algae
Algae are a class of organisms that are essential to life on earth. In a swimming pool, however, they become an affliction that compromises water quality and consumes chemicals. According to Haviland’s Kevin Vlietstra, although there’s an inevitable quality to algae, prevention is always the best treatment option.
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There was a time when lots of ponds were set up without gravel, notes Ed Beaulieu. But as he discusses here, there are so many advantages to lining their interiors with rocks of various sizes that it's time to push that old practice out of the pond-making picture, once and for all.
Although a little algae in a pond is generally a good and inevitable thing, observes Mike Gannon, a bloom of any noticeable extent is never truly welcome. That's why he has sized up and is ready to recommend a number of ways to help keep the intrusive greenery at bay.
Meyco Products (Melville, NY) manufactures winter pool covers featuring RuggedMesh, a lightweight mesh material that…
SpectraLight Technologies (Georgetown, TX) makes ultraviolet sterilization systems for use with both conventional and saltwater…
ControlOMatic (Grass Valley, CA) manufactures MegaChlor, a salt chlorine generator for swim spas and swimming…
Roman Fountains (Albuquerque, NM) manufactures the RBU-320-IL in-line bromine/chlorine feeder for use on new and…
In recent years, it's been difficult to avoid two large and related discussions about water treatment as it relates to swimming pools and spas. One the one hand are discussions of the evils of chlorine, which, after more than a century of common and beneficial use, is still widely misunderstood by homeowners and many professionals in the watershaping trades. On the other are conversations about chlorine-free pools and spas - another set of exchanges where there's proving to be
US Silica (Frederick, MD) has announced the availability of MysticBlue, a pool-filter sand in which…
If there’s one thing all ponds and lakes have in common (beyond the obvious fact that they all contain water), it’s that they’re as different as snowflakes – highly idiosyncratic, often challenging and sometimes almost willful in the way they resist being manipulated. For the past 35 years, we at Diversified Waterscapes (Laguna Niguel, Calif.) have just about seen it all as specialists in maintaining man-made ponds and lakes and in remediating those that have fallen on hard times and suffer with severe problems. We’ve found that every situation is different and that figuring out what’s going on involves the evaluation of countless variables – some obvious and easy to read, others less so. For all that, our experience tells us that the serviceability and sustainability of ponds and lakes is for the most part determined long before we come on the scene – even before they are filled with water. When they’ve been designed and installed with a few key principles in mind, we find them to be cooperative and affordably manageable. If a few of the more common mistakes are made, however, it’s a completely different and far nastier
