Just come back to this thread and there is lots of good advice from others. The thing that strikes me about your reading is the ph is quite high at 7. I think therein lies the problem. Perhaps try growing only alkaline loving plants. Think chalk pools. I can't advise on that; my pond is pretty neutral but there must be a list somewhere.
pH 7.0 is neutral.
location: Surrey Hills, England, ex-woodland acidic sand. "Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I have advocated Nishikoi Clear Water in the past and have followed the dosage instructions to the letter. It did a great job of eradicating blanket weed but my pond plants did not flourish. The young plants I put in mostly died - expensive at c. £8 a time - and the water lilies looked feeble with hardly any flowers. Having read the Nishikoi publicity that their product was harmless to pond life, I did not attribute blame there but did seek advice from a pond plant retailer. His advice was clear: do not use the additives.
This year I have not. Water lily growth has been much stronger with an abundance of blooms and I might try to add some more plants to get the surface coverage of the water up to two thirds. It’s currently about a quarter. I am also tempted to buy algae eating snails but the pond is quite big - 4 metres x 3.5 metres - so I might need a lot of snails (does anyone offer advice here?). I will also buy some oxygenators. In the past they have never flourished and died within a couple of months, possibly due to the blanket weed algicide.
For removing the algae I have a cheap fishing net with a scoop about the size of an A4 piece of paper. The scoop is quite flat like a plate rather than deep like a bowl making emptying the blanket weed easier. I also have a large bottle brush with an extending aluminium handle for removing the stubborn algae than sticks to the sides. The big challenge is eradicating the blanket weed from the one large floating plant which has flourished. It is entangled around the roots and leaves.
I’ll try to post a photo later.
That is really, really interesting. Between you, me and @SalixGold, it would appear that Nishikoi isn't great for pond plants at all.
I like your extendable bottle brush. I did use a bottle brush but it's a pain getting the blanketweed off. A cane was better for me. The difficulty for me was getting the blanketweed off the hornwort and spiked water milfoil that is suspended in the pond. Unfortunately the oxygenators just turned into slimy green messes.
I think perhaps next year I'll give au naturel a go and see what happens. It can't be worse than this year - our zantedeschia looks awful, the typha has flopped, basically everything other than the pontederia looks like it's struggling. Not a great advert for Nishikoi.
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Billericay - Essex
Knowledge is knowing that a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom is not putting it in a fruit salad.
"Have nothing in your garden that you don't know to be useful, or believe to be beautiful."
I like your extendable bottle brush. I did use a bottle brush but it's a pain getting the blanketweed off. A cane was better for me. The difficulty for me was getting the blanketweed off the hornwort and spiked water milfoil that is suspended in the pond. Unfortunately the oxygenators just turned into slimy green messes.
I think perhaps next year I'll give au naturel a go and see what happens. It can't be worse than this year - our zantedeschia looks awful, the typha has flopped, basically everything other than the pontederia looks like it's struggling. Not a great advert for Nishikoi.