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       So, you’ve got a case of Green Water Syndrome? Cheer up, it’s not as bad as you think! With a little thought, education (which we’re supplying here) and detective work, your obviously complete ammonia-nitrate cycle can be put to use to give you clear water.      Why is the water green? Whenever there is a surplus of available plant food (nitrate), Mother Nature steps in and supplies something to use it, in an attempt to achieve “Balance”.  Balance is the key to clean, clear water. With-in normal pond water Ph perameters (6.8 – 8.0), having enough “regular” plants to take up the excess nutrients is usually all that’s required to achieve balance. Your water is green because of an explosive growth of small algaes and phyto- and zoo-planktons. In a balanced pond, they are still there, just under control and not multiplying until the water is “green”. These small nutrient consumers can TRIPLE their numbers in one day during summer type conditions.   SOLUTION: There are several things to check, but it boils down to having something growing, ie “real plants” to consume this food (Lilys, marginals, floating plants) and starve the green stuff back to its balance point. NO, CHEMICALS AREN’T THE SOLUTION!!!!!!   THINGS TO CHECK: 1)  OVER FEEDING FISH: How much are you feeding your fish? Think of each handful of food as being a handful of fertilizer thrown out on your lawn. The more fertilizer, the more lawn it needs to be spread over. Excessive fish food = excessive fertilizer = not enough plants to use it = green water. With a green water problem, the recommendation would be to stop or radically reduce the amount of food given to fish until you’ve reached balance. Once you’ve balanced, you can slowly increase your food amounts. Maybe not back to pre-balance levels if your water starts to green up again, but you’ll find your balance point usually within 10-14 days after stopping the food to the fish AND adding sufficient plants to make up the difference. Your fish will not starve to death in this amount of time, and will benefit tremendously from the clearer water by having more oxygen available to consume. (See #5 also).   2)  TOO MANY FISH: If you have too many fish in too small of an environment, you may have to thin them out, or enlarge their environment to handle all the fertilizer they produce. In nature, they are spread out over thousands of cubic feet of water per fish. With good circulation and filtration of a pond, we can get away with a denser population, within certain limits. The more fish, the more oxygen they require, thus more frequently circulated and oxygenated water. A waterfall or fountain nozzle radically increases the amount of available oxygen in water versus un-circulated, stagnant water that has a low level of oxygen. There is still a balance point involved (See #5). Once crossed, bad things start to happen, to your fish and to your water quality and clarity, not to mention your enjoyment of the pond and fish.   3)  NOT FEEDING FISH- WATER STILL GREEN: If you’re not feeding your fish, but your water is green, you either have too many fish, or not enough plants to achieve balance. Also think about the circulation rate of your pump compared to the volume of water your pond holds. On a pond under 5000 gallons of volume, your pump should be moving the total volume of water of the entire pond (called “turnover”) through a filter and over a waterfall or through a fountain nozzle at least one or more times per hour. The smaller the pond, the more frequently you can economically “turnover” the water. This keeps your oxygen levels high, thus making it easier to achieve balance (see #5 also).   4)  NO FISH–GREEN WATER: Having no fish in a pond doesn’t mean the fertilizer isn’t still going to happen. Any organics, like tree leaves, plant stems and dead flowers all start to break down the second they die. This is part of the circle of life. As they break down, they convert eventually into, you guessed it, plant food. See #5. Having good circulation and adding oxygen to the water will help the existing plants optimize their nutrient intake, as well as it possibly being necessary to add even more plants to achieve balance.   5)  BENIFICIAL BACTERIAS: Adding a bacteria blended to eat and convert these organics can’t hurt, and usually helps. A liquid blend, like Aqua-one™ will get into action faster than a powdered form that is usually a freeze-dried blend. Liquid goes to work immediately, while powdered takes 3-5 days to get “resurrected”. Powdered has a longer shelf life. Liquid should be used with-in a year of packaging, not purchase, (Aqua-one™ date stamps their product to expire 9 months after packaging, so you know how fresh it is. I know of no one else who does this) while dry may last 2-3 years.   6)  UV CLARIFIERS: Some people swear by Ultra Violet clarifiers. That you’ll never have clear water without one. I disagree. With BALANCE, (plants-moving, oxygenated water- beneficial bacterias and adequate filtration) you’ll have clear water every time. GREEN WATER ONLY OCCURS IN AN UN-BALANCED POND!!! A UV might help clean up a green water problem initially, but long term, with out balance, it’s just a band-aid™ or crutch. Learn and establish BALANCE, and Mother Nature GIVES you that clear water for FREE.  