My neighbor has a Western Soapberry Tree, could this tree cause my alkaline problem? In turn making my water green and my fish sick? I pulled my fish and am mucking out my pond which seems to have quite a bit. What else can or should I do? Can I do or add anything to the water to help fight the effects of the soapberrys or am I out of luck?

Sorry, I don't know anything about that tree. I'm on the East coast. Try an internet search on it. If your pond is small, then vegetation may be effecting water chemistry but for most ponds, a lot of leaves or berries or whatever would have to fall in to have an effect. To see what an effect it has, measure the pH of a bucket of water and then put in the soapberries and remeasure in a day or so and see how the pH changes, if at all. I hope you can figure out the problem. It's hard to give much input unless you're there to see it.

I've decided to fill in that pond and try it somewhere else next spring. I've talked to a local pond expert and they suggested to either cut down the tree which I cannot do since it isn't mine or net the pond during berry season which is almost 2 months out of the summer. Not very pracitcal since the season is about 4 months long. I noticed my pond looked a little sudsy a while ago but didn't think to much about it - now it all makes sense - soapberrys make suds. :(

Just a thought...You stated that it was suggested to cut the tree down and you couldn't since it is not yours. Why not ask the neighbor to just trim the part of the tree that overhangs your pond? :rolleyes:

Oh he's real good at keeping it trimed but it is so close the berries bounce into my pond. Had I known that it was toxic I wouldn't have put the pond there but since I cut down my ornamental pear tree I thought I was taking care of the berries that I was seeing - I was wrong! Oh, well live and learn! The fish are doing much better in my mothers pond which I visit nearly very day.