# Dyed my pond today...



## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

Found a place local that carried the pond dye, so off I went to get some. Wow is that stuff ever concentrated. Playing around with the dye while I was putting it in the pond, and all it takes is a single drop to turn the water........deep blue. Looked kinda funky for about an hour after I had poured it aloong the bank of the pond, but before too long the breeze had moved it around and it all started to blend together. It looks like a deep typical northern cold water pond now, instead of a typical southern green / brown warm water pond.........

Hopefully tomorrow or Thursday my camera battery will get here by UPS and I'll post a pic of the blue water now as compared to the green water before. Really makes a great change in appearance. Supposed to last 4 to 6 months or longer if you do not have much overflow or incoming water to keep diluting it, which I do not have, so it should last quite a long time.


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## jodyand (Sep 16, 2003)

Makes the water look cool don't it the one around the corner from me is a eye opener i really like the way it looks.


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## memmurphy (Sep 18, 2003)

Several people use dye in this area. Talking with one of them he said he used Aquashade. He said the pond benifited from the reduction of sunlight in the water as well as looking nice.

Mark


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## Rodster (Sep 26, 2003)

We use aquashade to keep the sun from penetrating to prevent alge but we have flow in and out so it does not last very long. We have to treat quite a lot. We also treat with copper. Here is a shot of my house after pumping it down to clean it out from years
of sediment. 
Rodster


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

Here is a pic of the pond previous to dyeing it. Its the same pic I took of the project fall of that oak tree.


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

Here is a pic of the pond after dyeing it. It has a green cast to it but its piocking it up off the trees, because if you look at it straight on its a blue green color........and this pic was taken early evening, so it wa not as sunny out so I have to see if I can take a better pic later on.


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## bontai Joe (Sep 16, 2003)

Does the dye hurt the fish? Or the humans that might consume the fish?


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## Rodster (Sep 26, 2003)

Hi Joe
It is not supposed to hurt anything but it will turn you blue
if you get too close putting it in. We use if to keep the sun from
hitting the bottom not for looks.
Rodster


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## guest (Sep 16, 2003)

thats pretty nice chip & rod thanks for the info


I have a ton of algea growing in my pond this year.. its a mess.. so the aquashade helps prevent this? do you fell it works? 


Chip, why did you dye the water? for algea contol also?

i might want to get some... 

BTW: you guys have huge ponds..


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## Stewart (Sep 17, 2003)

I read about the dye and how it doesn't allow light to grow the algea. I would iagine the dye is like the stuff they use on aircraft restrooms, don't get it on you or it will have to wear off!!! I have heard of guys that have dropped stuff in the bowl and fished it out out only to have a blue arm and everybody staring as you walk back to your seat!!! Woops.:hide:

Do a search for pond dye and there are a bunch of sites. It doesn;t look cheap but looks like it will work!


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## Rodster (Sep 26, 2003)

Hi
We use the blue to stop the sunlight from penetrating the water. The more sun that hits the bottom the more the alge grows. We use copper sulfate ( spelling ? ) to break down the alge. Over the years the Alge will decompose on the bottom creating black muck. As the years go by the muck will build up and then you have to dredge it out. We have 24 homes on our pond and it is man made in the middle 60s. We had it dredged two years ago at a cost of $6,500 per home. They botched the job and we have been fighting to get it fixed ever since but
that is another long storey.
Rodster


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## Stewart (Sep 17, 2003)

Ouch $6500 bucks is a lot to shell out at one time!! Sorry to hear that, I hope you get that resolved.


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## guest (Sep 16, 2003)

i was thinking the same thing.. * 24 houses.. thats a lot of cash...


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## Chipmaker (Sep 16, 2003)

> _Originally posted by simple_john _
> *thats pretty nice chip & rod thanks for the info
> 
> 
> ...


Well 99% of ponds in this areas or in the deep south are constructed out of a clay base material or prairie clay and with this material the water is always a grey green color. Then come summer and if you do not have deep water at the ponds banks it doe snot take long for aquatic weeds to start to grow. So algae is basically a must have to sopme extent for some fish, as the fish eat it that are small, larger fish eat those fish etc etc. So some algae is necessary.....but there are lots of kinds of algae, some good most all bad. So now we have a nice poind with a good algae blooml looking like pea soup.....not exactly pretty, but very very good for the fish and other aquatic life. The we get a couple of cloudy overcast days and the temps are in the 90's or triple digits, and you wake up and look out at the pond and it looks like someone poured motor oil in your pond and bombarded it with styrofoam. The algae all died because of lack of direct sunlight which it needs, and the white stuff is all your fish belly up as the algae when it died suffocated the fish. This can all happen from the time the sun goes down to the time the sun comes back up.

By dyeing the water it makes it look a more natural color of typical northern ponds with lots of rock base and depth and colder water (less algae)It also shades the pond and keeps algae growth down so those overcast days don;t do the pond in.
Most southern ponds may be landscaped really neat with lots of tropical plants etc, but the water clarity is usually poor as far as looks go. You would be amazed how fast a southern pond can fill up with algae over a day or two, and how fast water lillies and hyacinth and other aquatic plants will soon overgorw it and you can't even see the water. Only real safe plants to put in are cat tails as around here they seldom grow in water any deeper than about 2 feet, and usually not more than about 2 or three feet from the waters edge, but they do multiply quickly but only around the edges, and not out in the pond itself to amount to anything.


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