, about 5 rinses under the running warm tap, a wash with laundry powder, and a final wash with Handy Andy - a floor cleaner that has some ammonia in it.

An upside down view of the dismantled pump with the newly cleaned filters refitted. The next step is to tip that bit the right way up, then put it back into the bottom 'bucket' of the pump that we have cleaned out and refilled with water. There are 5 or 6 large clips to hold the top bit to the bottom bucket. Today, given David is out, I put the whole thing back together by myself.

I think we are winning slowly - the ponds contain about 20,000 litres of water all up, so there was a shitload of algae in them, and I use that word advisedly! We can now see about 15cm below the surface of the water which is a great improvement. And I am not going to let a microscopic plant beat me! I too have persistence and patience...

Please note that the fish are looking healthy - none of them are floating upside down, and none of them have strange tumours growing out of their sides. I reckon both chemicals we are using really are safe enough for them. And we are better able to see them now.