Blanket weed hell!!

[mrs. sliver]

Going a long way off subject .... Blanket weed!
Last year my 'tiny' pond turned into a meadow! even with water treatments and barley straw and fishing with a stick! :x

I know everybodies ponds are getting swamped with the stuff, so, wondered if any of you have tried those electric gizmos that say they sort it all out with no harm to plant or animal life? Or if you have any magic cure ...... other than fill it in and grow rhubarb?! :lol:

 

[MikeG.]

Ducks!

 

[jasonB]

The electric one work on some ponds, not on others, it depends on so many things no two ponds are the same.

I had the least growth on my pond last year than I have ever had but did nothing different.

The blanket weed will grow if there is a source of nitrate, this is what comes out of your filter and if you are getting rid of the green water by using a UV the blanket weed is the next thing up the chain that will use it to grow.

Jason

 

[Racers]

Hi,

We had the same problem a couple of years ago after buying some plants, I just fished it out with a stick on a regular basis and eventually got the better of it. I didn't want to disturb the newts with anything chemical.

Pete

 

[woodbloke]

I use on of the electronic blanket weed controllers like this and haven't had any weed for at leat three years now - Rob

 

[matt]

Try using floating plants or at least some with growth above the water level. The have what's referred to as the aerial advantage in so far as the have a more rapid uptake of water nutrients (i.e. your nitrate and also the iron that the b/weed will be feeding on) because they can take CO2 from the air. By contrast, submerged plants use CO2 from the water which, when exhausted for the day, stop growing and therefore stop taking up nutrients.

 

[Steve Jones]

Hi Mrs S.
I was fetching it out by the bucket full 3 years ago, it was a nightmare, Boddington Koi told me about cloverleaf BLANKET ANSWER and I've used it ever since. It's in powder form and when you first mix it and put it in your pond will go like milk for about 2 weeks ( you need to remove as much as you can manually before hand ), you would benefit from some aeration as well because as the weed starts to die it will take out oxygen from the water. For the last 2 years I've only used 1/2 doses at the beginning of the season and my pond remains crystal clear with only a few strands which are hardly noticable attatched to the liner.

Whilst I'm not saying other methods don't work, they certainly didn't for me and I spent quite a bit of time and money before trying to find a cure before being recommended to this.

If I can help any further let me know.

Regards Steve

 

[mrs. sliver]

Well.. if we had ducks they would have to take turns to swim round because it it aint a big pond!
I don't have a green water problem so don't use UV.
I do keep poking it out with sticks, but it was mental last year!! (and is just tuning up this year)
I have some plants that cover the surface, though i know it won't help that there is not much to shade any of it all day!
'Blanket answer?' may be worth a bash! I have plenty or air in there though I think. I look at the 'things' living in there and am told they only go for well oxygenated water.

It is a wild life pond so there are no fish, just what comes along naturally.
do you think the odd fish may help? :-k

 

[Steve Jones]

No fish wouldn't help, and now you've said it's a wildlife pond I would seriously consider whether or not to use blanket answer as it's mainly used in koi ponds. May be worth getting in touch with cloverleaf direct to ask a few questions, sorry can't be of anymore help

Steve

 

[mrs. sliver]

Thanks Steve, I may just do that.

I haven't seen any amphibian action so far ... no sign of sago pudding (frog eggs) but I still don't like poking about too much this time of year.

If no 'wiggly guys' (tadpoles) turn up this year, I may have a rethink in September, change my plants and try to get some cover worked out.

Could be another year of weed fishing :x

 

[matt]

Mine's a wildlife pond and the frogs have done their thing... Loads of spawn. Perhaps you need a bigger pond - more stability.

 

[mrs. sliver]

It is just a small 'back yard pond'. so, a bigger pond not an option I'm afraid.

I've only had the 'wiggly guys' once (2007) and they appeared late in the season .. around May? The pond is only about 3 years old.

Not sure if they were toads or frogs ... or a mix of both, as both adult toads and frogs have been seen around.

We found a male and female toad when we demolished the old garage, living in the brickwork! we had no idea they were there and didn't have a pond at the time.

I tried to make an 'ideal home' from info on t' interweb, as replacment accommodation. but they both were stressed and vanished. I am told they return and breed every two years? so, that would fit the pattern.

 

[Jenx]

Hi Mrs S ....
If memory serves ...

The spawn of frogs tends to be 'clumpy' ... just a 'hotch-potch wadge' of eggs with no real 'order' about the structure of how it appears in the water, whereas the spawn of the toads appears like 'strings' of eggs...

perhaps not the best description ever, but very obvious when you see the two 'spawns' together.


