Keep Ponds & Lakes Clean and Healthy

Question: What are some ways that homeowners and property managers can help keep their ponds and lakes clean and healthy?

Answer: This is the most important question that can be asked by a pond owner or a manager of a pond. Restoring a pond to its optimal self can be a lengthy process. Homeowners and property managers can do many things on their own to help maintain a healthy pond. You’d be surprised how much little things like not fertilizing your lawn closer than 15 feet from a pond, keeping grass clippings out of a pond, creating a healthy buffer of beneficial plants around the pond—all those three things greatly reduces nutrient loads in the pond, which helps reduce algae blooms and other nuisance vegetation.

The property owners and property managers, just by thinking about the health of their pond when they are doing landscaping elsewhere, can have a great impact on the pond. Where do you find the most algae? You find the most algae around golf courses. You find the most algae in the deed-restricted neighborhoods, where everybody wants to have the bright-green, weed-free lawns, everybody’s out there trying to beat their neighbor who has the best yards. And what they end up doing is adding way too much nitrogen, way too much phosphorus to the areas surrounding a pond, and eventually it gets in there and it causes problems.

Also, purchasing grass carp is an easy step homeowners can make towards improving their ponds. The purchase of fountains and aerators also improves the site with aesthetic appeal and added oxygen and the reduction of airborne pests like mosquitos.