[Pretty Chick]

Can anyone give me any tips on how to clear my pond of green algae?
Many thanks in advance  .

[spottymint]

Hi

Algae in a pond is normally caused by excess nutrients.

Increasing the number of pond plants to use up the nutrients is one way, as well as changing upto 50% of the pond water with rain water (less nutrients in rainwater & no nasty Chlorine)

Do you have plants ?
Fish ?
Filter ?

You can add a UV light to a filter to kill free floating algae, but more plants & a water change will sort it.

Fish poo & vegetation breaks down & feeds the algae.

[Rangerkris]

Barley straw bales or barley straw extracts from local pet store, add a water pump to increase the flow of the pond.

[sunshineband]

Barley straw bales or barley straw extracts from local pet store, add a water pump to increase the flow of the pond.

Barley straw pads do work well 

[Pretty Chick]

Okay, thank you everyone  .

Do you have plants ?
Fish ?
Filter ?

1) Yes, there are plants in our pond
2) No, we don't have any fish in our pond (used to, but a snake ate them all  ).
3) No, there's no filter

[JayG]

Water lilies have very pretty flowers and the leaves help to filter the sunlight entering the water so less algae. There are many marginal plants which are also quite decorative and help remove excess nutrients from the water

A healthy pond will always have algae growing at some times of the year; if you have no fish what is it that you can't see clearly enough?

[Pretty Chick]

Water lilies have very pretty flowers and the leaves help to filter the sunlight entering the water so less algae. There are many marginal plants which are also quite decorative and help remove excess nutrients from the water

Yes, I think water lilies would be nice  . I'll look in to getting some.

A healthy pond will always have algae growing at some times of the year; if you have no fish what is it that you can't see clearly enough?

Our pond is covered in a blanket of thick algae and needs to be cleaned out. It would be nice to have fish again, but there is definitely too much algae at the moment.

[JayG]

Touch wood, I've never had blanketweed in my pond, but apparently most of it can be removed by twirling it round a rough stick or similar, and again, not tried it but barley straw does seem to help manage the problem.

The real solution is to try and re-establish a balance between the nutrients in the water and the plants that you do want to grow; oxygenators, water lilies and marginal plants all help in the battle to defeat algae, but don't forget that in autumn and winter all the nutrients will be returned to the water if you don't at least try to remove the dying foliage.

Hope this doesn't make it all sound rather difficult; once you get the "mix" right you shouldn't need to spend much time at all on maintenance!