[Karebear]

I was wondering if anyone has suggestions to help me rid the trout pond of diatoms. It is 16ftx22ft and 2-3.5ft deep. Not sure how many trout are in it, hubby is in charge of that, but there is 3-4 16 lb trout and quite a few smaller trout. It was clear for several years until we had some run off from the hill and we are now fighting really thick diatom infestation. It is so bad we cannot see the fish during the day. I do have a 100 gal stock tank on one end of the pond to make into a filter and waterfall this spring. I am thinking of adding willow branches to root in the stock tank and as much water cress as I can. It is too cold to get plants to grow in the pond with the trout right now in the winter 38-45 degrees and in the summer 55 at night and 62-64 degrees during the day. There is 3-5 gal/min inflow to the pond and the same outflow so dosing with anything would just wash away. I tried filter media this summer with large water changes to try to control it but it was useless. Any thoughts and suggestions would be very helpful.

 

[i_luv_fish]

Is the algae all through the water or just on the sides? Yabbies do a good job of keeping the bottom clean of algae and left over food.

HTH

Cheers

 

[Karebear]

It is on the bottem and sides of the pond at night so the water is clear then. When it gets sunny this stuff goes into the water column and the water is like brown split pea soup. We did add crayfish when we started the pond but they migrated off, I can have my son put more in this spring when they come out, there may be more food to keep them now. Will they be able to hurt a pond liner?