UV clarifiers (the term sterilizer is often incorrectly used) will damage the cell wall of the green-water causing organisms that pass through its exposure chamber. As long as you don’t pump the water through too fast, and the bulb is new enough to maintain the proper spectrum of light necessary to do this. Even if still glowing, after 6-8 months, the bulb degrades, and is no longer giving off light in the proper spectrum to do its job. This necessitates a bulb change every year. When it does function properly, it damages the organisms passing through it enough to prohibit their ability to reproduce, causing them to eventually mature and die, without reproducing. The down side, if not trapped in a proper filtration system that is frequently cleaned, the dead algaes lay there and rapidly decompose, releasing their nutrients into the water to feed more algaes, or create a rapidly degrading water quality, that while possibly clear, may be sucking oxygen out of the water faster than you can replace it. I prefer BALANCE for a pond, feeling that UVs do have their place in specialized Aquaculture, not in a properly balanced and maintained pond or watergarden. A UV clarifier could be used to assist with balance, but should not take its place. Thus a balanced pond doesn’t really need one.   CONCLUSION: These are the primary clues and reasons of classic green water syndrome. I hope the information you found here helps you to resolve your problem, and as a result, increase your enjoyment of your pond or watergarden.  REMEMBER, it takes time to achieve balance. Be patient, and let nature and knowledge take over.    Be sure to check out the rest of the “IN” websites (IPPCA Internet Information Network). With any specialized additional problems, call the IPPCA Pond Hobbyists Hotline at (770) 592-9790.) A pond and watergarden specialist will be able to help you. Dave Jones The Pond Professional

Albert Einstein is best known for the theory of relativity. He also had a passion for Hollywood and the movies. He even wrote a movie script that was made into a movie at MGM. It was not well received upon its release. After the movie was released in the late forties or early fifties, when he was asked, “How does it feel to know that you are the father of “the bomb”? His reply was, “I had nothing to do with it, it was the studio’s fault.” Barbie is 50 this year! Happy birthday Barbie! Sarah Haskins of The Washington Post asked the question “How did I play with my Barbie? I took her clothes off and sent her looking for love. My Barbie got around. One day it was He-Man behind the sofa. She got it on with Ken from Sears and then spurned him for Derek.” “And it wasn’t just me. To walk into the bedroom of any of my Barbie-owning friends was to face the sordid truth.” “You want to play with Barbie?” she would ask innocently and gesture to the off in the corner bucket of large breasted, pantless women. We treated her exactly as we didn’t want to be treated, breaking the Golden Rule with our every after-school roll in the sofa cushions. Albert and Barbie have more in common than one might think at first glance. Both icons of the 20th Century, both impact our social structure with the same velocity. Albert changed the world in a half of a heart beat and Barbie changed the world over generations. One of my favorite motivational speakers is John Maxwell. In his series “Winning with People” he speaks of lens. Like lens in a pair of glasses, we look at people, situations, and things through our own lenses. What we see is how our lens has been ground through our experiences of life. During the lecture, John tells the audience that after he had a heart attack, his wife made plans to take a boat trip to see the fjords of Norway. As John explained, “Now don’t get me wrong, Norway is beautiful and I love spending time with my wife. It was a fourteen day boat trip! My thought was, “if you have seen one fjord you’ve pretty much seen them all and fourteen days on a boat.” “God made the world in seven days!” This depends of where we are in life. When we are teens and know everything, life is out there to be taken head on. A half century later, life and events have changed those perspectives. We may take the challenge that half century later, knowing where the pit falls may be and not discovering them for the first time. I started this year with everything’s fine in oh nine. Is it? This year hit the half way mark in June. For the 2009 Ponditat recipient it really is fine in oh nine! We want to thank Larry of X Stream Aquatics, our contractor member from contucki and the Ashland Terrace Retirement Home of Lexington, Kentucky. Both are top shelf. Here in Central America, Nebraska, it’s getting better as a business. The new stuff is starting to show up and the up grades are happening with more consistent regularity. It may be less to fret about as our season starts to wind down. Like the ponds we service, each year is different. Some ponds are consistently easy, some give us fits. Some, decide to become difficult for no particular reason. Then some ponds get traumatized. I was invaded by a black footed mink and lost about 40 fish. Some that have been perfection decide to go “green” with apparently nothing different. I guess I needed to start writing that book, “Everything I need to know about life I learned from my pond”. The first is, water will make you humble and second, for the most part ponds can take care of themselves if there is a balance. Kind of like life, there should be something that makes us humble, the power and the beauty of nature are for a couple. That if you have a balance in life and in your pond, both will pretty much take care of themselves. Then there is that change thing. No two years are the same, change is the only constant. Some change comes in a half a heart beat, some change comes over generations. Rocke' Huntington IPPCA President The Pond Dragon

We are CUSTOMER Certified to help you "POND"er your cares away!  I am a certified Master of Ponds through the National Pond Society Institute. We are certified by Firestone on liner nstallation and repairs. We install, maintain, consult, design, repair and refurbish all types of water gardens and fountains both formal and informal. We retail all products necessary to install and maintain water gardens, including koi, goldfish and plants.

