advice on pond?

Question

hello im in florida and i have a 100 gallon water garden with some fantails. i add my bacteria when needed and was wandering why has my pond turned crystal clear over night? during the summer months you can barely see the bottom but last night we had some really cold weather and i woke up to check on fish and to my surprise the pond was crystal clear! anyone know what causes it to do that?

Answer 1

The cold weather had a lot to do with this, especially if accompanied by rain water.
I have seen this happen in Southern California where my maintenance business is, to a few of my customers. With some of my customers, the cooler water (especially in smaller ponds such as yours) would stop algae growth, and most importantly the colder water holds MUCH more disolved oxygen than warmer water. This is very important as nitrifying bacteria need oxygen and the Redox Potential increases with a higher oxygen to dissolved waste particles. Quite simply a higher Redox (best around 300mV) will lead to clearer water.
Clean water (from rain) can also help, but not as much.
Even small lakes that get warm in the summer and have poor inlet and outlet water sources tend to get quite green.

In conclusion, the cooler water enabled your bacteria to "work" better, increased your Redox, and slowed algae growth.

For more about the Redox Potential, please see this article;
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/Redox_Potential.html

Answer 2

I think that either your released bacteria decomposed all the organic & suspended matters over night or the suspended matters those were creating obstruction in your sight were settled down, so the pond was crystal clear. Thank you very much.

Answer 3

The only thing that I can think of is the cold either killed off or at least made dormant the free floating beneficial bacteria that was clouding the water.

Answer 4

The cold killed off some bad things that were clouding the water or everything settled to the bottom!