hi Chris
i read in one of your responses that you had great success with the use of barley straw. i have tried it for about 8 months and it did not work for me.maybe the way i used it was incorrect. i piled some loosely into pantihose ( lol new ) and kept it afloat by corking it and tying it at my venturi return lines for extra oxygen .any comments as to how it should be positioned in the pond if i did it incorrectly? all comments welcome from all koi lovers
thanks

Hi,
I have been thinking about this posting. I wonder if the fact that the barley straw is inside a pantyhose is the problem.

The water cant flow through it and perhaps the barley straw went anaerobic? Did it smell when you took it out.

The barley straw works best when it is loosely packed in an orange bag and weighed down.

I tried an interesting experiment a few days ago.

I have not received my new barley straw yet. My pond was definitely getting a little hazy. The suspended algae was obviously growing again. So I took a few kilo of clay and placed it on the water fall quite high up on the stream.

The stream dissolved the bentonite gradually and the currents in the pond dispersed it. The pond went a nice milky colour. The next morning the pond was not clear.

Usually with such a dosage the pond takes about 12 - 18 hours to go crystal clear. Not this time. On the day after the clay treatment the water was still quite murky. On the second day the same. But on the third day the 40,000 liter pond was crystal clear.

So the bentonite had worked as a flocculent. And worked very well at a high dosage.

I know the clay has collected in the stringy algae on the wall sand floor but I don't mind. The koi are always rummaging in the algae for food and will certainly pick up some bentonite.

Chris

hi Chris
thanks for responding but no the straw did not have a bad smell at all .what is the difference betw bentonite & montmorillnite and what are the advantages of bentonite if there is a difference

Same thing different name.

Article by Chris:

http://www.triganic.com/Montmorillonite%20-%20Bentonite%20Clay.htm

We are visiting my in-laws in Hartenbos and being a bit bored, with the weather not good, I went barley hunting. But all that I could find at the local Co-op is 50kg bags of barley seed for R160 per bag. Thought the price was good and we can transport it, but I suppose the straw is the thing what one needs? (Barlei is gars mos)



Any thoughts on this??

We are pondering importing the MicrobeLift barley straw pellets and liquid extract - any takers?

http://www.microbelift.com/

I'm still unsure and have time to look around today before we go back tomorrow. Is barley "gars" of "gort"??

Hi,
I have a few bails of barley straw here at the house which came in a month ago.

If you need just give me a call, bring a few vegetable bags and you can have some.

The straw part is what works - if you want to brew beer in your pond use the seeds.

Henk the Barley Straw extract/concentrate liquid used to be available in 20L drums. Very expensive to use.

The importer stopped importing until the government made up its mind where to classify barley straw - i.e. a fertilizer or a pesticide.

Regards,
Chris

Albie
Ek dink Barley is Gort soos in sop.

Sover ek dit het is Barley gars waarmee hulle onder andere bier brou en dierevoeding. Gort is vir menslike gebruik soos in sop.

Gort is eintlik gars sonder die skil?

Volgens die Tweetalige Woordeboek is Paul reg.
Barley gars; gort (vir menslike voedsel)

My gort gars.

Jammer, kon dit nie weerstaan nie.

Good Day
Where can i get some barley straw in Gauteng?
i did get some from
Chris Neaves and it worked well for me,unfortunetly he does not have at the moment .
Any help.
Thanks
Anver

Uv lig is baie minder moeite. Maar altwee sal werk.

Chris can you explain why barley straw works? What is in it that makes it works in other words.

Ja. I have my doubts with barley straw myself - it just goes vrot and rubbishy. We have had FAR better results with Viresco which is a naturally occuring microbe that munches on nitrates, thereby completing the nitrogen cycle. No nitrates = no food for blanket weed and bob's your auntie. The benefits are numerous - zero nitrates = better quality water for your Koi. They eat more, grow faster and are generally healthier.

Well, I got some barley straw from Chris more than a week ago.

