A clear garden pond always looks cleaner and better maintained than a pond with cloudy water. So here are 8 tips for clear water in the garden pond.
For fish lovers but also for every other garden owner, the garden pond is something like the heart of every beautifully landscaped garden. No wonder, because the splashing of a well-placed pond pump is a sound that is wonderfully suited to relaxing and conveying a good bit of holiday flair in the home garden. A seating area or a few loungers near the pond and nothing stands in the way of absolute relaxation outdoors in good weather.
But the work with a garden pond is not finished with the creation of the pond system. A pond also needs maintenance to keep it looking clean and tidy. Because when the water is cloudy and green, it quickly looks dirty and unkempt to visitors and other observers. Then the piece of idyll quickly becomes a moldy eyesore in the garden. The right care can be very simple. There are only a few important points to consider in order to pave the way for an easy-care and consistently beautiful garden pond.
Why does the water in the garden pond get cloudy?
The cloudy water in the garden pond can have various causes. For example, if there are fish in the pond and they stir up sandy soil deposits, it is enough to have a cloudy water picture for a while. However, what is clearly the most common cause of water cloudiness is floating algae, which give the water a greenish color. In order to ensure clear pond water, it is above all important to remove algae or to ensure that they do not develop in the first place. We have put together 8 tips for you to eliminate algae as quickly as possible and take good precautions against algae.
How to ensure clear water in the garden pond
❶ Site selection:
Whether you will regularly have problems with algae and whether the water in your pond is regularly in danger of tipping over, you can already significantly influence when choosing the location. If possible, your pond should not be exposed to the full sun all day. If you have deciduous trees as shadeHowever, if you want to use them, you should reconsider - because the leaves from these trees can again lead to more work if they fall into the pond. A house wall, on the other hand, is perfect for providing shade - or a very tall tree that is a little further away and whose falling leaves do not reach the pond. The garden pond should also not be surrounded by bushes or other plants, apart from classic lawns, as this can also introduce additional biomass into the pond.
❷ Shape and size of the pond:
Basically, when setting up a pond, one of the best ways to prevent algae growth is to keep the water temperature as low as possible. The larger the pond is, i.e. the more water is contained in the pond, the slower the water heats up. However, there is also a certain depth involved. A large but very shallow pond heats up faster than a smaller but deep pond. A water depth of 1.20 meters ensures that the water only warms up very slowly if the pond is in the right position. In addition, a larger pond has the advantage that you have more options for bringing aquatic plants into your pond.
❸ Remove algae regularly:
What sounds like a matter of course is often forgotten by many. Or they simply do not dare to scoop the algae out of the pond with the net when fish are also being kept in the pond. This is the easiest way to ensure that the amount of floating algae contained in the water does not get out of hand. If the water starts to turn green, you should definitely go through it several times with a fine scoop and remove as much algae from the water as possible.
❹ Keep nutrient levels in the pond as low as possible:
Algae thrive where there are many nutrients. Heat, nitrogen and various nutrients found in the water can really fuel algae growth. In addition, when water evaporates in high heat, the nutrients unfortunately do not disappear with them - they are then only distributed over less water, which means that the nutrient concentration becomes even greater. For this reason, you should regularly top up evaporated water to keep the nutrient concentration in the water as low as possible.
You can also reduce the concentration of nutrients in the pond water by planting pond plants in the water. Depending on the nature of your pond, however, you should pay attention to which plantsare best suited. You should first find out exactly what standing height individual plants have and what water level is necessary. Water lilies, for example, which are actually perfectly suited to extracting a lot of nutrients from the pond, get a lot of leaves if they stand in too low water, but do not sprout flowers. The many leaves can lead to new biomass again and thus enrich the nutrients in the water. In general, if you don't keep an aquatic plant in a species-appropriate manner, it will wither and enrich the water with nutrients rather than removing them from the water. In this respect, planning and professional implementation is very important in order to actually achieve the goal of planting aquatic plants.
By the way:
Deposits of silt or mud on the ground also contain nutrients that have to be removed regularly. A wonderful option here is a sludge sucker that specifically sucks in accumulations of sludge on the pond bottom. Recommended reading: Garden pond desludge - instructions and tips for reducing sludge.
❺ Filter water sufficiently and keep it moving:
Stalling water quickly becomes cloudy and often topples within a short time. Because of this, you should keep the water in your pond moving. Depending on the shape of the pond, it can happen that individual areas of your pond are not reached by the water circulation triggered by a pump. In this case you should consider whether you would like to use a second pump, a small fountain in the pond or a similar decorative element to ensure the necessary circulation here as well.
Of course it is also important that the pond water is filtered regularly. For this you need a pump that pumps the water from the pond into the filter and then releases it back into the pond. When selecting the filter, you should seek advice from a specialist shop as to which filter is necessary to keep your pond clean. Because the requirements for a filter vary, depending on parameters such as pond size, water volume and depth of the pond. It makes sense to choose a filter that is equipped with a UVC clarifier. This clarifier bombards the water passing through the filter with UV rays, which kills and eliminates the algae in the water. This will make your filter even more effective against floating algae in the water.
❻ pay attention to the water quality:
You can use the water values to see early on whether the nutrient cycle in a pond is running optimally. Only those who check the water parameters regularlychecked, is able to react early before it is too late and fish die in the pond or algae start to turn the water cloudy. You can check the water quality with appropriate test packages, which you can buy anywhere in the pond trade. In any case, the pH value and the carbonate hardness in the water should be checked regularly. If fish are kept in the water, it also makes sense to regularly check the water for the breakdown products nitrite, nitrate and ammonium, as these are toxic to fish and can lead to fish deaths.
If the values do not correspond to the norm, there are appropriate means in the specialist trade to regulate the values in the water again, without however becoming dangerous to the existing plants or even the fish. When first purchasing the appropriate care products, it makes sense to seek advice from a specialist.
❼ Protecting the pond from negative external influences:
Such negative external influences are, for example, falling leaves or other biomass that is brought into the pond from outside. This again increases the nutrient levels in the pond. Also, when the foliage starts to rot, the water will start tipping over very quickly. Apart from that, rotting biomass in the garden pond is very harmful to most types of ornamental fish. If you have deciduous trees in the garden, you should protect your garden pond in autumn with a leaf net. This saves you the work of removing the leaves from the pond every day.
❽ Bread drink works wonders in the garden pond:
In most cases, however, a certain amount of algae will accumulate over time. However, if you heed the above points, the amount of floating algae will be limited. And you can keep this small amount in check with a very simple means: namely with bread drink. After the pond has been cleaned, simply add some bread drink to the water and you will no longer have any problems with the few remaining floating algae over the next few weeks and months. Because the bread drink, present in sufficient quantities in the water, combines with the floating algae and ensures that they sink to the bottom. So the water stays clear despite a few algae.
Clean the garden pond once a year
All of the above measures are good ways to avoid cloudy water. And yet algae always collects on the bottom and on the pond walls, as well as silt and other deposits. In general, it is also true that from late autumn the pumps are switched off and theFish should be left alone. In this respect, it makes sense to completely clean the pond and the entire filter system with the awakening of spring and to let in fresh water in addition to the rest of the old water. Here is a reading tip: Pond care in spring: How to make your pond fit.