Any suggestions on how to rid a pond of a green slim. Ever since it filled up from all the rains, there is a green, floating slim looking junk on it. It's not hurting the fish, but making it a hassle trying to fish it. Any ideas on what it could be from, and how to get rid of it. I'm not able to get pictures of it right now, but will try and post some next week when I get back up to it.

WHAT IS CUTRINE-PLUS? CUTRINE-PLUS is an algaecide which controls existing algae and inhibits rapid re-infestation. Cutrine-plus is available in individual one gallon bottles or by the case. Each case contains four one gallon bottles.
I have a 3/4 acre pond 12 oz to 5 gallon in a pump spray once a month keep in cleaned. But it at Trackor Supply

Yes, what you have is Algae. Cutrine Plus is the product of choice. If you can spray when the algae is fresh and green and apply the product early in the morning on a bright sunny day you will get great results. When the algae turns brownish in color that means it's not growing very rapidly and you will have to up the treatment rate and add a good surfactant like Cide Kick II.
The real problem is caused by excessive nutrients and sunlight. If the water is very clear (you can see more than 18-24") you are getting too much sunlight and this is fueling the algae growth, using a lake dye can help limit this. Also you should try to prevent excessive runoff from the lawn etc, if you fertilize the land around the pond stop a good 50' from the waters edge. Also establishing the growth of desired plants, like Iris or Pickerel weed, can help absorb nutrients. There's a lot of stuff that can be done to help prevent algae. If you have trouble controlling it holler back, I'll be glad to help you if I can.

Have you considered stocking Tilapia for algae control and chemicals only as a last resort?
I have severeal years sucessful experience with tilapia, springtime stocking when water warms above 55 degrees.
Die off in late fall/early winter to prevent over population.

Not only will they control the algae, but provide a good forage base for your bass.

ML has more experieance with tilapia than any one I know of and perhaps he will chime in.

throw some tires in the tank, trust me.

Malusch,

You have options for getting rid of it. Chemicals and/or natural solutions. Rather than speculate, let's due a little logical, comparative analysis on Cutrine plus vs Tilapia.

How large is the pond? Just for fun let's assume its 1 acre with an average depth of 4 feet.

That's 4 acre feet of water. Cutrine-plus treatment generally takes about 1 gallon per acre foot (sometimes more, sometimes less) So, that means 4 gallons of Cutrine-plus. That's just for one treatment...several treatments during the growing season may be required. Let's say, your pond is about average and requires 4 treatments during the growing season. That's 16 gallons. The price ranges from $30 to $50 per gallon. Let's take the low end say $35 per gallon. So, for season long treatment we're talking $560....just talking $ and cents now, not to mention the possible unintended consequences for using chemicals in a pond that you consume fish out of and/or use for watering livestock.

Next, consider Tilapia. You can get season long control by stocking at 10 pounds per acre. In a 1 acre pond that's 10 pounds at $10 per pound or $100 for season long control. Now, if you are like me and love to eat Tilapia, at the end of the growing season, you can easily, easily catch 10 pounds of Tilapia...in fact much more can be harvested but let's just take the low end and say 10 pounds. You get your money back in some of the best eating fillets you will ever taste. Plus, during the growing season you have provided tremendous forage to your LMB and you have enabled your bluegill population to expand considerably to provide great winter time forage for your LMB.

The expression "no-brainer" is often overused but in this case it applies. There simply is no contest...Tilapia wins hands down by any measure you can apply.

Assume less treatments, less chemical per acre, and still Tilapia wins hands down.

This is why I've been an advocate for Tilapia in ponds for many years...and even if the math wasn't so favorable, I would still go for Tilapia because of the many benefits they provide and because you can avoid using chemicals in your pond.

In my own operation, I'm pretty much self-sustaining. I overwinter Tilapia for re-stocking each spring. Hence, my costs are even less than the above analysis. Plus, this year, for example, we took out an estimated 100 pounds of Tilapia at the end of the season. We will be eating good all winter on those fish as will those friends and family who visited my place and took Tilapia fillets home with them.

Meadowlark, I dont know exactly where your at but Ive seen ALOT of your posts and it sounds like your place is pretty much heaven. How does one get to check the place out, maybe fish it, and hang out with ya talkin bout pond stuff all day?

