New Pond - what now?

Sean Dinh wrote:

1. fill pond
2. clean liner and flush water.
3. put in plants.
4. fill pond.
5. turn on aerator.
6. put in fish.

All these steps within a few hours.

In my case I did this and lost some of the fish because I got a gloom of
string algae that acted like a spider web to the fish. Some fish got
tangled in the string algae and never escaped. After I got the algae
bloom, I added bacteria, snails and barley straw plus about 4 weeks to
eliminate the algae. Fortunately I had some fish left and the pond came
into perfect balance.

Unfortunately many plants placed in the pond have nutrients and of
course the fish excrete nutrients. If there in not enough capacity in
the pond to eliminate the nutrients, the algae bloom is unavoidable.

In my case the elements that keep the nutrients in check a
* lots of underwater oxygenator plants
* lots of marginal plants in plain clay, no fertilizer
* pond bacteria and enzymes
* trap door snails

and as insurance against any algae starting up I use
* barley straw

The pond can get out of balance if too many fish and/or plant fertilizer
are introduced.

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Cheers, Steve Henning in Reading, PA USA
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