Bird safe fountain cleaner

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wopachop

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Lowes has this stuff in stock. https://www.lowes.com/pd/smartpond-Algaecide-Pond-Cleaner/1000760576

We have tried the bird safe cleaners before and it didnt work well. Been using a bleach tablet and that works good but makes poison drinking water. 

Someone on FB recommended using strips of copper. Amazon has a Sanco brand of liquid cleaner. sanco

Does anyone have a brand they know for sure works? I think my mom is pretty good about adding the stuff on schedule. 

Another idea was to add something to make the water taste bad so the animals find a different source completely. 

I dont like that idea because having birds come around is fun to watch. 

Was hoping there is a hippy homemade version. Started to see vinegar but that was more to clean a fountain with a vinegar solution.

 
That was me that recommended the Copper, but your fountain is big if I recall.  I have used it two fountains, one was large waterfall with goldfish in it (roughly 200 gallons).  Now I have just a bird feeder type fountain.  Zero algae in either.  The big one was well shaded and got very little direct sun light, so that helped.

 
Having copper ornaments would be cool. She has a turtle in there that can shoot water from its mouth if we hooked a pump to it. 

Pennies maybe? I have a bunch of old 1/2" plumbing fittings in a bag. Maybe i can cut and form those into a heart shape using 90s and 45s. 

Make for a cool xmas gift.

 
What copper? We have tried using distilled water. Water and vinegar, bleach, pet safe stuff. Still get algae and mineral deposits on the sides of our fountain. Looks like a big pot that spills down the side.  

 
I went down to the hardware store and bought some copper pipe, laid it in the bottom of the fountain.

Copper is Biosatic meaning that it does not promote bacteria growth. In fact, quite the contrary. Not only is copper not at all harmful, it has been fairly recently discovered that there are healthful benefits of drinking water supplied through copper tubing

 
Ive seen bleach work really good the last year or so. Its a strong concentration though. I was repairing the pump and stuck my hand in there. Washed my hands, took a shower, my hands smelled like bleach for hours. Was a self releasing tablet. 

 
When I had my big water feature, I fought algae for years, tried chlorine and bleach, hated the smell and it was bleaching the rocks as well.  it also had a waterfall that you could really smell the chlorine. Fast forward, I put in a small pool pump with filter housing to filter the big stuff and then add 6-7 copper piping that were about 2 ft long, just put them in the bottom of the pond.  Then I added 20 feeder goldfish to it.  I never had algae again. My dog drank out of it all of the time, some of the fish lived for a couple of years.  It was the only solution to have clean water that was safe to drink that I trusted.

I sold that house and my new house had a small bird bath fountain that runs 10 hours a day, tons of birds are there throughout the day, has one piece of copper pipe coiled in a circle in it, in three years haven't done anything but add water.

Picture 169.jpg

 
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Bought 3' of 1/2'' copper yesterday. Ill cut it down and put it in the bottom after cleaning the pump and inside the fountain.

 
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