Pondlady sez: It is again green water time. Please, please do not use any of the algaecides that are available commercially. Most of them severely decrease the oxygen level in the pond and that will kill the fish. Most of the manufacturer's tell you to apply the product at dusk. The oxygen level is lowest at dawn, so dusk is best. Oxygen is produced during daylight hours by the plant life and algae, and is being consumed by fish and by the decomposition process of waste materials. Beginning at dusk, the consumption continues unabated, but oxygen is no longer being produced. Therefore, as the night continues, the oxygen levels get lower and lower all night long until at dawn, they are at their lowest. But you can use natural products to eradicate green water. Use a bacteria if you want faster results. Algaecides are dangerous.

Pondlady sez: It sounds as if you have a natural bottom pond. All aquatic plants are weeds and grow like them. To kill your lilies, you will need to use harmful chemicals. I'm afraid your only option, aside from chemicals, is to continue to rake the lilies out.

You will find they form a mat that covers the bottom of your pond. Perhaps you can find a couple of teens who don't mind getting filthy and muddy and set them to pulling as many out as possible, roots and all.

Pondlady sez: If you have a pump pumping water over a waterfall, you are probably losing water somewhere in the back of the fallls. I don't know where you live, so it could be evaporation, but that sounds pretty doubtful. Chances are it is leaking out the back of the waterfall or other water spitter. Turn your pump off and let the pond sit overnight. If the water is at the same level, you are losing it because it is being pumped out. Check all spitters and the back of the waterfall for leakage.

Leaves keep blowing in my pond. Is there an easier way to get them out besides using a net? It keeps getting tangled in the plants.

Pondlady sez: There are vacuum cleaners sold at swimming pool places. They look like large dinner plates and attach to a garden hose. The force from the garden hose pushes the debris into a net that you have attached to the top of the 'dinner plate'. Instead of using the large holed mesh that you buy at the swimming pool store, use the leg of an old pair of panty hose. It will pick up finer debris as well.

Pondlady sez: Water liles must have at least 5 hours of full sun daily in order to bloom. You may want to trade those lilies for more shade tolerant aquatic plants. Taro is good, so are calla lilies. Another good shade plant is umbrella grass or cyperus.

Pondlady sez: Depending on where you live, your pond might not be deep enough. Koi like at least 3' of depth to play in. You have somewhere around 7500 -8500 gallons of water - length x width x depth x 7.5 Your pump needs to move that water every two hours. Does it?

I think I would try Microbe-lift PL first to kickstart your biofilter before upgrading your pump/filter system again. The murkiness is fish poop and algae. You may be feeding your fish too much. Only feed them as much as they will eat in 5 minutes. You may have too many fish. Try the Microbe-lift and see if it helps. If not, we can talk about what else could be the problem.

Pondlady sez: I know very little about fish diseases. I would check with your fish store to find out what's wrong and how to treat it. If you can get the fish out of the pond and into a smaller area, you can probably treat more cheaply. If you want to catch them pour some hot water in the pond and they will swim toward it.

Your pond is not contaminated. If you treat your fish the pond will still be fine. If the fish do not get better and die, the pond will still be fine. Your plants will be fine as well.

Pondlady sez: It could be that the water lilies need feeding. They like to be fed every 10 - 14 days with Pondtabbs or other aquatic plant fertilizer. The also like to have the tops of their pots at least 18" below the surface of the water and are happier even deeper. And remember, the outer ring of leaves gets yellow and needs to be pinched off periodically so the new leaves can grow. Same with the flowers. They will open and close for about 3 days and then die. Pick them off immediately.

Pondlady sez: You can buy a product that will decrease your pH. Putting vinegar in the pond will also work, but your pond will smell like you have been dying Easter eggs. I have used vinegar occasionally because our New Orleans water is also alkaline. But usually if you have the proper amount of submerged vegetation and floating vegetation, the pH will straighten itself out. Lower the pH, balance the pond and let the pH take care of itself.

Pondlady sez: Pot up all the plants in heavy topsoil...no potting soil or anything with vermiculite or perlite in it. Then cover the top with sand so the dirt won't float out. I often put gravel on top to keep nosy fish from digging in the pots. Put the water lily in soil so the top of the corm sticks out about 1/2 inch. Some folks advise planting them at a 45 degree angle. Start feeding the lily when the leaves reach the top of the water.

