Rose Cottage Ltd

Yesterday I wrote about my concerns regarding all this early hot weather, lack of rain, and potential problems for lakes and ponds this summer.

Preferred view…

I mentioned water meal as a pond invader and provided an image of the stuff. Below is a picture of “blooming” algae:

Algae blooms

I’ve spent time the last 3 days scooping this stuff from the lake. It is really nasty. But, if I don’t do something about it now, it WILL add to the breathing problems the lake’s fish will have this year and drastically increase the chance of a major fish kill. I lost around 8 dozen fish in 2007 – I don’t want to see this again.

The fountain, which you can see running at the upper edge of the image, is running 24/7. This will provide the fish with at least one area of the lake that gets additional aeration. It does little to stop the algae though on this 4-acre lake.

Bluegill and Crappie seem most prone to lack of oxygen in pond or lake water. If you see any of them floating dead on the lake surface, you already have a problem. Do whatever you can to keep your pond clear in warm weather months – it’s about all you can do, and sure beats doing nothing. Keep as much debris out of the water as possible, and if you feed your fish, cut back on their food when the weather gets hot.

Here’s a comprehensive link I found about diagnosing problems with lake and pond water year-round. Maybe a windmill is in my future?

Good luck….

I’m less enthused about Summer months than I used to be. I don’t care what the current thoughts are about global warming or not, the air we are breathing is worse than it used to be – high temperatures just make it even worse.

The Piedmont area of North Carolina has already had August weather in May. Way too many days have been in the 90s or upper 90s – at least 15 degrees above normal. We’re also starting this season 2011 the way we did in 2007 which was a drought year. Not good for the lake – or the fish.

I wrote an article on the web site about fish kills and what causes them. I will not be surprised if, despite my efforts, there is another die-off this Summer. I’ve already taken about 3, 5-gallon buckets worth of water meal from the lake’s surface and yesterday, spent a fair amount of time removing large algae blooms. I haven’t seen much string algae on the lake since 2007 so this is not good news. This infiltration of algae and water meal steals or traps oxygen from the lake’s water. Eventually the fish will not be able to breathe and will begin to float towards the surface. In their weakened condition, unable to stay submerged, they will appear floating flat on the surface and then die.

We had a brief respite from the heat most of this week – which was actually just getting back to normal temperatures for this time of year. By Monday coming, we’re back to a high of 97 degrees and the rain we were expecting yesterday never arrived.

I’m going to be running the fountain 24/7 for awhile and will keep removing as much algae and water meal from the lake as is possible. I’ll take some photos today of the algae. Here is an image of the water meal, up close and personal. I didn’t know what this stuff was at first so this picture may help anyone trying to identify the exact nature of their pond’s green slime:

The dreaded water meal…

While I’m out on the boat for the next week or so in hot weather doing this skimming process, I am going to put my mind back to January when the activity for the week was simply splitting firewood and carrying it in to feed the wood stove. No snakes, no ticks, no mosquitoes, no water meal. Just me and my Makita.

Is it Labor Day yet?