I have had lots of string algae the past 2 months and not being at home all the time doesn't help. These algae kept on blocking the sand filter basket

I put one bag of straw in the water, 10 days ago, making sure that the water is circulating well through the straw. Currently it looks as if the water is clearing up- still not gin white, but I can see the bottom of the pond- nearly 1.8m deep, and there is much less string algae.

The rest of my system is running as usual- high pressure with a filter and a UV light and a low pressure, going through plants, biofilters, etc.

Hope this is doing the trick.

Comments would be welcome, as this is a controversial subject!!

Albie

My pond goes through the string algea problem every year usually around September. It lasts for about two weeks.

String algea are present in the water because the water conditions are perfect for it. Heat, nutrients and probably a filter that is not fully matured or working yet. I get it as my system is coming out of the winter and the filters are not 100% up and running yet.

In that time i just stop to feed and let the kois eat the string algea of the walls. Theres no place in my pond for barley straw.

A few years ago i purchased a plecostomus during that time and it ate all the algea in a matter of days but it grows from 10cm to 50cm in 6months. Mine died during the pond renovations while it was kept in the garage. They cant survive in water below 14'C.

Hi Wayne
Yes unfortunately they wont make it up here our water goes down to as low as 9 deg.C.

I have not had a algea problem for a couple of years except of course for green walls and floor. Now all of a sudden I have lots of string algea everywhere.

In the past I think I automatically controlled the algea because I am using potasium about 2 to 3 times a year. (I do the everyday, 5 day one).

I have recently sprung a serious leak in my veggie filter (have patched it a few times and will fix it properly this time). It resulted in me havimg to add new water every second day about 5% of pond volume, not serious as I use a borehole and changing water is not bad.
What I did not realise is that I disrupted the cycle of the ponds ability to kill off new algea as Norm Meck wrote in one of his articals.

So much so for nature looking after itself till we interfere.

I had a plecostomus in my first pond, he did a good job. They get huge.

Hi Guys
I also had a problem with water clarity not so much so with string algae but with fine particles floating.
However i got some barley straw 3 months ago and i did see a difference in my water clarity.
The one thing i noticed is the barley straw starts getting less in the veggie bags as time goes by and it seems to look *vrot*.
Another product i have used is VIRESCO with great results,but its not cheap,10g to treat 25000lt at around R350.
The fish just seem more lively and hungry all the time.

Thanks
Anver

Hi Anver,
I have barley straw if you need. And yes it must disappear over time.

Doing some research for the filtration module for the soon to be announced KOI Inc (an international koi training program) I looked up quite a number of papers that have been published on the use of barley straw in ponds.

All of them stated that for barley straw to work properly it needs an anerobic environment.

So if you are using barley straw then do not pack it too tightly in the bags or containers you are using and make sure the water flows through it to provide the oxygen.

Heavily packed bags etc will cause the inner part to become anaerobic

Chris

Chris, what exactly make barley straw work?

Hi Wayne,

Apparently when the barley straw bio-degrades it releases an enzyme similar to hydrogen peroxide. This inhibits the growth of algae. Note it does not kill the algae as some chemicals but inhibits the growth.

Some of the papers I looked through also suspect that certain plant phenols are also released which whack the algae. These phenols are also found in certain fruit peels – which is why I wanted to experiment with green ponds!

It is also interesting to keep in mind that once a pond has reached maturity and has that wonderful fur like algae growing on the walls and floor that the suspended single cell algae that makes the water pea green seems to disappear.

Whether it’s this fur like algae starving the single cell algae of nutrients or if this fur like algae also gives off something that inhibits the other algae from growing I do not know. But perhaps when the fur like algae starts to grow it inhibits the single cell algae to ensure it gets sunlight for its own photosynthesis.

So we need to ask ourselves have we seen a green pond that has fur algae?

Chris

Hi all
After I got advice from Chris when he visited the East London to use Barley straw I have been distributing the straw in the Eastern Cape ans seeing great success. My pond of 15ooo liters is running two months now with the UV light switched off. One of the worst green ponds was an open 75000 liter pea soup pond and after putting 8oo grams within three weeks the pond was and still is chrystal clear.

Thanks Chris

Roy

Where can I get some from? I am in Durban.