An unhappy pond usually announces itself. The water goes green, or a hair-like growth floats up, or the edge smells before you see anything wrong. Those are different stages, and they do not all want the same first product.
Healthy Ponds products have been clearing ponds since 1999. They are not algaecides. They do not kill algae outright. Natural Blast works through the water in about a week. AquaSphere PRO sinks and releases bacteria for about 30 days. Rush is for what you can see on the surface. Muck Pellets are for sludge in a particular spot. Pond dye waits until the water is clear.
A green tint, or soup in the water
Suspended debris and a light green colour are the early stage. This is the moment that is still cheap to treat. Start with Natural Blast, then a sphere about every 30 days so the nutrients do not rebuild. Dye only after it has cleared, to cut some light in the shallows. The seasonal version of this is green water in spring.
If it has already gone thick and stringy, put Natural Blast and AquaSphere PRO in together, then Blast again on day 7 and day 14, and a fresh sphere every 30 days. That is the same start as getting the pond ready for summer. Add Rush where the growth is sitting on top. On a fish pond, use half the Rush dose and keep the water aerated, because breaking down a mat uses oxygen.
Pea-soup water, a bright scum, or a mat that might be blue-green is a different case. That can be toxic to people, pets and stock. Do not swim in it, and do not draw it for animals, until it has gone. Do not tip a chemical algaecide on it. Breaking those cells can release more toxin. Call 09 415 0300 before you treat, and read the warning in the green-water guide.
Sludge on the bottom
A layer of muck on the bottom is last year’s leaves, stock waste and dead growth, and it is where a lot of the nutrients are stored. AquaSphere PRO is the treatment for the whole bottom. Muck Pellets sink onto the worst spots: the shallow end, around a jetty, the corner the wind fills. Rush is not the bottom treatment. It is for matter floating on top. Vacuuming or digging the sludge out is sometimes needed, and anything you remove has to leave the catchment or you have only moved the problem.
A smell
Smell is nutrients and rot, usually at the edge and in the sludge. The sequence that matches the product advice is Natural Blast on day 1, again on day 15, and on day 30 together with a sphere. Keep going until the smell drops, then a sphere each month. If the pong is only on the wet edge, say so when you call. The water-column products and an edge problem are not always the same fix.
Weeds, and a pond that is clear for now
Plants taking the edge or the surface need a name before a product. Aquatic weed control, duckweed and emergent weeds on the edge cover the three common patterns. Muskgrass, or Chara, is awkward because it comes back from spores and fragments, and raking often misses it. That is a conversation, not a bag off the shelf.
A pond that looks fine in October can still turn in December. If the water is already clear, start the sphere now and repeat it monthly through the warm months, rather than waiting for the colour. That timing is written out in the summer guide.
Not sure which job you are looking at? Send a photo through the free pond treatment plan, or call 09 415 0300.
