Question
I have a pond which is about 5yrs old 12x10x4. Last yr I emptied it and scrubbed down the liner and refilled. I have a good filter
and backwash on a regular basis I have fish but feed very rarely.
I have water lilies and some marginals and although the plants and fish seem to be doing ok the pond is very cloudy.
I did get string aglae I think from buying plants so I treated the pond for that and it cleared up within a couple of days.
However, I can see to the bottom of the pond but the water seems to be"dusty" in that if I lift up a floating plant I have loads of particles that come out of the roots and it soils the water,the plants have a coating of this " dust like material"
the fish do stir up material as they nibble at the sides of the pond which makes me think that there is something there that they like, but there is a sediment that seems to be in the water all the time. I have searched online to try and find out if this is an algae what it could be and how to fix but no luck  Any ideas
I live in Canada hot summers and the pond is in full sun most of the day, and I am hoping my floating plants will grow quickly to help cover the surface.

Answer
Hello Dorothy,

Thank you for your mail and question. The answer is harder to answer as it looks from a distance as I can not see the type of dust in the pond.
However the dust in the pond can be from trees or from the ground of the plants.
I don't know if you have a filter and if so a prefilter.
Most clear ponds have a filter where a first part would take care of the floating debris.

So a few thing are possible:
Algae, come in the water not by plants, there are always there. However the come visible as they grow hard thanks to the feed they receive. Feed for algae are ground, debris from fish, plants etc.
The only way to reduce this is by good and large filtering or waterchanges.
Due to the full sun they tend to grow even quicker and than a UV lamp with 2 Watts per square meter of water may be necessary. chemicals only tend to eliminate the problem just for a time and will not resolve the problem. You need to reduce de dissolved debris.

The dust however can most often be removed by filtering with a filter that contains a fine filter. or a chamber with filterbrushes.
This combined with a skimmerfunction ensures clearer water.

Hope this helps.

Good luck!

Regards,
Raf