Algae in Sight: Pollen and Blossoms as Growth Engines

The flowers are blooming and the allergy sufferers know it only too well: the pollen count! We can see the powdery yellow coating on our cars and on the forest paths. The pollen count and small leaves are floating through the air and reaching our ponds in huge amounts. This doesn’t only look bad, it also means an increase of nutrients in the pond water. Deposits from the atmosphere, from so-called diffuse sources, the nutrient concentration in starting water (e.g. well water or groundwater in the countrysite) or nutrients in water from the flowerbeds around the pond are also considerable sources.

Phosphates, which cause strong algae growth, are the main problem. If you don’t act now unwanted layers of algae (thread algae) or green water (floating algae) will cloud your view into the pond very soon. Many natural lakes are struggling with this problem right now.

What needs to be done?

1. Binding nutrients: the most important step is to bind the excess nutrients. They enter the pond throughout the sunny season, which makes a continuous binding necessary. The special filter material JBL PhosEX Pond Filter is particularly suitable for this. It is integrated into the water circuit of the filter and absorbs the phoshphate of the water as it passes. In order to quickly and effectively bind larger amounts of phosphate you can add JBL PhosEX Pond Direct as a liquid to the pond water at 5-7 day intervals to absorb the free floating phosphates inside the water. The nutrients are precipitated and removed from the pond bottom by the filter, or siphoned by a pond vacuum cleaner.

2. Mechanical removal: with the increasing entry of pollen and blossoms into the pond the filter media will clog faster. Therefore clean your filter media regularly to mechanically remove the nutrients, bound in the sludge before they can dissolve in the water.

3. Skimming the water surface: before pollen, blossoms and insects have a chance to sink from the surface to the ground they can be mechanically removed by a surface skimmer. Clean the pond daily and separate the phosphate sources from the pond system before they dissolve in the water.

To keep the risk of algae under control a water test ( JBL PROAQUATEST PO4 Phosphate Sensitive ) will help you to determine the unwanted algae nutrient phosphate. Only when you look behind the scenes to control your pond water can you prevent algae before they develop.

But be careful: a water test only determines the free floating phosphates in the water. The moment they are absorbed by the algae the test can’t measure them anymore. Only after their release, when the algae die, are they dissolved in the water again.

© 23.05.2016
Matthias Wiesensee
Matthias Wiesensee
M.Sc. Wirtschaftsinformatik

Social Media, Online Marketing, Homepage, Kundenservice, Problemlöser, Fotografie, Blogger, Tauchen, Inlineskating, Aquaristik, Gartenteich, Reisen, Technik, Elektronische Musik

About me: Seit Teenagerzeiten mit Aquarien in Kontakt. Klassische Fischaquarien, reine Pflanzenaquarien bis hin zum Aquascape. Aber auch ein Gartenteich und Riffaquarien begleiten mich privat im Hobby. Als Wirtschaftsinformatiker, M.Sc. bin ich als Online Marketing Manager bei JBL für die Bereiche Social Media, Webentwicklung und der Kommunikation mit dem Anwender der JBL Produkte zuständig und kenne die JBL Produkte im Detail.

Comments

A word about cookies before we continue

The JBL Homepage also uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: We require technical and functional cookies to ensure that everything works when you visit this website. We also use cookies for marketing purposes. This ensures that we recognise you when you visit our extensive site again, that we can measure the success of our campaigns and that the personalisation cookies allow us to address you individually and directly, adapted to your needs - even outside our website. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not allow (more on this under "Change settings").

The JBL website uses several types of cookies to provide you with full functionality and many services: Technical and functional cookies are absolutely necessary so that everything works when you visit this website. In addition, we use cookies for marketing purposes. You can determine at any time - even at a later date - which cookies you allow and which you do not (more on this under "Change settings").

Our data protection declaration tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. tells you how we process personal data and what purposes we use the data processing for. Please confirm the use of all cookies by clicking "Accept" - and you're on your way.

Are you over 16 years old? Then confirm the use of all cookies with "Noticed" and you are ready to go.

Choose your cookie settings

Technical and functional cookies, so that everything works when you visit our website.
Marketing cookies, so that we recognize you on our pages and can measure the success of our campaigns.
I accept the YouTube Terms of Service and confirm that I have read and understood the YouTube Terms of Service .

PUSH messages from JBL

What are PUSH messages? As part of the W3C standard, web notifications define an API for end-user notifications that are sent to the user's desktop and/or mobile devices via the browser. Notifications appear on the end devices as they are familiar to the end user from apps installed on the device (e.g. emails). Notifications appear on the end user’s device, just like an app (e.g. for emails) installed on the device.

These notifications enable a website operator to contact its users whenever they have a browser open - it doesn’t matter whether the user is currently visiting the website or not.

To be able to send web push notifications, all you need is a website with a web push code installed. This allows brands without apps to take advantage of many of the benefits of push notifications (personalised real-time communications at just the right moment).

Web notifications are part of the W3C standard and define an API for end user notifications. A notification makes it possible to inform the user about an event, such as a new blog post, outside the context of a website.

JBL GmbH & Co. KG provides this service free of charge, and it is easy to activate or deactivate.