Pond Foam

Our UV light got clogged with hard water deposits six months after it began running, which caused an even worse problem.   The water got cloudy, and the foam was a foot deep at the waterfall!   However, the foam is an indication of particulate matter suspended in the water.  The bubbles are actually a cleansing action as the particles cling to the film on the bubbles.  If there is a way of skimming off the foam, then it would keep the pond clear.  However, a skimmer can cause problems by skimming off food particles away from the fish.

The pennywort was part of the problem with the foam.  

Our koi pond was built January, 2008. By next year the balancing problems should begin to even out.

We had been given 10 goldfish, some of them 10" in length, and it may have proved to be a bit much for the pond, although the landscaper assured me it would be okay.  We didn't count on the UV light becoming useless with the hard deposits gathering around the lens!  I was frantically doing water changes, and we went from back-washing the filter once a week to every other day.  Nothing really helped until I called the landscaper to check out the filtering system to see what was wrong.  It was $35 well-spent, as he took apart the UV light assembly and found out what was happening, and then thoroughly cleaned it with alcohol.  It has taken weeks for the pond to regain the clarity, but that was the problem with it.  The foam was cut down to a fraction of the problem it was after that servicing, and since removing the pennywort plants. 

Another factor in the foam problem was the intense spawing season we had with the larger fish!  We ended up with 100+ fry (unable to count exactly as they move way too fast), and 10% water changes are needed after a spawning session.  There are supposed to be two spawning sessons  during the year, one in spring, and one in summer.  We are not sure what to do with all of these baby fish, at this point, but watching them grow has been both exciting, and illuminating!

After all of this, the foam persisted.  After some scrutiny of how the filter was handling the particulate matter, we had noticed since it was newly installed that whenever we backwashed this filter, a large portion of the filtered particulates flowed back into the pond, creating very dirty waterfalls, and landing on the bottom of the bog side, and this debris was very deep.

My fish have become stressed out, bashing themselves against the sides and losing scales, maybe some are ill, and some of the baby goldies have died, and they are continuing to die.  So far, the death count is around 28.

This is the best I can get it.  This is after backwashing, scooping out debris, taking out uneaten food, a 10% water change, and general back-breaking work to keep the pond clear, it still is quite foamy.

I ordered an Oase Pondovac 3 for this pond to take care of the particulate matter that is accumulating in the bottom of the bog, and that will help my pond out a lot.  The point is, this was unnecessary to have to do.  Vacuuming out leaves and excess silt out of the bottom is necessary, but having to supplement for taking out the particulates the filter has already taken out is ridiculous, in my view. It means spraying by the hose to get out the particulates that accumulate in the waterfalls that continually comes through the filter, too.  

There will soon be an update on how we will remedy this problem with the Oase Biotech filter.  The company has responded to my emails, and they are hoping to help us out.  Already the solution seems to be to slow down the water flow through the filter.  The pump is quite oversized for this pond.  More on this when we get the absolute solution.