I agree that Tilapia can be used successfully to help limit Algae growth. However, in my area the growing season is too long and intense for Tilapia to be able to keep up with the growth rate. Now I have to say that most of the ponds that I manage are done so from the aesthetic perspective, meaning the owners won't tolerate any amount of vegetation on the water. You are probably not managing yours for that purpose and shouldn't unless you plan on replacing that habitat with alternate structure.
Meadow Lark's scenario is partially correct; you may save money by only stocking Tilapia and not doing any chemical treatments. However I wouldn't figure on treating the entire water column (the entire 4 ac. foot) when only a small portion of the pond is actually experiencing an algae problem. Typically algae is going to be limited in its growth to shallow areas of the pond where the sunlight is able to penetrate to the bottom of pond. (plants need sunlight to grow) this is usually around the perimeter of the pond where the waters are very shallow. For a 1 acre pond you can probably get by with using a quart of Cutrine per treatment. But I would say that you can expect to treat around 6 times per year if you live around the Houston area. So that would be 1.5 gallons of Cutrine per season at $45 per gallon would be about $68 for Cutrine plus, your time and effort.
In my opinion the drawback to using Tilapia is first of all they reproduce rapidly. They are mouth brooders, meaning they hold their young in their mouths until they are big enough to survive. This gives them a phenomenal survival rate plus they can spawn every 2 weeks during the entire growing season. This can add up to high numbers of fish. That�s not a bad thing when you have a hungry bass population; however I have found that Tilapia will compete with your Bluegill and other Native forms of forage fish. Should your forage population already be in poor condition there is the possibility that Tilapia can further damage your natural forage base. Native species typically spawn 2-4 times per year and only at certain times. Swarms of young Tilapia will almost always be present and will have the first opportunity to consume the available food sources leaving little for the native species. This is not a problem if you plan to stock tilapia every year but personally I like to go with the native species. Another down fall of Tilapia�s spawning activity is that, even though they raise their young in their mouths they still build nests, tons of them. This can reduce spawning grounds for native fish. The process of building their nest may also kick-up silt that can settle on and suffocate the nests of other fish that leave their eggs in the nest to hatch (as opposed to the mouth brooding that tilapia do). Additionally if you feed your fish a commercial feed Tilapia will readily consume this feed and then not be forced to consume the vegetation that you want them to eat.
Again this is just my opinion but, stocking Tilapia can be effective but I would recommend that you commit to restocking every year. The use of products such as Cutrine can be effective but require more work and effort. The best option is the use of an IPM program. IPM is Integrated Pest Management, and employs a host of different methods to achieve the same results. For example an IPM program to control algae might be as follows.
1. Use of Dye to limit sunlight penetration (sunlight is a major factor in algae growth)
2. Planting of Natural vegetation to compete for available nutrients, Iris etc.

3. Stocking low numbers of Tilapia or Grass Carp for additional control of algae
4. Aeration to promote Aerobic bacteria that can consume nutrients
5. Use of Cutrine as needed to ensure the desired results
This type of approach gives the short term results that you desire but also has things in place for the long term.
The bottome line is there are many different options and you have to find the one that works for you.

Thanks for all of the suggestions. The pond is maybe 1/4 acre. This stuff just floats around. Wind from the west, stuff to the east etc..... I will be up there for Christmas and will try and get some decent pictures of it. There are tires in it from the catfish days, and not a lot of grass in it.

http://s719.photobucket.com/albums/ww195...pg&newest=1
http://s719.photobucket.com/albums/ww195...pg&newest=1
Hopefully these pictures come up. It's not really a slime, but looks like grass seeds. Although there is a green slime that usually comes in the summer.

