water in trough going green quickly - suggestions?

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Perce

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as title.
this year my water troughs seem to turn green and 'yucky' rather quickly after cleaning out. i empty, scrub and refill as necessary but it seems to be rather more frequent than previous years.
any advice on keeping water cleaner longer? is there anything i can put into trough to 'kill off' any green algae and start afresh?
anyone else noticed this year seems worse?
 
I don't know about how to stop it happening but I have noticed this with my troughs too!

I think in my case it is that the Starlings are bathing and drinking from them and making the water all gunky!

If you find out how to prevent it, definitely let me know!
 
We found keeping a couple of smallish goldfish in the tank used to help. Random I know but they used to survive in there longer than in a bowl even through the winter!
 
i have 2 large troughs on the go and i try to clean them alternately but have noticed the pons prefer the green one
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Yes I have heard about the goldfish thing but I would worry about them not getting enough oxygen especially if its in the sun.
Move to a shady spot if you can, or cover some of it with a board to shade it
 
Scrubbing them with Milton can help.
I'm going to try the goldfish thing this year so shall report back on survival rates- we've got 4 big field troughs
 
The goldfish we put in originally were "funfair" ones - the sort that die in a day or so - they survived a good few years and even being frozen in!!! The one thing to watch out for is herons - they nicked them out of the tank otherwise I wouldn't mind betting they'd still be there.
Re: oxygen levels - it's partly to do with having moving water so long as your tank is topped up regularly which I'm assuming it will be they'll be fine.
 
The green is likely to be algae and will grow like mental in the sunshine. If possible keep the trough in the shade at all time to inhibit it.

Where do you get the water for the trough? All water has algae organisms. If your using straight tap water could be there are high levels of phosphorus in it, in that case there is really nothing you can do as algae thrive on phosphorus. if your cleaning the trough leave a small amount of algae in it - this uses up the nutrients in the water. But if you completely sterilize it then the water is full of nutrients and the tiny algae which will find their way in to it with grow like mental and your left worse off than before.

But try moving it to the shade first - algae needs at least 8 hours of sunlight so it might slow the process down.
 
Sorry for daft question, I know nothing about fish, but do you have to feed them each day with fish food and do the horses not mind them.
 
we put a funfair goldfish in too and when I left the yard it was still there after 4 years!!. We didn't feed it and it grew huge, the horses wern't bothreed and it survived freezing in winter, cleaning out of the trough ( I just put it in a bucket and then put it back in once cleaned)
 
Completely agree with Minxie here. The very best option is to get the trough out of the sun.
 
Thanks for all the feedback folks.

thought first post suggesting goldfish was a wind up!!! t'would seem not! my problem is i get so attached to my menagerie i'd end up giving them names and worrying about them being 'taken' by herons, etc... bet my little boy would think goldfish in the trough was fun though! will think on that one for a while!

unfortunately cant move troughs to shade as all fixed into fence line and fed from mains so in full sun. at the moment the horses are not drinking directly from them as they are in the hay field and i'm bucketing to the adjacent paddock (i must be mad!) so i guess i could put something over the trough i'm using to shade it and just remove it when i fetch water. will give it a go!

What's Milton?
 
but green trough water is sooooooooo much tastier than grotty clear bucket water..
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goldfish would survive by eating the algae - hopefully quickly enough to reduce the green-ness. Not sure my boys would appreciate intruders in their troughs though
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If your going to get 'attatched' to the goldfish, you could always try water snails?

Our village fuontain was looking ever so slimy & yuck. Then these snails appeared & in a couple of days it cleared up.

Think the birds have eaten them though as it has turned slimy again & no sign of snails! All the spuggies & blackbirds bathe in it!
 
Goldfish would survive by eating algae and mosquito larvae etc..... they do not in my opinion and years of experience of keeping them in there..... keep it clear
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Is it possible to drop the water level and then the turnover of water would be quicker, thus the algae would be lessened???

My trough is not fixed so I let the level drop and turn the whole thing over each week, that way it doesnt go to yukky.

