Salt In The Pond?, Should I salt my pond in the spring

[robalana]

The local pond store has told me to add salt to my pond in the spring. Does anyone know why, how much, and what does it do. I have had this pond for 3 years, had very good luck with it so far. This spring I have a lot of green hairy algae. Should I fully clean out the pond even though it is a big one or will starting up my filter system with UV light help to get rid of it. Does the salt help with that also?

[Robyn]

Welcome to the forum!

See my salt page at http://www.fishpondinfo.com/fishcare/salt.htm for more information. I talk about why to use it, dosage, etc. on that page. I put a little salt in my pond in the spring but not the large doses that koi experts say to use. Some people say to only use it for treatment and not to have it in there all the time. I use it in the spring because that's when bacterial problems are at their worst, and salt deters bacteria and fungus.

The UV will only kill things that flow past it. It cannot kill string or attached algae in the pond itself. For more on algae and how to deal with it, see http://www.fishpondinfo.com/plants/algae2.htm
In order for salt to kill algae, you would have to add so much that it would kill any plants that you have and start to harm the animals.

I do suggest at least a partial pond cleaning with some vacuuming or netting of the bottom and a water change. That will help as well as getting your filter going. Do you have live plants? If so, once they get growing, the hair algae will die back. That is already happening in my pond. A few weeks ago, I had hair algae all over my waterfall. Now, the water celery is having a growth spurt, and the algae is almost gone.

Good luck!

[Broxandval]

Hi robalana
Weve been keeping koi for 26 years this year and hardly ever use salt fresh water species do not live in sat water so why use it ?
Yes it was the first cure all and indeed weve used it when our koi have been ill before but you can run into problems by using it such as with Malachite green where if your Ph is 8 it can turn the water toxic against your fish.
This is a risk we are not willing to take, however stories of salt and zeolite i;e if you use zeolite with salt it is supposed to cause the zeolite to discharge all the ammonia it has leached out of the water turn out to be a total myth as the amount of salt you use when your fish are sick is not enough to cause this discharge from occuring it will take much more thn you would use in your pond for this to happen

rgrds
broxandval.