The cattail and iris want to be under water, but only so the water is about 1"over the top of the pot. The water lily wants to be at least 6-18" below the surface of the water.

Pondlady sez: You can put as many plants in the water as you want. Be sure at least 1/2 of the top of the pond is covered with floating plants or is in the shade and make sure you have at least one bunch of anacharis per square foot of pond surface area.

Your water lily will grow quickly as soon as the days get longer. When the leaves reach the top of the water, fertilize it. Fertilize it twice monthly and keep removing dead leaves and blooms. You must have at least 5 hours of sun to have a blooming water lily.

Pondlady sez: Try Taro (A large elephant ear like plant, but very tropical), or Umbrella palm. I think thatone will grow anywhere you put it. You may also want to try some indoor plants and take them in during cold weather. Calla lilies are great in the shade and the blooms are beautiful. Any of the spaths love to have their feet wet and all of the philodrendons. If you can put a minnow or mosquito fish or two in the pond, they would be happy there.

Pondlady sez: Put them in a washtub with a quarter cup of clorox for a couple of weeks. But if she had them in her pond with her fish, they should be OK. I usually suggest quarantine when the plants are gathered from the wild.

Pondlady sez: Use a liner. Never use a preformed pond unless you have no choice. It is a major hassle and will never look right because you cannot get it level. If you do use a preformed pond, only dig it in to the shelves and either put soil to the top or pile rocks to the top. Cantilever rocks over the top so you hide any trace of the plastic. Plant around it to soften the hardness of all those rocks.

Pondlady sez: Your pond installer should have pumped out the dirty water before he collected his final check. So now, here's the best way I know to solve your problem. Take the plants out, wash them off. Pump out the water, clean the rocks with a strong stream of water, wet vac the silt out and start over. Be sure you add dechlor before you put your fish back in and I would add bacteria to your biofilter to jump start it.

I wish that you could just grab the anacharis, shake it and wash it off, but the silt will come off the moment you try to pick up the anacharis. I know you wanted a different answer.

Are tadpoles good for my pond, my fish died with a white film over their eyes I was told it was because of the tadpoles.

Pondlady sez: I suppose it is possible, but I find it a bit doubtful. Tadpoles (the toad kind) have toxins on their skins so fish won't eat them, and they don't. I suspect you will find your fish died of something else, like foul water, over feeding or some chemicals getting in the water. Change out 25% of the water. Don't forget the dechlor. Be sure you buy fish from a reputable fish store and not a big box retailer.

Pondlady sez: I think I am hearing several problems here. 1) Your fish are eating your water lilies
2) Your lilies are turning black and dying.
3) a combination of the two

I have a question for you.....is it the lily pads or the lily blooms that are turning black and dying. If it is the blooms, they open and close for about 3 days and then die. You must cut them off at the base of the plant, remove them and not let them foul the pond water. If it is the lily pads, you have some sort of lily disease, probably aphids. Mix up a solution of a quart of water, a tsp of vegetable oil and a few drops of dishwashing liquid and spray the lily pads. Remove all the black ones before you do that.

If it is your fish eating your lilies, you have too many fish. You may have one linear foot of fish per 25 square foot of pond surface.

If you are feeding your fish, they are getting too big for your small pond. They should eat the anacharis and the anacharis grows faster than the fish can eat it. So, trim back your fish population, buy a few more bunches of anacharis so you have 1 bunch per sf of pond surface, stop feeding the fish and you should be OK.

Oh, and you really don't have enough room for 1 water lily let alone two. So give one away to a friend and keep yours trimmed back. Trim the outer ring of pads whenever a new ring forms. They may be turning black because they can't be in the water.

Pondlady sez: We build beautiful backyard resorts for critters like fish and raccoons and then we don't want them as guests. We want our ponds to be gated communities.

I don't know of any way to keep the fish eating critters away from the pond. I advocate never feeding the fish at all and giving them a balanced ecosystem in which to live. That way when predators arrive, the fish know that they are predators, they hide in the natural plants and rocks that are in the pond and they don't get eaten. Or at least the smart ones don't get eaten. The smart ones have babies, the dumb ones get eaten and Darwin lives . For a raccoon deterrent, try planting prickly stuff around your pond. Asparagus fern is good or a holly of some kind. Remember, that prickly stuff can bite you as well as the raccoons.

