an interesting exchange

[darkmuse]

that might be telling you your water has some higher nutrient numbers; it would be interesting to check your water from the well. I'm wondering if you have more than usual phosphates, possibly iron (that might turn it a red color from the iron bacteria; ask me how I know!). Ever tested?

Yep tested the well water long ago and it was fine. Can't give you details as it was so long ago.
Everything was going great till the fish number grew and grew.

yeah, figured your well water must be fine--you'd have had other issues by now. And I tested a long time ago too, before I had the pond as I was 'new' to having well water. Hard to believe since I live in Suburbia and all around me is 'civilization' that this little neck of the woods here didn't have city water when I built the house back in '87. It has it now, but I figured I paid a pretty penny to have the well put in and it was only 10 years after city water came through...in retrospect, it was a very good decision as I don't have to pay to water my lawn (well, elect bill) no matter how high they want to jack the rates, and of course, free pond water! Was interesting when I did the expansion as by that time, I knew I didn't have to use a hose to fill, just had to tap into the much larger sprinkler pipes I had running through the yard. Filled pretty quickly!

IF you ever run across another test kit (for phosphates is my leaning here), it still might be interesting to know if your well is putting out anything higher than you suspect. I even wonder if the county/city/state you live in has free well testing kits. I'd almost bet they do. Or, here's another way to find it; I went and located MY well on the county map/registers as this is public info. On that report, they showed me the original well digger (whose number I'd lost as it had been 33 years ago) so lucked out and got back in touch when I needed the pump replace. But I say this because maybe there's ALSO a record of water purity for YOUR aquifer. You'd just have to sleuth a bit because I bet there's records and they might have the different elements/hardness, etc listed out. It would at least give you an idea. And I realize it would be better to do a current test but if your aquifer is deep, you might be in luck (re quality etc). I suspect it's fine, though.

that's a good idea to look up a well by county deeds. Wonder if @j.w will find anything useful?

[j.w]

Yep tested the well water long ago and it was fine. Can't give you details as it was so long ago.
Everything was going great till the fish number grew and grew.

yeah, figured your well water must be fine--you'd have had other issues by now. And I tested a long time ago too, before I had the pond as I was 'new' to having well water. Hard to believe since I live in Suburbia and all around me is 'civilization' that this little neck of the woods here didn't have city water when I built the house back in '87. It has it now, but I figured I paid a pretty penny to have the well put in and it was only 10 years after city water came through...in retrospect, it was a very good decision as I don't have to pay to water my lawn (well, elect bill) no matter how high they want to jack the rates, and of course, free pond water! Was interesting when I did the expansion as by that time, I knew I didn't have to use a hose to fill, just had to tap into the much larger sprinkler pipes I had running through the yard. Filled pretty quickly!

IF you ever run across another test kit (for phosphates is my leaning here), it still might be interesting to know if your well is putting out anything higher than you suspect. I even wonder if the county/city/state you live in has free well testing kits. I'd almost bet they do. Or, here's another way to find it; I went and located MY well on the county map/registers as this is public info. On that report, they showed me the original well digger (whose number I'd lost as it had been 33 years ago) so lucked out and got back in touch when I needed the pump replace. But I say this because maybe there's ALSO a record of water purity for YOUR aquifer. You'd just have to sleuth a bit because I bet there's records and they might have the different elements/hardness, etc listed out. It would at least give you an idea. And I realize it would be better to do a current test but if your aquifer is deep, you might be in luck (re quality etc). I suspect it's fine, though.

that's a good idea to look up a well by county deeds. Wonder if @j.w will find anything useful?

I do have our well water report from the county when we first moved in and our well was high in iron and the water had a yellow color to it but that went away after awhile. Nobody here in our 5 house hood have had our water tested since the 5 houses were built at the same time. We keep saying we should get it tested but nobody ever does. My pond fish were living well and fine for many many years. When there got to be way too many fish is when the problems started.

[solaria5505]

I have well water and don't pay too much in regards to the electricity to pump the water out of the well so I will continue to do the slow water in slow water out deal. Seems to help for me. If you don't add too much water it doesn't cloud up but too much and yep cloudy and green.

so you don't have to put in anything for the chlorine then, right? I've heard well water can be bad for fish if it's straight from the well, though, is that not right? Do you have to test your water? I've used rain water sometimes to fill up the pond but it's small so I dont' need much.

Nope I don't need to put anything into the water as the well water tested fine long ago. I guess well water could be bad for some if certain things were in there in too large amounts. I used to test my water but after doing it for so long I just quit as everything was going fine. I know that if I tested it awhile back it might have been high in nitrates as I had a lot of fish but now I don't. Things have settled down now and fish are doing better. Rain does come and fill up my pond but rain is kind of acidic so too much might not be good for a pond I hear.

does your pond get a lot of rain? If the rain is acidic, you don't wrorry about that? I never thought of rain doing that to my pond. What kind of test do Ineed?