As the weather warms up and the Mid-South receives more sunlight, you may notice that your pond water starting to look a bit green. This is completely normal for koi ponds in the Memphis area. The following are some tips to get your water garden back into a healthy ecosystem with clear water for the summer.
Why do Koi Ponds Turn Green?
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Excess nutrients from leaves and other organic matter falling into the pond are decomposing. This is food for all manner of microbes, including algae! As algae grows your water turns green.
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More heat and sunlight encourages rapid algae growth. Algae photosynthesizes changing your water to go from clear to cloudy.
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Spring rains wash yard fertilizer into the pond causing a shot of nutrients for algae to feed on.
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As the weather warms fish begin to eat more and more. This causes an excess of fish waste changing the ecology of the koi pond.
How can you get your water clear again?
Here are several expert-approved solutions to getting rid of that nasty green water!
- Add more aquatic plants. These plants THRIVE when the water is green. Their roots soak up all that green nutrients from the pond and help filter the water. They literally take the nutrients out of the water so the algae has less to feed on. Floating plants like hyacinths and lettuce are cheap ways to get clearer water.
- Remove organic matter. Use a fish net (or your hands) to remove dead leaves, sticks, pine needles, and other organic matter that has fallen into the pond. This allows the natural bacterias to focus more on reducing the nutrients that are left, effectively starving the algae from growing. Nets can be purchased from our retail center.
- Add water treatments. Beneficial bacteria feed on the same microbes as algae. So when we “crowed the buffet” with more bacteria, algae have much less to eat. Additionally you can add algaecide to attack the green water directly.
- Ensure your filtration system is operating properly. A skimmer catches leaves and debris and gets them out of your pond quickly. A biofalls provides surface area for beneficial bacteria to colonize. This reduces your need for water treatments.
- Reduce your fish load. We recommend one inch of fish for every ten gallons of water in your koi pond. Too many fish means too much waste. Find someone else who loves their water garden and offer to donate a few of your goldfish and koi.
- More information about purchasing nets, water treatments, pumps, filters, aquatic plants, and more can be found on our Retail Center Page.
