Murky Pond

[Hobbes]

I have dammed up part of an old gravel pit so that rainwater will start collecting in it to make a nice sized pond for swimming and watering the garden. However, the water that is already starting to accumulate stays silty. Is there a way to add or plant something to help it settle out more like a regular pond?

[SpaceCadet12364]

Water lettuce may help you, but I think down your way its considered a noxious weed. You can buy it online, but the states that consider it a noxious weed, you arent supposed to bring any in. It can and will take over a water way.....it dies off when it freezes.

Of course, if its already in your area....it wouldnt be like you were importing it, if you knew where to find some.

Good luck!

[Windy in Kansas]

Think about growing a field of barely and baling the straw from it to use for clarification.

http://www.drsfostersmith.com/produc...fm?pcatid=5399

[NostalgicGranny]

I've read the straw thing works too. Our pond is fairly new. Just a few years old. The first year it really was murky. After that it settled down.

My problem is I can't grow anything in it. We made the mistake of buying the ducks first and then trying to grow plants.

[7thswan]

Read up on Benzonite. I saw it mentioned once as something used in farm ponds. Don't remember what for tho.

[Windy in Kansas]

If I may, it is Bentonite which is a kind of clay that expands when wet thus causing the sealing of a porous pond causing it to retain water. No water pills allowed since water retention is desired in this case.

It is said that putting some turtles into a pond will also seal it, but that is a different subject than we are speaking of here.

I frequently see highway borrow pits that years later still have murky brown water in them. I believe it is mainly from runoff water going over the clay sides and from wave action on the clay sides eroding clay into the water. Probably if the pond or pits were sealed with expanding Bentonite it might hold the natural clay better to prevent the browning affect.

Natural Resources Conservation Service could probably advise you as to what the underlying problem is and how to correct it properly. Should be in the phone book under U.S. Government.

[fishhead]

Straw or hay should clear it up. If you don't already have a buffer strip of vegetation around the pond that will be necessary to keep it from clouding up again every time it rains. Make sure to keep a good cover of vegetation in as much of the watershed as possible. Also, wave action can resuspend sediments so some "weeds" along the shoreline in the shallow water is a good idea.

[o&itw]

I hope the straw idea works.

New pounds are usually murkey for a while till the clay settles out, especially if the drainage into the tank is from areas not fully vegetated. Organic matter and nutrients in the runoff will cause the growth of micro-organisms which will also make the water murkey especially when it gets warm.

[Hobbes]

Hmmm.... good information. Guess I need to plant some stuff to control the runoff, since that will definitely keep it stirred up. I was looking to see if our Lowe's had some pond plants, but they didn't have them in yet. I might be able to plant a bunch of mint around some of the periphery, since it grows right up by the lake down here.

[arcticow]

Try scattering agricultural gypsum (land plaster) which adheres to the finer silt (clay) & helps settle it out.

[Tricky Grama]

I cleared ours up once by filling some old panyhose w/corn meal (horticultural) and tossing that in w/rock to help it sink.

Patty

[Hobbes]

Curious. What does the cornmeal do?

[Tricky Grama]

I'm not sure what the cornmeal does...neutralizes....something...I'm guessing it depends on why the pond is murky. I could see a lot of algae in ours, so I guess it's good for that.

[Little Quacker in OR]

Don't know if this would apply in your case but...I had my pond dug in '99 and it's doing well, however we do have fine clay here and the pond will never be "clear". I have a standpipe in it that delivers fresh water from a spring up the hill 24/7 and I can set the height of the stream that comes out of it.

I don't mind the cloudy water at all, this pond is mainly for wildlife and all the fun water dwelling creatures that have showed up to live there. There's now three different species of fish, salamanders, native turtles, frogs of course and I get lots of wildlife in to visit, both furred and feathered.

The grand kids do swim in it in the summer. I wouldn't add anything to it at all for fear of upsetting the natural balance as it's a healthy ecosystem. It has Yellow Flag Iris and willows right now which are really pretty with a good perimeter of nice meadow grasses. We also set up an aquarium and a microscope when the kids come to visit and it's amazing all the little creatures that hatch out in that water for them to observe. Dragonfly and Damselfly larvae, Salamander and frogs eggs etc. And then there are the single celled critters to observe. Too Cool!

You might consider just leaving your alone and let it develop on it's own.

LQ

[ronbre]

When our house burned in 2002 we asked the contractor to use "fill" from our field in a low spot removing the fill to around the house and leaving a hole to create a POND..well it was really shallow and would dry out in July..but it did clear up in a couple of years..it also seeded itself to cattails which nearly took over in a couple of years..growing in the very shallow water. 2 years ago our son rented a backhoe when the pond was nearly dried up and scraped off the layer of cattails and dug a really deep spot in one area (didn't have time to do more) ..the deep area is great, the cattails won't grow there..cause it is too deep for them..i threw in some water lilies and they love it..also have other water plants. Our pond has grey clay natural bottom and some sandy areas..with clay underneath..no liner..at first it was kinda cloudy but it cleared up quite quickly, even after the new digging..the deep part didn't even dry up at all in the drought last year but the more shallow areas did get more shallow..it doesn't have any inlet..we put NOSQUITO from Gardens alive in it to keep the bugs at bay...and hope to put an inlet in from a flowing well in the near future.