Redish Brown Water

I have a pond that has goldfish,snails and tadpoles in it, and several
waterlilies. The water started turning a redish brown color. I checked
the ph and its just a little low. Has anyone ever had this happen or
can tell me what to do to get rid of it. I dead headed all the flowers
that bloomed and had taken all the yellow leaves off . I am stumped
about this. My husband says to bring up the ph and it should be ok.
Please let me know! Paulette

Do you do water changes? Your Kh may be down, along with the pH, water
changes alone may correct this, if you don't have ammonia showing. You
really need to know if you have ammonia showing before messing with the pH.
Upping the pH (if below 7.0) makes the ammonia toxic the higher you go over
7.0. ~ jan

On 17 Aug 2004 15:33:02 -0700, (Paulette) wrote:

I have a pond that has goldfish,snails and tadpoles in it, and several
waterlilies. The water started turning a redish brown color. I checked
the ph and its just a little low. Has anyone ever had this happen or
can tell me what to do to get rid of it. I dead headed all the flowers
that bloomed and had taken all the yellow leaves off . I am stumped
about this. My husband says to bring up the ph and it should be ok.
Please let me know! Paulette

~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

From: ~ jan JJsPond.us
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Newsgroups.
Newsgroups: rec.ponds
Date: Wed, 18 Aug 2004 17:40:13 -0700
Subject: Redish Brown Water

Do you do water changes? Your Kh may be down, along with the pH, water
changes alone may correct this, if you don't have ammonia showing. You
really need to know if you have ammonia showing before messing with the pH.
Upping the pH (if below 7.0) makes the ammonia toxic the higher you go over
7.0. ~ jan

On 17 Aug 2004 15:33:02 -0700, (Paulette) wrote:

I have a pond that has goldfish,snails and tadpoles in it, and several
waterlilies. The water started turning a redish brown color. I checked
the ph and its just a little low. Has anyone ever had this happen or
can tell me what to do to get rid of it. I dead headed all the flowers
that bloomed and had taken all the yellow leaves off . I am stumped
about this. My husband says to bring up the ph and it should be ok.
Please let me know! Paulette

~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~

I'm no expert by any stretch and you are probably better off listening to
others here but I just happened to read in one of my watergardening books
today that reddish brown water is usually a sign of silt (suspended dirt).
Have you recently added plants in pots or had a dust storm or something else
that might add dirt to your pond? They recommended increasing mechanical
filtration or having more patience. They also said water hyacinth aids in
removing silt but that does not sound logical to me.

8snip of earlier parts of the post


I'm no expert by any stretch and you are probably better off listening to
others here but I just happened to read in one of my watergardening books
today that reddish brown water is usually a sign of silt (suspended dirt).
Have you recently added plants in pots or had a dust storm or something else
that might add dirt to your pond? They recommended increasing mechanical
filtration or having more patience. They also said water hyacinth aids in
removing silt but that does not sound logical to me.


If you saw my hyacinth, you'd understand. The roots are little balls of
mud with fringe from all the silt that's getting caught in them.
Gabrielle

Another cause of reddish brown water is dividing iris and potting them in
rocks, the fresh cuts will bleed into the water. To prevent this either
plant in sand/dirt, or if you want them in rocks, soak them for 48 hours to
let the fresh cuts seal. Then you can pot up and put in pond. ~ jan


~Power to the Porg, Flow On!~