Another cause of alkalinity in ponds is an overabundance of sludge in the bottom of the pond. This sludge is a combination of fish waste and other organic material that utilizes oxygen in order to break down. The process releases large amounts of dissolved CO2 into the water, which creates acidic water.
However, the presence of large amounts of dissolved CO2 boosts algae formation and increases photosynthesis, which pushes the pH level of your pond up.
Regularly cleaning the sludge out of the bottom of your pond will help stabilize the pH of your pond water. During the daytime, as CO2 is used by plants, the water can become more alkaline or the pH raises. Buffering these pH swings using lime can help keep a more uniform pH level which will lead to better overall fish health.
Most bacteria cannot survive overly acidic water. Make sure to check the label, but if you pond is acidic, you may need to consider liming before bacteria treatments are started or at the very least lime to improve your resident bacteria populations. Water hardness is the measure of divalent ions in the water. Some common causes of hardness are calcium and magnesium carbonate.
If you go through a lot of salt in your water softener in your home, and you pond is in your backyard, there is probably a good chance you have hard water in your pond as well. Hard water can decrease the effectiveness of certain algae and aquatic plant chemical treatments.
It can also limit the growth of plankton in your pond and limit fish growth. There are not a lot of practical solutions to hard water in your pond. However, a pond manager may need to formulate the spraying mixture with different amounts of surfactants to properly treat pond weeds if you choose a chemical approach. Get the latest news Join our newsletter and be the first to know about new products, special offers, and events. Natural rainfall is slightly more acidic with a pH averaging 5.
Which would have a neutral pH reading around 7. Due to the low level of carbonates present, areas of soft water are also at higher risk of pond pH crashes. Especially when it comes to conducting pond water changes. Without enough carbonates, tap water is unstable.
Making ponds sensitive to changes in pH. However, there are certain symptoms that act as warning signs in your pond:. While these are common signs of a pond pH crash. The best way to treat and prevent a pond pH crash is to use pond pH buffer Pond Equaliser.
A unique treatment that not only stabilises key water parameter pH, KH and GH levels for up to six months. Containing beneficial calcium, it also helps to remove toxic heavy metals and ammonia. Instantly stabilises the important water parameters in your pond and buffers the pH, KH and GH for up to 6 months to ensure your fish remain safe. Also remove harmful, toxic metals and ammonia from the water. We will use the information provided here to keep you updated by email and email newsletters about products, offers, news and other activities.
For further information on how we use your personal information, please see our Privacy Policy. This may not always be possible, because some animals must be stocked relatively soon after ponds are filled and fertilised to avoid losses from predatory insects or to ensure that the proper natural foods are available. For example, hybrid striped bass fry should be stocked when rotifers are most abundant see SRAC Publication Rotifers are the preferred food for young bass fry, and peak rotifer populations occur at predictable times after pond fertilisation is begun.
When possible, however, delaying stocking until after the initial flush of plant growth can help prevent losses caused by excessively high pH. Problems with high pH seem to occur most often in ponds where total alkalinity the amount of bicarbonate and carbonate in the water far exceeds water hardness the amount of calcium and magnesium in the water. For example, it is common for freshwater prawn ponds at the Mississippi State University aquaculture unit in Starkville to have high pH in late spring.
Deficiencies in hardness relative to alkalinity can be corrected by adding gypsum calcium sulfate. The effectiveness of gypsum treatment in reducing pH is subject to debate; at best, it is a preventive procedure rather than an emergency treatment.
Hardness deficiencies should, therefore, be corrected before stocking, preferably as soon as the pond is filled in the spring. The amount of gypsum needed to roughly balance hardness and alkalinity can be calculated by subtracting hardness from alkalinity and multiplying that value by two. This would require about 2, pounds of gypsum in a 2-acre pond that is 4 feet deep. This is a large amount of gypsum, but the results of treatment should be long-lasting because calcium is lost from ponds only when waters are diluted by excessive rainfall or by the addition of water with a low calcium content.
Increasing the calcium level in a pond by adding gypsum may help reduce the occurrence of high pH and benefit animals by helping them respond better physiologically to pH extremes and other environmental stressors. Relatively high levels of calcium also help crustaceans, such as freshwater prawns, to replace calcium lost during moulting.
It is difficult to reduce pH significantly by adding an acid to the water because pond waters are usually buffered by bases of the alkalinity system. Relatively large amounts of acid are therefore needed to achieve a meaningful decrease in pH. Also, adding an acid to water is only a short-term solution because it addresses the result rather than the cause of the problem, which is rapid plant growth.
An emergency treatment that quickly reduces high pH is the application of alum aluminum sulfate. This is a safe, relatively inexpensive chemical that reacts in water to form an acid. Besides reducing pH, alum also flocculates and removes algae by sedimentation, thus decreasing algal biomass and reducing photosynthesis. Alum may also help to reduce pH indirectly by removing phosphorus—an important nutrient for plant growth.
Alum does not have a permanent effect and it may need to be applied more than once until plant or algal growth decreases. Overtreatment with alum can cause a dramatic decrease in pH, possibly to levels more dangerous than the original high pH problem. A safer, longer lasting way to reduce high pH is to add carbon dioxide, which acts as an acid in water. Carbon dioxide levels can be increased by adding organic matter such as cracked corn, soybean meal or cottonseed meal to ponds.
As organic matter decays, it releases carbon dioxide. This method does not reduce pH immediately, but it is a safe and relatively dependable practice that yields results rather quickly.
Generally, applying about 15 pounds per acre daily for about 1 week should prevent pH from rising to undesirable levels. This amount would be in addition to any daily application of organic fertiliser already planned. The total daily application of organic matter should not exceed 50 pounds per acre.
The decay process that releases carbon dioxide into the water also uses dissolved oxygen, so adding too much organic matter could reduce dissolved oxygen concentrations to dangerous levels. Dissolved oxygen concentrations must therefore be measured regularly and the pond aerated, if necessary, to maintain satisfactory oxygen levels.
The rapid removal of carbon dioxide during periods of rapid plant growth is the basis of all high pH problems in ponds. Waiting for fast plant growth to decrease naturally is an option, as described previously, but if pH must be reduced quickly, the rate of plant growth must be slowed by adding a herbicide or restricting the amount of light penetrating the water column. Using herbicides to kill algae and plants will eliminate high pH problems, but the benefits are often not worth the risks and costs.
The decomposition of plants killed by herbicides causes oxygen depletion and the accumulation of carbon dioxide and ammonia.
Some herbicides are also relatively toxic to juvenile aquatic animals.
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