Running a fishmate 15000 filter with 13w uv
but still having big problems with blanket weed
any ideas as to what to use prefer not to keep adding chems.

Hello Antares, welcome to the best part of the forum.

In order to rectify something you have to understand what it is, thereby you can find its weakness in this case.

Blanket weed is also known as string algae, your biological filter and 13 watt UV can only remove what passes through them.
String algae does not go anywhere near a bio-filter or UV, that is why a bio-filter and UV is useless against string algae.

There is only one guaranteed way to remove it and that is with but you only need one.

There are lots of "potions and gadgets" that claim they will rid your pond of string algae but what works for one pond can not be guaranteed to work for all ponds, but no one can find out why, so until they can, its back to the good old stick. Even then there are various forms of "stick"

oh, and be careful where you swim, or you could end up like



One more thing.

"Thanks" goes a long way.

Thanks for that has sunlight got a big bearing on this as i have also had in mind shading some of it

Sting algae as I mentioned is a plant, plants do need sunlight, however the less sunlight the slower it grows, so yes putting up some shade will help, but it can only slow it down, not stop it 100%

Some people will say they do not have string algae because they have some plants, lilies for example. This can be true but what they don't tell you is the pond looks like:



The lilies block so much sun from the water string algae does not grow.

The odd thing with string algae is, you can have a pond for years and never have any, then next season its full of it. It sort of happens to me. I have a frog ?puddle? no string algae in sight, yet a bucket of water I left outside for a few months has string algae growing in it. (Well it did till last weekend)

Thanks looks like i will just have to live with it

Its hard to totally eliminate blanket weed once it has started but you can do much to hinder its growth..

Remove as much of the weed as you can using the much favored stick method, check the amount you are feeding the fish if you have any (un eaten food falls to the bottom and decays providng needed nutrients for the weed)

Then you need to eat up those nutrients before the weed can grow again, best method to do this is with plants.

A combination of a lily or two, plus some oxygenators and shallow water plants, even addsome floating plants, i.e water lettuce or Salvinia (DONT use duckweed) will eat the nutrients right up, plus provide shade blocking the light it needs.

Plants are a great way to make the pond look more attractive, while serving a practical purpose, lots of sites on the internet offering good ideas, here is a couple of the shops I have used in the past

http://www.bromfieldaquatics.co.uk/st ... loating-plants-558-0.html

http://www.gardens4you.co.uk/index.ph ... cCFUtC4QodWHeEZw&vmcchk=1

There is no need whatsoever to "put up with it" it takes effort but once contained it is easy to keep contained

have you tried an electronic blanket weed killer the local garden centre gave me a ?100 pound one for free as he'd had it through the back shop for over 10 years i followed the instructions and hey presto 3 days later it was all gone i turned it off in the winter as it has the opposite effect and makes it grow but in the summer it keeps it away
jamie

Thanks for all the input will have plenty to work on over the next months or two.

Hi, just sticking my two penneth in. When you take the blanket weed out of the pond just leave it on the edge of the water for a while to make sure any critters yanked out with the weed can find their way home again?

Antares, no, you don't have to "live with it" but you do have to take care of it.

Owning a pond is like a duck.

All you see is the nice bird floating along on the water, what you don't see is the feet going 15 to the dozen to make the duck move.

Pond owners regularly take string algae out of their ponds, they also do water changes, change UV lamps, clean sponges etc etc, but just because you don't see it being done, doesn't mean they don't do it.

Friend of mine had his koi pond fibre-glassed, he was most put out when sting algae started growing on the fibre-glass (ok, the gel coat). We used to have "competitions" to see who could get the most string algae out in one go.

Jellybean also has a good point