Help! Water, algae, and Florida heat!

[MaryZoe]

Bleach is used to keep stuff from growing in human water all the time. Here's a link to the DOH website that suggests it: https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/emergency-disinfection-drinking-water
And here's a screen shot of some of the info:
View attachment 1749252
That being said, I'd be worried about putting it in my chickens' water, too.

I switched from a white bucket to a black bucket, and that seems to have helped with my algae problem. Of course, maybe it's still there but I can't see it as well anymore...

I'm interested in hearing what others suggest. Glad you started this here thread!

Haha! I also use a black rubberized feed bowl from TSC for several of my chickens' waterers and I swear it doesn't get as much algae growth. But I've thought the same as you--maybe I just don't see it!

And I know we drink trace amounts of bleach in our drinking water--sometimes I swear I can even smell it in the bath water. But I don't like the idea of it, just like you.

 

[MaryZoe]

Copper is okay for fish, it's even used as a medication, but is deadly toxic to invertebrates. If you use copper-based medication in a fish tank, it gets into all the decor and silicone, and then you can never keep inverts in that tank again.

Like I said, I don't have any experience with copper and chickens. I'd be inclined to avoid it if I could, just in case it might cause their kidneys some trouble, but I'm certainly not going to say it's toxic. I'm just not inclined to put things into my animals' water to fix things that aren't really a problem, like what are basically aquatic plants.

I like thinking of the algae as aquatic plants. Makes me feel much better!

 

[Fishkeeper]

Algae isn't technically plants, but only because it's very simple. If you look at a seaweed, which is a kind of large algae, it doesn't really have distinct parts like a plant does. It has a section that's leaf-and-stem shaped and photosynthesizes, and some of them have a part that's kind of like roots for gripping. But they don't have as much differentiation in the parts as plants, and they don't have complex vasculature like plants, nor do they flower or produce seeds. Some types of seaweed are actually one, enormous cell, with many nucleii but only one outer cell wall. Algae is just single-celled seaweed.

Basically, algae is plants without all the details. The only freshwater algae that can cause trouble in aquariums (that I know of) is hair algae, and that's only because it can tangle small things up. You can also get a problem if a whole lot of algae grows at once from a nutrient surge and then dies off, because the bacteria that decay it sap oxygen from the water, but you don't exactly need to worry about low oxygen in your chickens' drinking water.

Algae in aquariums gets a bad rap because, if you have a lot of algae, it can mean that the water is dirty and is making the fish sick. That doesn't mean that the algae made them sick, though. In fact, a healthy aquarium has lots of algae, of many types.

(I like marine biology and freshwater biology, and algae is a part of that.)

 

[MaryZoe]

Algae isn't technically plants, but only because it's very simple. If you look at a seaweed, which is a kind of large algae, it doesn't really have distinct parts like a plant does. It has a section that's leaf-and-stem shaped and photosynthesizes, and some of them have a part that's kind of like roots for gripping. But they don't have as much differentiation in the parts as plants, and they don't have complex vasculature like plants, nor do they flower or produce seeds. Some types of seaweed are actually one, enormous cell, with many nucleii but only one outer cell wall. Algae is just single-celled seaweed.

Basically, algae is plants without all the details. The only freshwater algae that can cause trouble in aquariums (that I know of) is hair algae, and that's only because it can tangle small things up. You can also get a problem if a whole lot of algae grows at once from a nutrient surge and then dies off, because the bacteria that decay it sap oxygen from the water, but you don't exactly need to worry about low oxygen in your chickens' drinking water.

Algae in aquariums gets a bad rap because, if you have a lot of algae, it can mean that the water is dirty and is making the fish sick. That doesn't mean that the algae made them sick, though. In fact, a healthy aquarium has lots of algae, of many types.

(I like marine biology and freshwater biology, and algae is a part of that.)

Interesting. It's not aquarium algae that worries me. It's the type of blue-green algae that is in the news in south Florida as a result of toxic algae blooms in the Gulf (i.e, Red Tide and the blooms that accompany it). But these BYC posts have dispelled my worry that the algae in my chickens' and dogs' and donkeys' and goats' and sheep waterers will cause them any harm. I also used to worry about the frequency that the algae-laden water splashed into my eyes and even mouth. Now I'm back to my "If it doesn't kill me, it will make me stronger" philosophy. Haha!

But many thanks for your thorough response!

 

[Fishkeeper]

Blue-green algae isn't actually algae! It's cyanobacteria. And I've had fish in tanks with a little bit of it (it shows up sometimes in newer tanks) with no harm. You need a lot of it to be seriously harmful, and it has to be a lot of the right species besides that. It's a sort of film-causing thing, and grows in a loosely adhered sheet against a solid surface, or on the water's surface. The film thickens gradually and starts to peel loose as it gets thicker. It's fairly distinctive:

This second pic is a similar but entirely harmless algae. You see it in ponds a lot. It's quite possibly edible, though probably not tasty.

Red tide is often an algae (species can vary), but is saltwater.

 

[guyvstewart]

I have 4" PVC waters with the drinking cups. I use a small piece of copper pipe attached to a fishing bobber on the inside and a bobber on the outside to show how much water is left. Been doing that for about 2 years, and have had no problem with any kink of growth. BTW, I live in Florida also.

 

[Rick&Chris]

I have 4" PVC waters with the drinking cups. I use a small piece of copper pipe attached to a fishing bobber on the inside and a bobber on the outside to show how much water is left. Been doing that for about 2 years, and have had no problem with any kink of growth. BTW, I live in Florida also.

Do you have a photo of your setup?

 

[Florida Bullfrog]

I'm in Florida too. I don't have lots of algae in my waterers, and what little I do have I don't worry about. Rotating waterers and letting green ones dry out good in the sun for a few days will help.

I'm not a fan of copper because of its damage to aquatic animals (besides fish) and beneficial plants. I live on the edge of swamplands with several creeks and ponds that drain off my property so I'm sensitive to it not that a copper penny in a chicken waterer by itself is going to hurt anything on a large scale. But the previous owner of my farm used to poor copper into the fish ponds to control algae. Only since I took over the place and quit those practices has the invertebrates came back.

Green hair algae can be a little more problematic, not in terms of animal health but in terms of clogging things up, but I've only ever seen in it cattle troughs.