Koi Ponds: Is Your Fishpond Water Milky?
More Top Pond Keeping Tips: Click image right for UK pond products. It is a good idea to pump out about 10% of your pond water every month or even weekly if you have lots of fish and replenish with tap water. The reason is that nitrate levels slowly build up and can reach a level that is too high for the pond. The easiest way to arrange this is to place a valve and "Y" or "T" piece into the pump line then all you need to do is connect a temporary pipe to the valve and lead the pipe to a spot in your garden - pond water makes for a good garden fertiliser. On the other hand if your fresh water is rich in nitrates then doing a water change may not be a good idea. Always spray water onto the pond surface when filling with fresh tap water ... any chlorine in the tap water will then be reduced.
Persistent Milky White Fish Pond Water
It sometimes happens that no matter how hard you try to achieve perfect water clarity, your pond remains cloudy – and let’s face it, no koi or goldfish keeper wants a cloudy pond. The main problem with persistent milky pond water is diagnosing the cause, especially when your water quality remains perfect, your filtration system and circulation is faultless, your pond is aerated vigorously and you give it a good vacuum roughly every two weeks. Perhaps you’ve become so frustrated for the lack of a solution that you’ve even stopped using montmorillonite clay to see whether the condition will improve, only to be disappointed once more.
Koi and gold fish ponds that are still maturing are frequently plagued by dirty pond water, and most often the cause is a build up of ammonia and other toxins. However, if your water quality test results are perfect then you can rule out the possibility of a biological problem. In other words, the cause of your cloudy pond water is almost certainly physical.
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Cloudy Pond Water: Possible Causes
Unless you have used a new pond treatment in recent weeks, such as crystalline blanketweed treatments which might affect your water chemistry and cause milky water, then it’s possible that your water clarity problem is due to previous use of montmorillonite clay which forms a milky white suspension.
While the vast majority of koi pond owners experience improved water clarity following the addition of clay, it sometimes happens that ponds remain cloudy long after clay has been added.
This could be a result of so-called ‘dead spots’ that allow clay to settle into drifts on the bottom. The clay in these dead spots is churned up again when any curious koi come into contact with it. If your pond is aerated by a diffuser, you should ascertain whether it is not positioned in such a way as to encourage dead spots in your koi pond.
The next possible cause to consider is an inefficient filter. Clay particles are so fine that they will often pass right through a mechanical brush filter. A very effective way to ensure excellent water clarity is to use a sand pressure filter which is ideal for fine filtering swimming pool water and koi pond water. The benefits of a sand pressure filter are that it can be used separately from your main pump and filtration system, and it can also be used intermittently whenever your water clarity is not up to scratch. ‘The Answer’ is another mechanical filtration device that makes use of ultra-fine micron mesh screen. It has also proven to produce wonderful water clarity results, but it doesn’t come cheap.
The least expensive and most efficient way of finding out the cause of your cloudy pond water is to add a flocculent to your koi and goldfish pond. A flocculent will cause fine particles to bunch together into larger particles which can then be caught by filter brushes. This takes only a few hours and will soon confirm whether the cause of your cloudy pond water is ultra-fine particles or something else. It’s all a process of elimination, so why not get started?
