Biological Options in Lake & Pond Management

Non-Chemical Treatments for Water Quality in Lake & Pond Management

We understand that herbicides and/or algaecides are not the sole answer and try to incorporate non-chemical strategies whenever possible.  These strategies may include the following:

• Aquatic Dye – Aquatic dye is dual purposed in that it can provide a beautiful natural aesthetic while safely limiting sunlight.  In many shallow ponds, sunlight is a driving factor to nuisance level plant growth.  Aquatic dye is a safe way to limit sunlight, thus limiting one of the factors that may cause nuisance level plant or algae growth. 
• Benthic Mats – Benthic mats are a chemical free way to kill weeds in small areas by removing sunlight.  These specialized mats are great for small areas of plant control such as dock areas, beach areas, swim areas and more.  We both sell and install benthic mats. 
• Bacteria & Enzymes – These products are not chemicals but provide benefits to not only help with nutrients but also with the breakdown of organic matter/muck.  Consider it similar to a probiotic for your pond.  Many of these products should be added regularly as maintenance doses, so often times we will incorporate this strategy in to your pond maintenance program.
• BioChar – Simply put, biochar is a highly adsorbent, specially-produced charcoal originally used as a soil amendment. Similar to charcoal, biochar is produced using the ancient practice of heating wood or other plant material (biomass) with little to no oxygen.  Water & Wetland sells, installs and utilizes biochar socks within our management programs when applicable, to assist in filtering nutrients, contaminants and odors from waterbodies.  While we recommend this be incorporated into a program which also utilizes other strategies, biochar is a low cost addition to integrated programs to utilize an additional non-chemical technique. 
• DASH & Hand-Pulling – When aquatic invasive species are caught early, manual removal is many times the best approach.  Diver assisted suction harvesting, or DASH for short, is a manual removal strategy for plants like milfoil or fanwort, etc. that allows for divers to manually remove the target plants within small areas and bag them on shore.  Additionally, hand-pulling may be appropriate for a water chestnut project for instance.  Our crews are trained to recognize the target species so that we can be selective in our removal. 

Not sure if any of these management strategies are appropriate for your waterbody or situation?  Call us for a free consultation.