Blanket Weed On My Pond

[lindapalmara]

I am plagued with Blanket weed on my pond. A few years ago I had the same problem and I bought some Barley straw bales to put in the pond. This worked but since emptying and cleaning it last year it has been back again with a vengeance. I could not get the bales so bought Barley Straw Essence but it was useless. After using two expensive bottles of this I found the bales on EBay and have three in the pond at the moment. However, Idont think its working. The pump has to be cleaned daily as it get strangled by the stuff. Any suggestions?

[woofgang]

add plants. loads and loads of plants.

[SlackAlice]

Size of pond and any idea of the gallonage? You mention you have a pond pump, does this feed a filter. Any fish and how many?

You probably have an excess of Nitrates causing green water and blanket weed.

[lindapalmara]

I'm not sure of the gallo age but it's not that big. It's kidney shaped and about 6 foot by 5 foot. The depths are variable because we has ever across a soak way drain when we dug it and in some places it's about 3 FT deep and others only a foot! There are only about 8 goldfish in it. I gave up restocking it because of heron attacks. When we. Emptied it and cleaned it a year ago we pi min the bottled of stuff you need to put in And lots of new plants but that's when the blanket week started. There is a small blagdon pump with a filter, a fountain and a waterfall.

[SlackAlice]

I'd have a generous guesstimate that your pond is about 300 gallons. Personally, I think it's quite difficult to balance a pond of less than 500 gallons.

Bit more information here,

http://www.watergarden.org/Pond-Info/Water-Quality

http://www.watergarden.org/Pond-Info/Control-Algae

If you can reduce the blanket weed by 'hooking' it out constantly until you've got it under control, then use the barley straw bales (inside fine netting bags).

You say your cleaning the pump (pre-filter) daily? Just make sure you rinse it out under a cold tap as it probably contains anaerobic bacteria which you want to keep.

[lindapalmara]

Thanks Alice