Barley straw extract mistake

Hi all,

Was having a bit of a blanket weed nightmare, so on top of Ramshorn snails and pulling it out by hand, I thought I'd try some barley straw.
I saw gel balls and also some liquid, so went for that the latter.
All was going well until one week I put too much in the watering can and thought, it'll be ok.....

Oops! My lilies have turnes yellow and all the stems have curled up. Most other things look 'ok' some of the marsh marigolds are a bit questionable.
I have flushed the water with as much rain water as I have.

I guess the lillys might recover? No idea about all the wildlife, I read it reduces oxygen.
I can see some normal snails in there.

What a stupid mistake!

And to top it off, the blanket weed isn't affected!

 

Barley straw is used as it produces hydrogen peroxide as it decays.It does take quite a time to notice the improvement.
I assume that 'extract' is hydrogen peroxide, well known to many 'blondes'..... Overdosing will be destructive, perhaps you could run an aquarium bubbler to assist your pondlife.

 

We have used large cut grass bundles and put them in an old orange bag and dropped into the pond. This has been very effective.

 

I tried using a bale of barley in my pond, which seemed to make no difference. I would try to do a partial water change if you are worried. Take out as many buckets of water as you can manage, counting them, and replace with the same number of tap water; never do more than a 50% water change. It works in tropical aquariums, so it should work in an outdoor pond.

 

Barley straw is generally pretty effective. Ideally remove as much blanketweed as possible as you really don't want large quantities of dead blanketweed falling to the bottom of the pond.

 

Barley straw never worked for me, watercress has, although you have to keep pulling some out right through summer, every bucket full is another batch of nutrients removed.

 

I've done two water changes (not all of it) from the water butts, but I'm pretty much out now and don't want to use tap water, although I think I've killed most things in the pond, so probably wouldn't matter.

The water lilies have nothing left now, not sure if they will come back or not.
The marsh marigolds looks bad.
The blanket weed is still there, it's done nothing to it!
The oxygenators looks ok, though it has affected some.

I found a dead Ramshorn snails today, so fear they are all dead, although I have other types of snails alive.

 

Water changes just add fresh nutrients to the pond, you are trying to create a natural balance, that can take time sometimes a couple of years.
If you add plants in crates, again you add more nutrients so don't add too many new ones at once.
You need plants that grow roots just into water, they are the ones which extract the nutrients from the water and eventually starve the algae.

 

I was only trying to reduce the overdose of barley straw extract, which was killing everything.
Seemed the better choice, maybe it wasn't?

 

Oh OK,yes see your point.