If you receive an email regarding this post and no longer wish to receive alerts for this group, please email me at schmidtfjs@gmail.com and I’ll remove you from the post group.
I have been remiss in sending out updates as of late. There has been little change through time with respect to the lake’s Filamentous Algae (FA) — we still suffer each summer from the Heat, Lack of consistent rain, excess nutrients in the water, and the shallow nature of the late. Killearn Lakes Homeowners Board continues to fund the treatment of the lake. We are limited in what we can do to treat the lake for the FA problem — read past posts for details on this. Essentially, the most effective treatment has been a certain cocktail of chemicals that will knock it back for a bit. Seriously though, if you are looking for detail information, just read all the posts — there’s plenty of relevant information there.
We continue (for the past 2-3 years) see positively that the FA shows up a bit later in the spring now, but still is quite prevalent in late May, all of June, July, and August — with the chemical treatments knocking it back when done.
Chemical treatment was applied June 21, 2024 and is expected to return a positive impact (reduction) on the FA within the following 7 to 10 days according to Charlie.
We still have to balance environmental impacts vs. chemicals. Charlies does this very well. We have not had a fish kill in any of the lakes since my residency began in early 2004/5. This is mostly due to Charlies attention to treatment patterns that ensure the fish have the ability to withstand the difficult nature of the chemicals. There are no fish/mammals that eat FA that we are allowed to introduce to this lake (environmental restrictions).
I have recently read several accounts of others attempting to treat FA with chemicals and lake “bubblers” without paying attention to the “be careful” aspects. From their own accounts — over 2 years, they killed every fish (several thousand each occurrence) in their lake and had to spend over $5000 to restock and manage them each time. Our lake is much larger (in surface area) and likely holds many more fish.
We have had a couple of alligator sightings on the lake (a very small one – approximately 3 feet). They move around a lot this time of year. I have heard that there are several humane “removal” plans for this one if it hangs around.