Having an organically-maintained/designed yard, no chemicals are used anywhere in our property. Our pond is 4 years old, around 10,000 gallons in size, 4 feet at the deepest point. Barley extract is the sole add-on for maintaining this pond, outside of:
A. periodic cleanups (minimal work: emptying skimmer baskets depending on the wind/weather, rinsing filters, adding extra water due to evaporation);
B. a major cleanup (since it takes half a day or so) in spring after all the ice thaws out; and
C. unscheduled cleanups immediately after storms pass by when a lot of leaves come flying out of the woods (our property is surrounded by trees and conservation forest).
All fish (1 dozen gold fish/koi and 1 dozen other small types caught from the wild) stay in the pond over the winter. We do not feed these fish, they get enough nutrition from the natural plants growing or creatures living in or visiting the pond. We initially started with 7 gold fish/kois and added the others over time. I remove some of them when they get too large, or when they make babies.
We see most of the fish (specially the bright orange ones) clearly even from our second floor window (the pond is ~50 feet away from the house). The pond looks natural and clean, however, we do not expect this pond to look like sparkling clean drinking water!
A lot of people may not understand that organically maintained and balanced pond does not equate to sterile, artificially sparkling clean pool water! I think that is a major issue when people complain about their ponds.
Our pond can get out of shape when I do not do regular cleanups. But we try to monitor and correct problems before they get out of control. For example, if the waterfalls are not pushing the right amount of water, we check things out in the filters -one time there was a poor dead frog in the pump's filter! If we've waited too long to remove the leaves, or forgot to add the barley extract for several weeks, and there is an algae bloom, we scrub the rocks all around and drain at least 25% of water then add fresh water (we've only done that once so far). When everything looks good, we resume adding barley extract again as scheduled.
So, my point here is that Barley Straw Extract really works if applied correctly, but how well it works depends on one's realistic expectation... it definitely does not work like a harsh swimming pool chemical, and it really works well for organically-maintained pond. (If any pond water ever gets too awful looking, I'd recommend scrubbing algae all over and pumping out most of the water and start with 90% clean water to make the barley straw's job more effective).
I have tried several brands of Barley Straw Extract and they all pretty much perform the same way. The only failure is usually on my part, when I forget to add as scheduled!
I usually compare the volume of water that can be treated by a specific amount of the extract, by brand, and I've found that:
1. The most expensive ones are usually those of big name brands.
2. Pricewise, it is best to buy the extract by the gallon.
I've used this product several times. I highly recommend it. My stepdad has a huge Koi and he uses the product also. We both love it.
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We have a small pond (approx 300 gals) with several small goldfish, and were looking for something besides algaecides that would help clear up the water a little more so we could see the fish better. There's also some cold-hardy water lilies in the pond and 2 Pondmaster pump/filters.
I tried barley bales with no luck and thought maybe the liquid would work better, but we didn't have any luck with this product either. I followed the instructions and used the whole bottle over a period of several months, but couldn't notice any difference in the water clarity at all. Usually, the water clears up some during the winter as the algae seems to die off from the coldness of the water, but besides that there wasn't any difference in clarity once the water warmed up in the spring/summer.
I'm not saying that the product isn't effective, I'm just saying that it didn't work for us which is why I gave it 2 stars. I'm hesitant to use an algaecide because of the water plants and the depletion of oxygen that results and was truly hoping this would be a viable alternative.
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My pond was filled with algea after my UV light broke and bought this in hopes to clear it up....what I ended up with was a brown pond instead of a crystal clear pond. I do think it cleared up a little bit of the algea but at the same time it turned it murkey brown. After numerous water changes the pond is no longer brown and is finally algae free even though I do not believe that this product did anything to help.
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This product is the first one that I have found that really works in my pond! It cleared up the water and settled the green on the bottom. I have already recommended this product to other people.
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My daughter got this for Christmas and adores it. It was easy to set up and she was so excited to choose the fish for it.
