Water Hyacinth turning yellow?

Are your water hyacinth turning yellow? You're not alone!

This water hyacinth is getting lots of
nutrients. It's dark green and blooming.

On the other hand, this water hyacinth is
yellowing and dying back. It's starving in a clean
pond and that's awesome!

Around this time every year, we get a lot of questions about water hyacinths—specifically, what’s up with them dying all of a sudden? They’re tropical plants; shouldn’t they love the hot weather? Well, yes. And if your pond is full of nutrients, your hyacinth should be green and flourishing. 

But if your water is clear, and your hyacinth are yellowish brown and dying off, this is actually a great thing!

Water hyacinth are perfect indicators of the nutrient level in your pond. Hopefully you've been following our advice through the season: feeding your fish only a couple times a week, feeding them high-protein fish food, keeping up with your beneficial bacteria, cleaning out your mechanical filters, leaving your biological filters alone, etc. (If any of that sounds like gibberish, then please stop by the store. We need to set you straight! But for those of you seasoned Cool Ponds’ aficionados, we’re on the same page.)

If you’ve been keeping up with your pond as we suggest, then your nutrient levels are so low that the water hyacinth no longer have anything to munch on. They're starving and that is great! The BEST news is, algae doesn’t have anything to eat either!

Essentially, if your water is clear, and your hyacinths are dying, then congratulations are in order. Your pond is doing great!

Written by Cool Ponds staff member Kasey