Had a lengthy discussion with a fishery manager last week about blanket-weed. He was saying that ( for almost inexplicable reasons ), some years the 'water' he manages is infested with the stuff, and the next year.. virtually nothing. Or it could be two years / one year, or any other permutation imagineable.
He's been running this same 32 acre water for 25 years, - always takes temperatures, both in the margins and in the middle, and also PH levels etc .. and has kept records year on year.... and according to him, these readings, combined with weather observations, precipitation level records, notes about the surrounding area crop-planting and forced-fertilisation methods & chemicals etc etc, give him no further method of predicting or understanding why the weed-growth should be so 'hit&miss' year upon year.
Would a pond be much and such the same, ? - I guess its quite feasible that it concievably could be...
You would think that nature would be a bit more 'predictable' on something like this.. I can try asking my sister - she's a research biologist into stuff of this sort of nature --- If I can find out anything from her that may help, I will come back and tell you about it. 8)

edit : - fired off an e-mail to li'l sis, at the Scottish Crop Research Institute.. will see if she comes up with any theories ! :wink: 8)

 

[Ironballs]

When we had a pond a good covering of pond weed kept it clear and blanket weed free, the fish seemed to like the pond weed too

 

[devonwoody]

I have three ponds, one pond is completely free of blanket weed and has been so the last three years. This pond has a small sheet of polystrene laying on the water ( I put it there for the fish to shade from the sun) whether there is a chemical in the poly that keeps down any floating weed or there is another situation I cannot truly answer, but why change a winning horse I say.

BTW the other two ponds without any electrics or poly are just thick with surface weed.

 

[Jenx]

Well, ... got a reply from 'Scientific Sister ' , which I fear will be about as much use as boobs on a boar,

" Cover Pond in Black Polythene to kill off unwanted vegitation / plant growth - Apologies for lack of any fuller detail, my areas of work are concerned with Aphids and their effects on commercial potato and soft-fruit plantations "


Was worth the 'ask' ... but I doubt if thats particularly helpful, sorry

 

[devonwoody]

I suppose the advice would work, but I would want to place the fish in another location meantime.

 

[greybeard]

IME blanket weed has good and bad years so to speak - enough to choke tadpoles some years....but somehow the fish survive ok!

The "where did those frogs come from?" is complete mystery to me! I've lived in the same house for nearly 30 years and built a small pond about 7 years ago. I have a small garden (terraced house) with solid wooden fences and solid brick walls as my boundaries.
I never saw a frog till the pond had been there about a year.....and now the mystery deepens. Each subsequent year there's been literally thousands of tadpoles (or "nifty protein snacks" as I believe the fish view them), but I know some of them turn into frogs and get away cos I do find them around the garden from mid-summerish onwards.

I eventually found out that frogs often take up to 3 years to reach adult froghood, so for the last couple of years I've been waiting for the pond to become a highrise frog settlement as at least some of the annual escapees survive and make it back one day.......there should be more and more each year.....

Last year there were about 30 (little beggars never keep still while I try to count them), the year before that about the same, this year slightly less...so how does that work?
Is this the amazing life-balance thing in operation??!!

But back to the first frogs - I still wonder as to how they arrived in the first place. A friend did suggest that since he regularly finds frogs lurking in dark damp corners maybe they don't need water/ponds/whatever to get by.....but personally I reckon it's the SAS training, they just parachute in to new ponds when they get to hear of them.....

 

[matt]

I've heard it rumoured that frogs and even fish have arrived in ponds after the spawn/eggs have become attached to a bird visiting another pond and then yours.

Re the blackout suggestion... Some aquarium keepers use this approach to get rid of particularly stubborn algae. Quite often it's used for planted tanks too but with some loss/knock back on the plant growth too. It's advisable to understand and remedy the root cause before taking such a drastic approach. It's also worth remembering that killing the blanket weed in situ (whatever method you use) will add to the biological load and almost certainly create an ammonia > nitrite > nitrate spike - all of which feed algae.... Remove most of it physically before going in for the kill.

 

[devonwoody]

I used to have a neighbour who did not like his pond used for taqdpole production, so he used to take bucket loads of spawn down a very steep hillside at the back of our property to a stream. I kept telling him that the tadpoles will always come back to their birthplace.
But I dont worry with two of my ponds, the local resident crow looks forward to his feast every year.
I have one pond covered with wire netting to keep frogs and the heron out.