The business magazine for Landscape Landscape, Irrigation & Maintenance Contractors.  We publish the magazine 6 times a year with 3 issues having a "Waterscape" section.

With 8, 12, or 16 spokes per side as overshots, breast shots, and undershots these water wheels will fit into any location.    From a light artistic inner-spoke wheel for a Japanese koi pond to a massive rough cut cedar wheel in a historic mill restoration I can make what you need for your location.   While most of my wheels are bought for their relaxing beauty they also really attract attention to your business or power pumps and generators; just let me know what you want and I'll design a water wheel to do the job.  These water wheels work well both indoors or out and many of them come with the new adjustable metal hub plate system allowing you to balance the wheel if it goes out of balance with time.   I have had customers and contractors buy this hub set to repair water wheels made by other water wheel builders.   My customers report that my water wheels are still working well after years of constant use. What started out as a hobby years ago has turned into a business with wheels from Hawaii to Delta Canada, Florida to Oregon doing what I love to do; building beautiful water wheels.   Give an a call or check out my website   www.IronHorse.citymax.com  

The wishing well is a lovely landscape ornament or hardscape fixture with a mystical past. It can be traced in folklore to our ancestors from western Europe. There's an Indo-European history lesson, but we'll get to that in a bit. In the front and back yards across America you'll find wishing wells. From the old well with a bucket on a rope that people lowered and raised to draw water, to the cute ornamental wells of wood, brick and stone. Wishing wells are an ingrained part of our culture. If you want a waterfeature, you'll need to be sure your "well" will actually hold water. Certainly water was part and parcel to the magical traditions associated with the wishing well. The concept is that wishes are granted by some deity of the well when a request is made and a gift is left. Hence, you find coins in wells and pools everywhere. (Copper and silver are actually purifiers of water, too.) Even though "sacred wells" were sometimes an object of worship, in relative terms perhaps it compares to the sun in the sky. Some venerate the sun. Some just are glad it warms them, gives light and marks time. Just as anciently the nation of Israel rejected God's rule, they retained parts of their lineage and customs (go look at a copy of the "Scottish Declaration of Independence") and mixed their customs with pagan ones and worshiped Baal. With that as a framework, let us look at where wishing wells are most prevalent and speculate whence some of your modern customs stem. Folklore has provided us tales of genies granting wishes, fairies making dreams come true, other magical creatures or deities granting desires in exchange for something sacrificed. The word wish comes from the Indo-European root word wen. Our modern word win comes from the same root as wish. I suppose this may be in some way a counterfeit concept for a supreme Being who wants to grant the good wishes of his children who ask Him. Magical and "holy wells" are common in Ireland, and especially all over Scotland. These are places many of our forefathers migrated from. "Divining rods" are a related topic, but we'll stick to our subject of wishing wells. For further reading, I might suggest Wells, Trees, Sacred Groves by Stuart McHardy. You'll find songs called wishing well (I am thinking of Hank Snow, but there are many others). Myriad motels, hotels, restaurants, florists and gift shops and charitable organizations call themselves Wishing Well. Online, in garden centers, in public parks, many places you'll find wishing wells. Also, you'll find coins being "offered" to fountains, wells, ponds all over. Someone calculated about thirty million dollars a year, that would be nearly 50 cents per person, is given in hopes of a granted wish each year in America. Besides the Druidic religion's customs of water deities granting wishes, I believe the sacred wells of the Celtic peoples have an additional significance. Let me explain. I remember the story of Joseph in the bible. Country singer Dolly Parton made a hit song with "Coat of Many Colors". Well, Joseph was thrown into a well, and his "coat of many colors" was torn and stained with blood. Joseph's oldest brother, Reuben, who was not as bent on doing evil as the other brothers, rent his clothes at the well when he found the tattered, bloodstained pieces of Joseph's coat at the well, but no Joseph. I believe the traditions of hanging pieces of cloth near a wishing well trace all the way not just to ancient Ireland and Scotland but to the land of Canaan over 400 years before there even was a nation called Israel! In conclusion, I subscribe to the logic that the "coat of many colors" was not a winter coat or something, but was like the colorful kilts worn by Scots, Vikings and inhabitants of Old Eire. -0- The author is a landscaper. Visit www.rockcastles.com or max@rockcastles.com Max Phelps rockcastles@gmail.com waterfallsinyards@yahoo.com

