Ponds

Typical means to keep ponds from stagnating or turning green are:

1	Adding copper sulphate to the water, this is too much, too fast and not a nice chemistry in ingest. Also you add a lot of sulphur with the copper, and thats not good either – kills everything in sight including the fish. Not too expensive to buy, unless purchasing this chemistry with a fancy name on the bottle.
2	Aeration is good, but usually localized to a small area of the pond, leaving most of the water unaffected. Typical systems emit air bubbles from the bottom, which simply rise to the surface. Without correct water motion, not much oxygen is picked up by the water during the bubbles short trip to the top – but its better than nothing.
3	Ultrasonic frequency broadcast within the body of water can affect and control algae growth, but one wonders what effect that frequency range has on fish ....... and the systems are not cheap. Oxygenation still needs to happen to aid the fish.
4	Staw bales placed in the pond can help, and need changing every so often. Fairly heavy and bulky a natural approach to water maintenance, not always ‘strong enough' for some situations.
5	Fountains are good, as they help aerate, but the water should be additionally pumped/ moved to get the oxygen around – a tough situation. Algae blooms are not normally halted by a fountain's activity; the resultant water movement from a fountain is just about , the pump does itself i.e. circulates from where it falls to the pump intake. The rest of the pond stays still.
6	Changing the water out every so often, and cleaning out the water feature can work, but is labour intensive and not fun. The fish have to accommodate to the new water ech time also. By doing this algae will still come back every time.
7	Live bacterial filters can be effective, although their forte is hust that – bacteria, algae can and will still grow in the body of water. Still need oxygenation and water movement.
8	Phosphates.... real food for algae. Gets into your water by way of rain, dust, runoff, leave, uneaten fish food, you name it. Phosphates can be removed with a good ‘phosphate remover' (chemical); once down to trace amount, the algae will not have much to feed on. Removing phosphates in conjunction with mineralized (floatronized ) water is a good combination.
9	UV filter systems are excellent at killing the algae, but leave the cleaned algae free water vulnerable to another algae attack. UV systems are not able to deal with blanket weed as it attached to the pool edge so cannot pass through the filter. By using floatron alongside UV systems, blanket weed will not grow and the mineralized water, will not be subject to repeated algae growth.

The floatron can help in virtually all of the above situations (except #1). Koi ponds ,or all ponds for that matter, need to have oxygenation, and water flowing and recirculation (the floatron will not work in bodies of water which have an inflow and outflow). In addition to these basics, the water should ne mineralized just enough to control the algae growth. This is best done with the floatron.

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If possible start with a cleaned out enclosure, with new water. It is better to prevent algae than to eliminate existing algae.

Float the unit in sunlight, preferable near the pump inlet or outlet. Tether as necessary. This will ensure adequate mineral ion mixing with the complete water volume.

III

Initially, float the unit constantly, and clean the electrodes once a week. (Simple, quick, procedure described in the operating instructions)

When the algae begins to die off and turn brown, remove the floatron if the water is clear enough, the ion test kit which compares colours should be used to establish an ion level of 0.2 - 0.3ppm approx. (Koi and other fish remain healthy in ion levels up to at least 0.3ppm) If starting with new water and without existing algae, use the test kit to determine ion level and floating time.

Keep the floatron out of the water until algae appears to regain growth. At that point refloat the unit until brown/ dead algae reappears (in some ponds it may be necessary to continually float the unit)

The objective is to float the unit as little as possible to achieve the desired results. Not that large bodies of water will require up to full time floatring, while smaller systems will suffice with part time. Environmental factors such as cloudiness, rain, temperature etc will affect floating time.

VII

If some algae is preferred instead of complete obliteration, float just enough to maintain the desired balance.

VIII

Sometimes algae and blanketweed in ponds are too much of a challenge for floatron or any other system alone, therefore the best solution seems to be using a floatron alongside a UV Filter. The UV filter will kill the existing algae and the floatron will mineralise the water preventing new growth.

Phosphates can cause real problems, they get into your water by way of rain, dust, runoff, leaves, uneaten fish food, you name it. Phosphates can be removed with a good ‘phosphate remover' (chemical); once down to trace amount, the algae will not have much to feed on. Removing phosphates in conjunction with mineralized (floatronized ) water is a good combination.

Total pond capacity should be approx 20,000 Gallons (91 cubic metres) of less

"Most days during the summer, especially if there has been sunshine. I have spent considerable time pulling out blanket weed from the pool despite heavy use of expensive phosphate bags in the filter as well as an ultra violet system. This is the first year I have used floatron, as to the effectiveness of which I was highly skeptical. I put it in the pool in the spring and despite many very sunny days have not had to remove any blanket weed and it is now September. The water has been sufficiently clear to see the fish, the fish are entirely unaffected by floatron and I have not bought any phosphates or the like this year. Cleaning the electrode is easy and I do it once a fortnight in about 15 minutes. Better than half an hour pulling out blanket weed!”

"When I put the first one in my main koi fish pond, I have to say I was doubtful of the results. For years I have been trying to cope with the problem of blanketweed, especially in the hot weather, and have tried a variety of chemicals with little success. The weed would clog the bottom drain which would block the filter and ultra violet light to the point that the only resort was to drain the pond and clear the weed by hand – an expensive process and stressful to the fish.

My wife saw you advertisement in the Spectator and persuaded me to give it a try. This coincided with yet another pond clearing exercise and more advice for yet another couple of ‘experts' – who this time recommended bundles of barley straw! (This would have been so unsightly; there would be no purpose on keeping a Koi pond) In fact, I was getting to the point of abandoning anyway. So when I installed the floatron, it was in new, clear water.

Since this was done in early May, the water has remained clearer than I have ever known it, in spite of the recent extremely hot weather. The effect is that a greenish sludge accumulates at the bottom of the pond which is sucked through the drain into the filter unit from which I can easily pump it out from the first filter tank at two weekly intervals.

But I did want to let you know how delighted we are with the results. Having little scientific knowledge I have no idea of why of how it works, but it does."

“The pond had a large amount of algae etc. making the pond water quite opaque.
The pond is large and deep, and is a good test for the floatron. Not much change in the water clarity became apparent until a few weeks ago. About a fortnight ago it had become obvious that the water was becoming much clearer, and that the algae etc was disappearing, which I can attribute only to the floatron.
The clearer water has revealed some debris in the bottom of the pond. We are now permitting the pond water level to fall somewhat to enable the gardener to remove the debris. The pond will then be topped-up, after which it will be possible to demonstrate the success of the floatron in a ‘clear’ pond, which can be contrasted with the pond’s former ‘murky’ condition.”