Cleaning Muddy Water with WaterTreats Flocculant

Muddy or cloudy water is a common problem landowners face with small dams or ponds. It looks ugly, but it can affect water quality and usability, too. A flocculant can be a big help — and with a little testing, you can figure out exactly how much product you’ll need to get your water clear again.

Why Testing Matters

We worked with a client whose small farm dam was suffering from turbidity — that’s what we call the cloudiness caused by suspended particles. It’s quite a common problem, and it’s easy to fix with flocculant. But without testing, you can’t get the dose right.

Every dam or waterbody is different. They’ve got different amounts of clay, organic matter, and suspended solids… and all of these things affect how well the product performs. Too little, and it won’t work; too much, and you can get cloudy, milky water.

To get an idea of how much you’re actually going to need in your dam, you can conduct little jar tests. What you do is get some product in a diluted form and test it on water from your dam.

How to Conduct a Jar Test

The good news is that you won’t need a lab setup — no chemistry beakers; you can use bottles, glasses, even buckets if you want to, as long as you know the volume that’s in them and it’s easy to work with one litre.

Once you’ve got all that sorted, here’s what you need to do:

– Collect water samples: Pick different spots around the dam — don’t just pick from where you’re standing because it can stir up extra sediment and you can drag in water that may not be as turbid as your dam really is

– Dilute your flocculant: Follow the product instructions for this step

– Measure and add different doses to your jars: Using a pipette or dropper you can pick up at the local chemist, add different doses e.g. 1 mL, 2 mL, and 3 mL per litre

– Stir to mix: You want to mix the product evenly through the water

– Observe: Let the jars sit for a few hours and see what happens

You’re looking for small particles called a “floc” formation. They start off at pinhead size and get bigger, and then a bit fluffy. After that, they start settling and sinking down, leaving clear water above them.

That might happen straight away, or it might take a little while. If nothing happens, you probably put in too little product. If they stay loose and never settle, it’s probably too high. You’re looking for that “sweet spot” where they bind together and fall to the bottom.

Finding the Perfect Dose

In our test at the farm, the 1 mL sample stayed cloudy, the 2 mL started to clear, but the 3 mL sample worked best — it showed good floc formation within about five minutes. Over the next few hours, the 2 and 3 mL samples cleared up almost completely, so we knew the ideal dose was somewhere between 2 and 2.5 mL per litre.

It’s always worth fine-tuning your doses in small increments — try 2, 2.5, and 3 mL rather than doubling or halving quantities. Using too much product can be just as bad as using too little. Unfortunately, it’s a bit of a process — it’s not quite an easy thing where you say “2mL doesn’t work, so I’m going to put in 4mL”. If you needed 3 mL instead, you won’t figure that out by testing only 2 and 4 mL.

The extra bit of testing time is well worth it: when you multiply the dose from a 1-litre test jar to a dam with millions of litres, the difference between 2 and 2.5 is a significant cost difference when it comes to the whole dam. 

Applying the Product

After you’ve found your ideal dose, you can work out how much product the entire body needs. To do this, you want to do this calculation:

Length x width x average depth

This allows you to estimate the total volume of your dam or lake. When ordering, it’s always smart to buy about 20% more product than you think you’ll need — that way, if your volume estimate is slightly off or your application isn’t perfect, you have enough to finish the job properly.

Running out of product mid-treatment can be a real setback. The trouble is, real conditions are different compared with the jar test. If you reach a point in your dam where you notice fine particles forming and everything seems to be going well, but you run out of product and the particles don’t make the jump to large particles, it won’t clear.

You can’t just “top it up” later. You need to press the reset button and go right back to the start — you’ll have to do it over again using the full dose.

How to Tell if it Worked

In our small farm dam, we saw visible floc forming quite quickly. These are small, pinhead-sized particles joining into larger, fluffy clusters that slowly sink. Over a few hours, the water cleared noticeably — this tells you the flocculant is working effectively. 

This kind of “weak floc” at first is a good sign. It means the process has started. As the particles grow and settle overnight, the water typically ends up clear by morning.

Need Help with Muddy Water?

Clearing muddy water isn’t as easy as throwing in some flocculant and hoping for the best. It needs testing, patience, and accuracy… but when you do it right, it’s an effective and affordable way to restore water clarity.

If you’re struggling with turbidity or clouding in your water, we can help you test, dose, and treat your dam with confidence. Simply get in touch with us.