Hair algae in turtle pond. Ideas?

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T

Tokay

Candiru
MFK Member
Apr 22, 2006
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Ive had 14 water turtles in my 350 gallon rubber/plastic pond for many many years. Always had troble with floating algae, but clears up everything i run a UV on the pond. This is the first season ive had alot of hair/string algae grow. Ive always had the dark green surface algae, but now i have a considerable amount of hair algae and surface algae growing. It makes my pond look dark, makes the rocks dark, and the hair algae is trying to grow everywhere.

As long as i scrub the pond often enough, i can keep the algae growth under control. Yet there is still alot in my pond. The UV keep the water crystal clear, but i would like to remove all of the dark surface algae and the hair algae over time.

I can't really use any algae eating fish, because the turtles tend to eat anything that i put in the pond.

Right now i plan to scrub the pond and clean the media more often.
Im going to add some straw to the pond, just not sure if it should be submerged, in the filter, were the water flow is the highest, etc?
Maybe if i can find fish that eats algae for cheap in bulk id throw a bunch in the pond to help with the process.
Im also going to consider starting off with a chemical becaues the turtles shouldn't be as sensative as most pond fish.

Any other ideas or suggestions?
My pond was crystal clear last year and not sure why hair algae finally made it to my pond after so many years.

thank you for your time.
 
What are the nitrates/phosphates ? Does it get a lot of sun light?

Scrubbing the pond and doing a large water change to remove the algae itself from the tank should help a lot. Cleaning media a lot helps also by keeping phosphates and nitrates down. Im sure you know all this though wish I could help more.
 
Sounds like blanket weed. Your turtles will not be effected. Barly straw works to a point but chemicals are the way forward to eradicate this. How long have you been running the uv? and is the wattage of the uv matched to the size of pond?
 
ur UV system too small???.. i dink it the sun that making it grow!!
 
barley straw is great for algae control.. its more for keeping it from growing than killing it though..
if you use the pads/bails its recommended to put it in the filter.. for pellets a mesh bag works well and you can either place it in the filter or in the pond.. the extract just gets dumped in the water since its a liquid... the pads/bails work well but for me pellets worked better.. ive yet to use the extract..
 
Is the pond outside/exposed to direct sunlight?
 
Im running a Aqua ultraviolet 25 watt UV on the pond. Always ran that one and a smaller one, algae was never really a problem then. My bulb went out over the summer while i was working out of town, so the pond devloped alot of algae. I bought a new bulb and sleeve, cleaned out alot of the algae (especailly from filters) and water is crystal clear.

But the surface algae has stayed and spread. And this hair/blanket algae started growing everywhere for the first time this season.

It gets a decent amount of sunlight but not all day. Its next to my house so it get shade for a portion of the day and the rest direct sun. The turtles love to go on the island when its sunny.

Im going to continue to scrub and clean filters and add straw to filter today. It has large box prefilter to the container full of all types of filter media.
Should i add the straw to the submerged prefilter or the container above the pond?

Here is a link to when i first setup the pond.
Its has its algae days before i added a UV but not so bad.
http://www.monsterfishkeepers.com/forums/showthread.php?t=134546

Here is a picture of the pond today. Alot of surface algae on the pvc pipes, the hair algae grows on those.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/tokay21/sales/PHTO0041.jpg


Here is a picture of the side of the pond by the prefilter box and driftwood/rocks.
My camera broke some im using one that isn't very good.
I put a black box around the area with the hair/string algae.
Also lines to show how long it is, not super long, and i scrubbed alot off already.
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/tokay21/sales/PHTO0039.jpg

Here is a shoot of the bottom of the pond.
The pond is blue and all that darkness is algae.
It covers the bottom of pond, large rocks are now that dark color and much of the gravel
I scrub it, so that why its all spochy
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/tokay21/sales/PHTO0043.jpg

It grows on all the tubing and all over my pump and gravel
http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y249/tokay21/sales/PHTO0045.jpg


Going to scrub alot, clean out filter, add straw over the next day.
Any recommendation on chemicals?

Once clean i plan to add more rocks gravel and drift wood. Then live plants and maybe attach a smaller pond later.

Thank you for your time.
 
Also I dont fill the pond all the way up, around 2/3 or more. Already had one turtle escape artest
 
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