Aquacide Blog — Pond Clarifier

While many people jump in the lake to keep cool, living life underwater isn’t always enough to protect fish from the heat. Many people throughout the US have noticed fish struggling at the water surface and washing up onto their shore.  This is due to the heat wave that has hovered over the Midwest over the past few weeks. Fish kills are actually common and do happen every summer, its part of the natural cycle.  Oxygen levels have reached an all time low.  Low oxygen levels combined with high water temperatures cause fish kills that sometimes have people convinced their...

What could squeaky clean dishes and shockingly green lakes have in common? Phosphorus!  Phosphorus has noteworthy connections to both dishwasher detergents and excessive algae growth.  In detergents, it binds with minerals, allowing for more effective washing.  Headlines in the 1960’s suggesting that Lake Erie was “dying” from choking on algae lead to studies that linked excess use of phosphorus by humans to greening lakes.  Many states banned phosphate laundry detergent.  Manufacturers voluntarily stopped adding phosphates to washer suds by the mid-1990’s.  But then, there’s dishwasher detergent.  Echoing the history of phosphate-free laundry detergent, states and communities are now starting to limit...

"Jelly Balls" are not found in every are more common than most people realize.  These gelatinous balls to rocks or sticks on the pond can break loose and float on the water surface. These "Jelly Balls" are a primitive colonial invertebrate known as (common name is moss animals).  They are firm and slimy to the touch and can range from golf ball to basketball size. They are not fish or frog eggs, a form of algae or lake bacteria. Even though they appear to be something out of a science fiction movie or from outer space, they are completely harmless to you and...

THAD COOK HAD BEEN WORKING as a biologist on the Illinois River, a few hours south of Chicago, for nearly a decade when his boat began to fall apart. The depth finder busted first, followed by the radio, the generator, and finally the fuel tank. He wondered if this was related to the stories he’d been hearing from downriver. Weird tales of boats with no drivers, spinning wildly in the water. Men hauled ashore with lacerations. Anglers covered in blood. Then it hit him: a 25-pounder, right in the gut. “It was like a cannonball,” he says. A few weeks...

Fertilization is done to improve the quality of fish growth.  In the United States, fertilization has been used extensively since 1925 as a means for increasing pond productivity. Applying proper pond fertilizer to a lake has the same effect as fertilizing your garden, it increases production.  Research has proven that pounds of fish produced may be increased 300 percent or more by proper fertilization.  How does this happen?   Pond fertilizer increases the small green algae called phytoplankton.  Phytoplankton is eaten by tiny insects called zooplankton. These little insects are eaten by your fish. The more food you produce from fertilization the...