Pondlady sez: You are feeding your fish. Unless they are koi, do not feed them. Make sure you have 1/2 of the surface of the water covered with floating plants and have plenty of places for the fish to hide. Put at least one bunch of submerged vegetation in your pond. Feed the water lily at least once monthly, but they would prefer to be fed twice or even every 10 days in the growing season. Use Pondtabbs or other aquatic fertilizer. If you can't find it, use Job's Tree Spikes cut up in 4 pieces or Job's Tomato Spikes. And as a last resort, just dig a hole in the dirt of the water lily, put a powdered fertilizer in there and cover it back up. You probably have too many fish as well. Here's the rule: 1 linear foot of fish per 25 square feet of water surface.

Pondlady sez: The worms are leeches and I have seen thousands of them. They don't hurt anything at all. They help the pond by eating decomposed organic material and sludge at the bottom of the pond and, of course, in the filter.

Pondlady sez: First of all, your koi are eating your water lilies. And the fish waste is making the pond stink. If you give the koi away and get a couple of plain goldfish and then balance your pond ecologically, you will have a clean pond that is relatively maintenance free.

If you have a pump and want to clean it out, pump all the water out, wet vac the debris out and start over. It probably is a good idea at this point. It is a dirty job and can be difficult. There may well be someone in your area who does it. I clean over 300 ponds a year here in NO and can do it in about 1 1/2 hours. My charge is $250.00 for a medium sized backyard pond, about 6' x 9'. That might give you some idea of costs in your area.

Pondlady sez: If you have a balanced pond, with underwater vegetation, your fish will be happy without unnecessary and artificial food introduced into the pond. If you feed them, they will grow bigger than the pond can handle, they will eat all the vegetation, so you will feed them more and more...and soon the bioload will be too big for the pond and all the fish will die. If you have filtration, you can feed fish, but not without it. And overfeeding leads to foul and green water.

Pondlady sez: It sounds to me as if you have too many fish and you feed them too much. Your possibilities are to cut down your fish population (probably the best way) or to install a huge filtration system (very expensive) plus your UV light. Even then it is possible your bioload will be too heavy. Maybe you have some friends who could adopt some fish? The rule for fish load is 1 linear foot of fish per 25 square feet of pond surface.

Pondlady sez: Use EPDM pond liner. It is fish friendly and will last longer than 6 mil plastic. The visqueen will tear while you are putting the pond together. The EPDM liner comes with a 20 year guarantee at the very least, usually more.

Pondlady sez: I have seen old non working pumps at junk or antique stores. That would be a good place to start. You would simply put a small (maybe 140 gph) pump in the kettle, run a piece of tubing from the water to the bottom of the pump where water would have normally have been pumped in when the pump was used for real. I think I would put the pump on a stand of some sort, even if it was a cinder block painted black. You can probably come up with something better than that if you think for a bit. Or maybe (but doubtful) the pump would already be tall enough to use as is.

You could either keep the water clear with chlorine or make it a real pond. I would probably opt for the chlorine. Keeping pond in a sugar kettle is difficult. The bottom is not flat, but round and the iron rusts making yearly rust removal and repainting a necessity. If you do not have the sugar kettle already, I might consider a fiberglass copy.

Pondlady sez: Here in the South, we recommend that the pond be 18" deep. This depth is ideal for plants and fish. In the north, the pond must be deeper because your weather is colder and the pond can freeze solid. I always recommend that you get in touch with your local extension service, university, or aquaculture organization to find out the frost line in your area and be sure you dig beneath it.

Pondlady sez: I have never heard of it, let alone seen it. It sounds like a simple manifold and would be easy to build yourself. I have had some experience with 'prefab' waterfalls and pipes or fountain heads with holes in them and very often the holes will clog up. Pretty soon, one hole is shooting water out of your pond and the rest are clogged up. It can drain your pond and drive you crazy.

Pondlady sez: DO NOT cover the bottom with sand. Debris and fish waste will collect there and you will not be able to clean the pond and remove the debris without removing all that sand and replacing it. And trust me, it gets HEAVY!! You will be able to enjoy your pond much more with no sand on the bottom.

Pondlady sez: Don't build your pond from bricks. They are not waterproof and will give you problems from day one. And they will be problems you can never solve. Use an EPDM liner.

Pondlady sez: You will have disastrous results if you try to make a pond bigger by seaming liners. You simply cannot seam liner in the field. Try building a second pond right next to the first with a soil wall in between. Use that space for a walkway or a waterfall, maybe two. You will need a second pump, of course. But the two ponds will look like one.