# blanket weed



## willow-puss (11 Jul 2011)

hi all,   

was wondering if any one could offer any advice please- have a small "nature" pond that is being over run by blanket weed, and i was wondering if there where any fish i could put in that would "eat" it- pond been up for approx 2yrs (and still no frogs/tadpoles    ) never had the weed before...

any help would be great.
 
bec


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## foxfish (12 Jul 2011)

More surface plants will cut out light & stop the weed but not fish will help you get rid of it!
Remove as much as possible by hand, a stick will help with this, twist the stick so the weed wraps around it & you will be surprised how much you can get out!


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## logi-cat (2 Sep 2011)

Add more plants, i don't know if you have a UV light or not but if you don't that is a definite.


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## martin-green (2 Sep 2011)

hi logi-cat, sorry, I do not agree. 

willow-puss did say its a "nature" pond


			
				willow-puss said:
			
		

> ....... have a small "nature" pond


By its definition a nature / natural pond has no pump, U.V. or filter.

Blanket weed feeds on the ponds "neutriants", a U.V. will be a complete waste of time and money since it does not affect the pond "neutriants".

Koi pond keepers who have some of the biggest U.V.s available for ponds also still suffer from blanket weed occasionaly, and as foxfish said, the best (and its cheap) way to remove it is with a stick.


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## dw1305 (2 Sep 2011)

Hi all,
Strangely enough a U.V. light is absolutely brilliant for encouraging "filamentous algae", they remove the floating phytoplankton ("green water") and leave the nutrients in place, it is blanket weed heaven.

If you have alkaline water in your pond you will have "Blanket Weed" type algae, what ever you do. It is an entirely natural phenomenon and not damaging to the pond fauna, and it is only if you have a complete coverage that it is likely to be fuelled by excess nutrients and may cause problems when it decays, as light levels fall in the autumn.

The best option is very careful removal of the early flush in the spring and then to ignore it, as it is a key nursery area for many invertebrates (and newt tadpoles etc), and continual removal is actively damaging to the ecology of the pond.

If your pond is shallow (which you want) this will exacerbate the "problem" as the water will warm quickly and the light will reach the layer of filamentous algae on the bottom, triggering photosynthesis, producing O2 bubbles which are retained in the matrix of filaments, and causing the whole mass to float to the surface. If you can shade the surface, and have lots of emergent plants with access to atmospheric CO2, the "problem" will be very much reduced.

Even though it sounds a bit strange a wildlife pond should have relatively little open water, and areas that dry out etc, it is the structures in shallow water that supports the vast majority of the biodiversity.

Have a look here: <http://www.pondconservation.org.uk/>.

cheers Darrel


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