Pond Water Clarity

[Rodders]

I have an approx 10,000litre pond. I have a fishmate 30,000litre filter system with built in UV sterliser, 2x 13watt I think it is. Have good filtration as planning to have KOI.

Anyway, untill I put fish in, goldfish/shubunkins, it was perfectly clear, hopefully this is because of the UV sterilisers as thats what they do.

But with fish in, its always been a bit murky.

What can be done to get rid of it?

Thanks

 

[Davo86]

Do you know the parameters of the pond?

There are two possible reasons for the murkiness,

The first is that the pond may not be fully matured, In new ponds the parameters can very easily become unbalanced with levels seeming to change regularly, causing this type of clarity problem. would you say you have been overfeeding or adding large quantities of fish at one time or even added fish too quickly?

The second is simply that the fish are disturbing, soil or silts which are present in the pond.

 

[Breedon]

do you have plants?
the fish will dig in the soil and this could be another reason, changed all my plants to gravel only and problem solved and i dont get any silt

 

[Rodders]

I have plants, but they are in a different section. Perhaps they are moving dirt around on the bottom.
I was told the pond was ready for fish as blanket weed was growing. A friend said that means the water is right. This was a few months ago now.

 

[Davo86]

I was told the pond was ready for fish as blanket weed was growing. A friend said that means the water is right. This was a few months ago now.

Not necessarily, a pond needs to cycle just like a tank, in this time the nitrates can be high, and as you probably know nitrates are a fertiliser for plants.

 

[Rodders]

Ammonia - 0
Nitrites - 0
Nirates - 0 (plants must be eating all of this)
pH - 8.8, which seems high as my tap water is 7.5, perhaps the rain has increased it.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

Can you describe the color of the murkyness- is it green or brown?

 

[Rodders]

Well to me it looks green in the pond. But this could be because of the blanket weed/algea on the liner.

But last night I flushed the filters through on its built in 'clean' function and that water was brown. I collected it in a white container.

 

[Tokis-Phoenix]

If the water is green then thats simply green algae, however when this stuff dies off it can create a lot of muck on the bottom of the pond, which can turn the water brown. Your pond is still very young, its common for ponds to suffer algae problems in their first year, my pond had green water problems in its first year for a short while however once the plants became more established the green algae completely disappeared . Since you already have a UV sterilizer, my advice would be to either just wait for the pond to just establish itself and don't add anymore fish until it does, or to add some lilies to the pond as these plants are very good at getting rid of algae (particularly the stuff that causes green water) in ponds by creating lots of shade with their big leaves/pads and out-competing the algae for nutrients . Keeping the bottom of the pond free of muck while making sure you aren't feeding the fish too much will also help.