In this article we are going to discuss filtration. Filtration is broken down into 3 different types; mechanical, chemical and biological. I will be discussing each type in detail. This article will cover mechanical and chemical filtration with biological filtration to be covered in the next article. To begin, we will cover mechanical filtration. Stated simply, mechanical filtration removes debris or compounds from the pond through a mechanical device. The device could be as simple as a net or as complicated as a foam fractionator. Every mechanical filter has a specific purpose. When looking at mechanical filtration it is important to first identify what you are trying to accomplish and then choose the correct product for the solution. Most commonly on a pond we see a skimmer; which is a mechanical filter used to remove floating debris from the surface of the pond. Within the skimmer there are usually two different devices. First a weir designed to take water from the surface. Next a net or basket is used to collect debris. When looking at mechanical filters, we need to analyze how well it will do what it is intended to do. Using our skimmer example, let’s break down how it is supposed to work and determine what to look for in a skimmer. The first thing a skimmer is supposed to do is remove debris from the surface using a weir type device. Water is intended to enter the skimmer by going over the top of the weir that floats so that only a thin layer of water goes over the top. Therefore, any water that enters the skimmer opening by not going over the top is a waste. In this way we can get a good idea of how well it will work by looking at its construction. Most skimmers use a door that is hinged at the bottom. Yes, water will go over the top as long as the amount of water being pulled in is more than the amount of water going under the door and along the sides of the door. If the skimmer has an 8 inch weir with a ¼ inch gap around the door, the area of the gap would be approximately 5 square inches. That is almost the same amount of area as a 2 inch pipe. This is with the door shut, but as the door opens, the gaps on the sides get larger and less water is drawn from the surface. With the door shut as much as 1000 gph can go around the door before it starts to take water from the surface of the pond. The second part of the skimmer is the net or basket that catches debris. The first thing to look at is whether the net or basket is going to catch all the debris entering the skimmer or can some of the debris get past without being caught. Also make sure the holes in the net or basket are the correct size to catch the debris you are trying to remove from the pond. Every pond should have at least one mechanical filter and usually more than one. Not every mechanical filter is easily examined to determine if they will indeed perform the work they are intended to perform. A good example is a foam fractionator or protein skimmer. Their purpose is to remove dissolved organic materials from the water. One problem is that you can’t see these materials so how do you determine if the device is going to work? Even though you can’t see them, you can see the effect they have on the pond water. The dissolved organic materials will cause bubbles on the surface of the pond to take longer before they break. With this knowledge we can determine how well the foam fractionator is working. Next let’s cover chemical filtration. Chemical filtration is accomplished by adding a chemical to the water to remove some substance from the water or tie it up so that it is no longer harmful. Chemical filtration has a limited use in that once the chemical is used up it no longer has an effect on the water. Chemicals used for this type of filtration can range from dechlor to ozone. As with any filter you should first determine what you are trying to remove from the water. You then select a chemical to address that problem. In some cases it is important to know the volume of water you are trying to treat or the amount of the substance you are trying to remove. Sometimes if too much of a specific chemical is added it might poison the pond life. It is also important to know that in some cases once a chemical is added to the pond water, it stays in the water until it is removed or used up. Many chemicals do not dissipate in the water and they don’t evaporate. Because of this, when you add different chemicals in the future you may have a chemical reaction between the two that could result in undesirable or harmful conditions. Removing one chemical from the pond is not easy. It can be removed by water changes but to remove 99% of the chemical by water changes would take a change of 8.9 times the volume of the pond. For example, if you changed 5% of the pond volume once a week it would take 178 weeks to get 99% out. That is approximately 3 and a half years! The same would hold true for medications. A word of advice; be careful of anything that you put in your pond because it might be there for a long time. Of course there are some chemicals that disappear fairly quickly. Ozone is one of these. It has a half life of 4 minutes in ideal conditions and much less in any other conditions. What, you ask, is ozone and what does it have to do with a pond? As ozone is one of the newer ideas being used in the pond world I will explain it as simply as I can. Oxygen normally forms molecules as two atoms of oxygen (O2) but ozone is one molecule of oxygen with three atoms of oxygen (O3). Because the third atom of oxygen, ozone is always trying to get rid of that third atom. Because of this it is a very powerful oxidizer. In fact it is the second most powerful oxidizer known to man. How does that apply to a pond? It means that it can oxidize any organics in the pond. In fact it can be so efficient at oxidizing nitrite to nitrate that the bacteria that would normally take care of this can die off due to a lack of nitrite for them to eat. A word of caution, ozone can be a very dangerous compound and should not be used unless you know what you are doing. As stated earlier, the next article will cover biological filtration. Mike White White Water Filters