You want to enjoy a garden pond visually and atmospherically. What is of course immensely disturbing is cloudy, unsightly looking water. The reasons for the unpleasant development and helpful countermeasures are presented below.
A balanced balance between plants and fish is a good prerequisite for clear pond water
Why pond water becomes cloudy
It is not surprising that an outdoor pond does not retain crystal clear water in the long term. After all, it is exposed to numerous foreign substances that get into the water through wind and rain and impair its quality.
The main reason for water cloudiness is too high a nutrient content. This in turn provides algae with a basis for life and is therefore the most common cause of cloudy pond water. In order to get permanently clear pond water, it is therefore necessary to keep the nutrient content in the water low. What enriches the pond with nutrients is primarily the following:
- fall foliage
- pollen
- fertilizer from the garden
- Excess fish food
Measures for clear pond water
The factors of fallen leaves, pollen, garden fertilizer and excess fish food should therefore be reduced as preventively as possible - for example by creating the pond in a wind-friendly manner and interrupting direct avenues of influence from flower beds into the pond. If you keep fish in the pond, you should only feed them as much as necessary.
fishing and suction
If there has already been an explosive spread of algae, i.e. an algae bloom, you should fish off deposits on the water surface (in the case of green and blue-green algae) and take care of the pond bottom in particular. Dead algae material sinks down, consuming oxygen in the process and releasing many nutrients into the water through the layer of sludge that forms below. You can effectively suck off this pond sludge with a pond sludge vacuum cleaner.
algaecide
You can also use algaecides for a short-term effect. They cause the sometimes microscopically small substances to clump together, making them easier to remove from the water by a filter system or a skimmer.