Horses actually dont seem to mind the green anyway..... Give them a choice between a nice clean fresh bucket of water and a slimy trough, and I know which merlin will choose...

He does not touch his water during the day at all if stabled, but goes straight to the trough to drink as soon as he is turned out!
 
Nah.... the goldies produce very little poo if you dont feed them commercial fish food
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Its the overfeeding that you see in indoor tanks/bowls of a couple of gallons that means the fish do huge poos
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I am finding the large cow sized trough in my summer grazing goes green, whereas all of the ones the cows drink from are crystal clear.

I am of the opinion that the trough is too large for just four horses to drink from, therefore it's not being emptied/refilling often enough to keep it clear.

I'm about to have a smaller trough put into one of the other paddocks, which only holds 80l of water. I am confident the horses will drink enough from that to keep it refilling regularly enough to stay clear.
 
my troughs are fixed but i empty out and clean when horses move off paddock. i thnk they do not disturb the water enough at the moment as i bucket from it once a day rather than them drinking over the day.

So does the green water do any harm. i don;t let it get too bad before cleaning, but am never sure whether i should allow any green at all?

glad to know such a little query can raise so much interest - lots of us obviously suffer the same!

good luck with goldfish - i will be sourcing a tarpaulin and some baler twine myself - and as for the suggestion that i get snails rather than goldies to avoid emotional attachment!!! have you no compassion - i'd have them named Snaily, Slow-Mo and Big-Foot before they'd eaten their first algae mouthful!!!
 
Please don't put goldfish in troughs guys. They DON'T eat algae! They have to survive on flies and water bugs and mosquito larvae etc. The quality of the water certainly does matter. Warm water holds a lot less oxygen than cool water and you will often see goldfish gasping at the surface of poorly kept ponds in the summer, suffocating for lack of oxygen. And in the spring and autumn months, the likelihood is there won't be enough food to fatten them up for the winter hardships. Goldfish survive the winter by going into a semi torpor at the bottom of the pond. If your troughs aren't deep enough, the fish will die. Fish are living creatures too and surely they're entitled to the basic "5 Freedoms" too? Goldfish need to be kept either in a big enough pond/lake for there to be a working mini ecosystem in place, ie no cleaning out, little additional feed etc or in a proper tank/pond where an oxygenating pump and bio-filter mimic a natural pond. To prevent algae build up the only real solution is to purchase a UV unit that zaps the algae as the pond water passes regularly underneath it.
 
As somebody said, fish eat larvae and insects etc, not algae/green stuff.

I suggest water snails too.

My horse prefers tasty and flavoursome green water to anything else, so does my cat, she drinks out of the bird bath and ignores her twice daily washed and refilled water bowl.
 
We too have found that a couple of gold fish in the water trough does the trick. They keep it lovely and clean and feed off the algae. It really does work !! Plus horses tend to prefer water that has stood for a while, not straight from the tap.
 
the discussion goes on!

got to agree with Box of Frogs on this one - as a goldfish i would be wanting a more 'interesting',goldfish-friendly home than my bare water trough so will continue to clean out and try cover if poss.
my old mare prefers older water to fresh whereas my younger prefers it straight from tap to bucket and then me holding it up for her as she drinks please!
youngster copies whatever Aunty'does cos he is her shadow and thinks she is the bee's knees!!!

dog prefers rainwater in garage or dirty pondwater tehn tap water in his bowl.

still don;t know what Milton is???
 
I have two large tub trugs in the field for my mare, one old and covered in algae and one clean one..... guess which one she prefers to drink from?

I've now decided if she likes algae she can have algae.

On a slightly different note, we used to have RS ponies that lived on marshland in the summer and we used to use buckets of the river water for their trough. It stank and had tonnes of green gunk in it, yet they all fought over it, despite the fresh buckets available in their stables during the day!

Cougar - just read your last sentence, my mares the opposite and will often drink from her bucket as fast as I'm filling it, (mind you, she is a bit strange....
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