Blanket Weed the Scourge of Pond Owners
Blanket Weed is a form of algae and is very prolific. It is very difficult to get rid of once it is in your pond, but there are products you can try to get rid of blanket weed.
There are probably a number of approaches you can try in order to remove the Blanket Weed, you could try the chemicals approach (algicides) or take the organic route.
Chemicals can have a harming effect on the fish and plants in your pond, the organic way is to try by natural means to eliminate the Blanket Weed.
A popular way is to use barley straw lay it on top of the blanket weed, it stops the suns rays from getting through and the blanket weed will die, although it does usually come back and the the process begins again
One way is to somehow darken the pond, blanket weed being an algae loves the light
We can try to stop the sunlight by maybe building something nearby such as a pergola to shade the pond, another way that has been tried is to perhaps add a dye to the water, it makes it as though the sun is shining through a filter.
is to remove nitrates and phosphates from the water, the nitrates and phospates are what the Blanket Weed feed on, you should be able to buy a treatment like this from your local pond specialist or perhaps garden centre.
All in all you will have a fight on your hands to remove the Blanket Weed, but the rewards if you succeed will mean happier plants and fish
There are a few other tactics we can employ in the fight against Blanket Weed green algae in our koi ponds.
One of the more popular ones (but least desirable) is to use algicides – chemicals that can kill algae by upsetting its biological processes. Alternatively, a more natural green algae killer is possibly barley straw. This traditional method is quite slow however and far from a universal solution. It is thought to be more eco-friendly.
The process is (supposedly) to place barley straw in your pond, and then, as it slowly degrades it will release hydrogen peroxide into your pond water, which is highly effective in reducing algae growth.
Rather than using real barley straw, it is possible to buy barley straw extract, which speeds up the process by a few weeks. One final method of control is through the use of an electric green algae controller. These supposedly work by upsetting the floating algae’s metabolism by altering the calcium ions in your pond water. Maybe black magic is a better explanation
The other way to reduce sunlight in your pond and therefore reduce floating algae is by adding vegetable dyes to your koi pond water. Adding these dyes will give a tint of color to your pond water, and will provide strong filtration of the sun’s rays. The only downside is that the dye will need to be replenished regularly as it will be slowly filtered out by your filtration system, but otherwise it has proven to be a very effective method of blanketweed control.
Reducing Nutrients that Green Algae (Blanket Weed) Need
In order to remove the nutrients (Nitrates and phosphates) that the dreaded floating algae depends upon, you will need to use a special pond treatment that can be bought online or at a koi fish store. These treatments work by binding up the nitrates and phosphates that are present in your goldfish pond water.
They tend to be non permanent solutions.
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