That looks more like duckweed to me.

looks more like Watermeal - Wolfia Columbiana most likely, there are 3 types of Watermeal and 7 duckweeds and also Mosquito fern that all look similar. See the photo here, interesting fact - Watermeal is the smallest flowering plant in the world. http://s739.photobucket.com/albums/xx31/greenalgaecontrol/?action=view&current=ADW.jpg
As you've probably heard Grass Carp are picky eaters and this vegetation is about #5 or 6 on the preferred food list, you may get some results from them and Tilapia but it looks to me that you have some underlying issues that are contributing to the problem.
From looking at the picture it looks like you have some submerged vegetation that is holding a lot of the Watermeal in place. If this vegetation ranks higher on the grass carps food preferrences they will consume it first and never have to eat the watermeal.
I would have to know what type of vegetation you have growing from the bottom to make firm recommendations but just trowing ideas out there I would say treat with "Sonar" once a year and your problems would be minimal after that.
The problem with submerged vegetation is that as it grows near the surface it give algae a place to start growing. Algae, since it has to true leaves or stems, cant support itself and therefore can't grow upto the surface from deep water, but when the rooted vegetation nears the surface the algae plays piggy back off of the rooted plants. So in effect if you control the rooted plants you will severely limit the amount of algae that you have to deal with.
Watermeal is controlled by "Sonar" so provided the rooted vegetation that you have is also controlled by "Sonar" you could do one treatment in the spring and then be able to enjoy a clean weed free pond the remainder of the year. See our website for more info on "Sonar" http://www.greenalgaecontrol.com/green_algae_control_lake_management_007.htm
BTW if you look up Sonar on the web you'll find that the price is VERY high, like $2,000 per gallon, but for the volume of water that you have you would only need a few ounces. If you have some measurements of the pond and average depths I could give you an estimate of what it would cost to do a "Sonar" treatment.
For example if you had a .5 ac pond with an average depth of 4' and you were to treat for Coontail and Watermeal you would only need roughly 7 oz of Liquid Sonar and 3 lbs of granular Sonar, that's about $200 worth of product for nearly 12 months of full control.
There are still other things to consider about A Sonar treatment. Since it will kill 100% of weeds that are controlled by Sonar you need to be sure that you have ample cover for your fish to maintain the proper habitat. Vegetation is habitat and if you kill all of it and don't have brush piles and things of that nature your fishery could suffer because of it. There are no water use restrictions with Sonar other than you can't irrigate with the water for 45 days, there are no fish consumption restrictions or anything of that nature, infact you can swim and you could even drink the water if you were so inclined.
Hope this gives you some more info on where you stand with the pond. If you have more questions or want more info on what we've already thrown out there we'd be glad to help.
Best of Luck!

I really appreciate all the responses. A little more info. on this tank. The tank is at full pool right now. Center of it is 14ft deep. At the end of the pier is 8ft. It is like this all the way around, so finding an average depth ?. This tank was 9ft down this past summer. Bermuda grass grew all around it. The only structure in this tank are 2 brush piles made of Christmas trees which we put in about 3 yrs. ago. A few old stumps, and a newly fell willow tree. Two weeks of good rains back in Sept. filled it back up. My father-in-law has used Carmax in it over the years with good results, however he said he put some in it 2 weeks ago, and it hasn't touched it. I will foward this information to him, and see if we can come up with some type of solution. Thanks again

careful what you put in your pond. Carmax is not labeled for aquatic use, using a product outside of it's labeled use would be a violation of federal law. Not that they ever come and check on that sort of thing but there is a reason it's not labled for aquatic use. The active ingredient in Carmax can accumulate and/ or biomagnify in fish so there are some serious health concerns with that product. I would stick to aquatic herbicides that are approved for such use, they are more expensive but they are tested, researched and safe.

If the submerged vegetation were Coontail it would take about $220 worth of Sonar to provide 10-12 months control. But I would definately improve teh structure, Christmas trees are good but usually only last for 1-2 years before they are so open and decayed that they don't offer much refuge. A downed willow tree is great structure but I would put atleast one and probably two decent sized brushpiles in. Remember that structure is for protecting your forage fish and not necessarily for your bass.

Chemicals only as a last resort....that's my approach. A combo of 1 or 2 grass carp and 5 pounds of Tilapia next spring will do wonders for your pond...and you can rest easy knowing you haven't ruined your pond for future generations.

Sometimes the problem is better to have than the solution....and Karmax is a good example of that. I'd much rather have weeds than have that stuff in my ponds...and I feel the same way about most other chemicals.