Alright, this video is answering questions, two primary questions about the water feature that I built in my yard in June. And I should say we built cause two of us did do that. If you’re not interested. Whoa, that was dizzying how quickly that person scrolled by. They probably had already scrolled before I even got to that point. So bye. Bye. If you’re interested, stick around. We’re going to talk about that in detail right now. Number one, here are the questions. Algae, how do I keep it from being soupy green? And two, what am I going to do about leaves and other debris that falls during the fall? Wow. Is that why they call it fall? What am I gonna do about that? So here are the two answers. Number one, an algae. It’s caused by a nitrogen imbalance. That’s what causes a algae bloom. That’s what they call it when it turns green. When water turns green. Nitrates and nitrites. We don’t need to get into details. I’m getting a graph right here. You can look at that and determine. Stop on this and determine if it’s something that you think is useful and interesting. Figure out how it works. But what I do is create an environment in the water feature that prevents the balance of nitrogen get out of control. Because once you have too many, I forget if it’s nitrates or nitrites. The algae has this as food and it causes an Algae bloom, which turns the water completely green because it’s a single cell organism. Uh, photosynthesis, blah, blah, blah. I don’t know. I don’t remember in detail, but I know enough to tell you this. You have to put plants in the water, rooted plants. So I have umbrella plant in the pond. I have pickerel rush, I have elephant ear. So those plants are taking up the nutrients out of the water, the nutrients that the algae would use. And I’m also using a filtration system that employs nature’s own aerobic bacteria, which is oxygen loving bacteria. That’s what aerobic means. Wow. This is called major lessons right here that you’re learning and you’re still here. My goodness. You have hung out to hear this video. So how I do that is the filter is in two places. I’ve got a filter at the bottom of the stream where the water is taken in, and I’ve got a filter at the head of the stream where the water comes in and flows back in. And it is a recirculating system. It’s not an Artesian well. This is something that I add water to as it evaporates, because, duh, water evaporates. Wow. Okay. Another note you should take here. So the way it works, at the bottom of the stream, where the pump is, it is in a vault, a plastic vault in ground. So I dug a deep hole and put a vault down in there, and that’s where The pump is. And it’s. What happens is the water comes down, it goes through the gravel into the vault, where the pump takes it up and pumps it back up to the head. As this water has picked up oxygen, as it flows down the stream, it’s picking up oxygen from the atmosphere. If you remember from biology, that oxygenated water goes through the gravel, that feeds the bacteria that’s colonized inside the gravel. That bacterium is, um, dealing with the nitrates and nitrite. Nitrites and nitrates. It’s dealing with that, it’s dealing with other debris. It’s breaking things down. It’s a very beneficial bacteria, and it colonizes by the bazillions. And that means a lot. That’s what bazillion means. That clean water then, is at the pump, and that’s Pump Back up to the head and the head of the stream. As you see, it’s a waterfall coming out. That is a large bucket, and the pipe is at the bottom of the bucket. So the water, instead of being pulled this way, the water is pushed up, and it pushes through a filter medium. About that thick is a piece of foam. Uh, that looks like a filter that you would put on your. On your furnace, but it’s not that material, but it’s like that has a lot of surface area. And again, aerobic bacteria colonizes in that pad. And so that water, which is already clean, is pushed through another layer and then goes out into The water. So that is how it continuously does its deal. If the water is turned off, though, for any length of time, what happens is the aerobic bacteria dies and becomes. It was taken over by anaerobic bacteria, which is the kind that creates the really foul smell. So it begins to stink. It’s terrible. So when you create a system like this that I’ve created, you have to continuously have that pump going. Which leads me to the next question. How do I keep leaves out? Well, I just put it in in June, so we’re gonna see how it acts this year. Here in Atlanta, I can typically, typically leave my water features running, because it doesn’t freeze or we don’t have hard freezes here, not, you know, to any depth. So we can continuously run. However, because of the design of the system, the gravel at the end and all that, it may clog up with leaves. I’m not sure. I’m gonna have to continuously clean it. I’m gonna be seeing how that works. Once, though, I’m past all of the bad leaf season, which they’re all off the trees, the pump will probably be plugged back in and run for the winter. I’ll just keep it going just so that the bacteria stays alive. But even if I turn it off and allow the anaerobic bacteria to take over, it’ll be okay, cause I’ll turn it back on in January to do initial clean out. It’s gonna not smell good. It’s not gonna be pretty. The water won’t be pretty, but it will clear up very quickly once the, um, aerobic bacteria begins to colonize again. I hope this has helped. I don’t know. Who in the heck is lasted to the end of this video. Um, someone asked me, um, to take off this tank top. So I guess since you’re here, we’re gonna go ahead and take care of that now because you’ve been so great in hanging out, so.