Who uses a uv?

[Brek]

Hi eds, yes I am feeding more, since beginning march been chucking a handful in on a morning mixture of staple/medicarp/yamato. we had two really good days of sun when it finally made it above the house and the pond had a good 6 hours of sun on it each, so the food may have contributed eh?

[eds]

Hi eds, yes I am feeding more, since beginning march been chucking a handful in on a morning mixture of staple/medicarp/yamato. we had two really good days of sun when it finally made it above the house and the pond had a good 6 hours of sun on it each, so the food may have contributed eh?

Applying what I know from planted tanks then once the bioload goes up then problems usually follow!

The scenario from planted tanks that relates to this is a tank where a rise in lighting (either amount or duration) is linked with an increase in the load which is almost guaranteed to cause algae! In fact you can trigger it by doing this if you wanted to!

I think it's the same for our ponds and the more stable (possibly more established), lower nutrient (cleaner - not saying a pond with algae is unclean btw!) ponds with lower stocking levels will be less prone to algae. Also if you can stop the algae growing like this then it should be much, much harder for blanketweed to grow once the algae bloom dies off.

One issue with planted tanks is underfiltering and low current flows which allow debris to settle out in the water - this triggers cyanobacterial outbreaks like there's no tomorrow. Never seen those in a pond though, not sure why.

[Brek]

After 4 days of the UV being on I can finally see the bottom of the pond again, My pond will be in direct sun most of the summer (good for the water temp) so I think the UV will be staying on over the summer, what is really good news though is the bead after the pod is working wonders and dealing with the fines the pod lets through, water is looking very clear and have enough bio capability to really get them fed this year.

[Gazza]

Hi Peter,

Do you leave the UV on all the time

I have never run a UV on this pond although it was installed it was never rally used and although i do have the odd time of when the water is not crystal clear but this is not something i really strive for as long as its "good" then thats good enough for me

So then guys do you think that ponds that are used to having an UV on mature in a different way so that it becomes something you will need and those that don't will be easier to keep clear as its something its used to

[eds]

Was waiting to see if someone else posted first as I've kinda hinted about my ideas but as no one has here we go!

I think algae blooms are triggered by higher levels of organics in the pond. This is certainly what we find in planted tanks. We dose nitrate and phosphate into those tanks to ensure healthy plant growth and it doesn't cause algae.

However miss water changes, filter cleanings or even reduce the filtration (we tend to use filters with turnovers rated for 10x the tank volume!) and algae flourishes.

Some people have even dosed garden ponds (not koi ponds) and got great results.

For koi ponds i think immature filters and ponds, over stocking and reduced maintenance are factors in needing a uv. I don't mean over stocked in the traditional sense but in a sense that the fish load and the feed they require is then larger than the filtration and water changes can deal with or remove. This is why i think people with very high filtration rates, water change rates or very low stocking levels may not need a uv.

[Brek]

Ahh, ok, When I was running pure RO into the pond to bring down the high KH I had built up over winter, I thought it would reduce the green water as there is nothing in it to act as a food source, made no difference, and even now with a 50/50 split of tapwater to RO fed in at 1000L per day, still had bloom, the UV has stopped it dead, water is clear as a mountain stream, have 14 koi in the pond, so thats 1 koi to 110 galls of water, so lot of waste produced and for me the uV is essential.