Trials and Tribulations With Blanket Weed Or String Algae

What follows is a totally unsolicted e-mail from the Reverend Crofoot in Germany received in June 2003. I got his permission to publish it in full since it is a wonderful story and so very well written and also a story so many of us can equate with. Being a Reverend in the Baptist Church I forgot to ask him if he preached from his pulpit the following ... "Thou shalt use an UV on your pond or forever be damned to green water ......"

Here's his letter ...

Dear Tony,

Greetings from Germany. I know you get a lot of email daily, and do not want to take up much of your time, but felt compelled to drop you a note.

A few weeks ago I downloaded your book, and after reading it was enlightened and happy as it helped me solve the problem of "green pea soup water".

Let me bore you for just a few minutes please. I am probably a classic example of someone that did everything wrong. I am an "avid" fisherman (fly fishing, the "worst kind" of fisherman) and have in the past maintained a very small outside fish pond (probably 1,000 liters).

I recently bought an "in town" farm, complete with barn and in front of the front door of the barn was an old "dung pile" where for 200 years the barn cleanings (cows and horses) was "dumped". It was my intention of digging a small hole for a small plastic fish pond "somewhere" on the property close to the garden.

Due to the mess of the "dung hole" I started digging it out and placing the contents on the garden to be mixed in with a tiller. I dug and dug for several days, and finally hit "clean earth" but had a "hole" 5 meters by 5 meters by 1.80 meters deep, with 2 sides going straight down and the other 2 sides sloping somewhat gently to the deepest place.

I thought, "what am I going to fill this in with" as "everything" in Germany costs at least 10 times what it is worth. So, I decided to cement the sides and have a "somewhat larger" fish pond than what I intended at the start.

The cement sides ended up being between 15cm and 35 cm thick (no drain - learned about that in your book, a "little late").

I built a 4 step waterfall 1 meter tall out of "field stones" (some as heavy as 70 pounds) and concrete. Bought a 6,500 liter per hour "bach pump" (stream pump in English I think), and had my "old" box filter suitable for a 4,000 liter pond, so installed it on top of the waterfall, and "stoned it in place".

I had carefully planned for the barn rain gutter to drain into the pond, saving me money on water. The first rain "helped" fill the pond with water and all kinds of garbage that collected on the barn roof. I can hear you laughing, but I am not making this up. (That problem has been eliminated).

Pond full of water, my wife and I went fishing, and caught about 20 small bass, and thought "let's put them in the pond". So having an air generator in the camper, put the air to them until we got home. All lived, and we dumped them in the pond, where they immediately disappeared in the murky water. At this time I thought, that water is dirty isn't it? What we need is some plants. So, off to the river, and dug up some water lilies, cattails, and other assorted "whatever" that was growing. Using the pump to

drain the pond (5 1/2 hours to drain - 3 hours to fill with water from the well) - the water was crystal clear, and we could actually see the fish and the plants, along with snails, and small insects that I can not identify (one is a blood sucking leech).

All was good - clear water, nice waterfall, then OVERNIGHT - the dreaded "green pea soup". There are NO garden pond businesses this side of Berlin (300 km away) and no one to ask for advice. So to the internet and found your site, and immediately bought your book.

Guessing that my pond is about 35,000 to 40,000 liters I bought the BIGGEST UV light that I could order from Westfalia, and cried more than one tear at the price. Then reading the chapters on BIOfilters, I built one using a 1 meter by 50cm by 50cm deep plastic open top "box". Since I was using 1" hose I felt that at least I did "something right" - mounted the UV light on the intake side of the box, installed a splitter joint to run one hose to the UV light and into the BIOfilter and a second hose to go to the waterfall and the "old filter" (which DOES have Alfagrog, came with the "kit", 1,100 lph pump - amazingly). (Your idea).

My "BIOfilter" is sectioned in 4 sections, plastic tubes (used for plumbing) on the bottom layer, next level higher is about 20 pounds of finely broken up ceramic floor tiles (broken with a hammer) and coarse gravel, next level higher is "charcoal", last layer is sponges. I did NOT change out the "green water" wanting to "see" how long, and how good the setup worked, if at all.

After 4 (FOUR) days my pond was crystal clear AND clean!! Another 4 days later it is STILL clear and clean! Thanks for your ideas, and thanks for making the book "instantly available" AND affordable.

If any of your letters ask for information in how to do things wrong, you can forward them to me, I am an "expert", but my advice will be "BUY TONY'S BOOK - FIRST!!"

Have a great day, and don't choke laughing at this letter.

Sincerely,

Robin Crofoot (Rev.)

Rossow, Germany

Date: June 13th 2003