How to restore your lake’s health – permanently
So you’ve sprayed the algae with algaecide.
Hit the weeds with herbicide.
Tried aeration.
Tried crossing your fingers and hoping.
But each year your lake still keeps getting worse.
It’s like groundhog day all over again.
The biggest threat to our lakes is how little key decision makers understand about what is degrading not only water quality, but recreation, the lake lifestyle, property values and much more.
I’m Dave Shackleton and we’re making these videos to Simplify the Science of lakes to help better decision making, and save the lake lifestyle by helping people understand why their lakes continue to deteriorate year after year.
It’s not that you haven’t done anything or spent any money on the problem.
As the Government Accountability Office Report on managing the risks of hypoxia and harmful algal blooms or HABs pointed out in 2022 – it’s because the focus is on treating symptoms, not root causes, And monitoring to detect toxic harmful algae blooms or HABs after they happen, is merely confirming lake management failure – detecting toxins confirms it’s too late – you need to get ahead of the game and prevent them from happening in the first place.
And here’s why this matters more than ever:
The GAO report didn’t just critique the old way of doing things – it explained how they make things worse and accelerate the decline. So it called for a fundamental shift. A move away from managing symptoms like algae and weeds and toward managing root causes like hypoxia and sediment nutrient recycling.
These videos are part of that shift – designed to help lake committees, residents, and decision-makers understand what specific ACTIONs need to be taken to fix root causes and what new metrics need to be monitored to ensure meaningful performance management in line with the GAO’s recommendations.
In our last video, we explained the three root causes driving lake collapse.
Today, we’re showing you the three key actions you need to take fix them – for good.
And at the end of this video, I’ll reveal the most common and most expensive mistakes we see lake committees make year after year.
The first root cause to fix is hypoxia, which is low dissolved oxygen at the bottom of the lake.
Without oxygen, the lake suffocates and dies.
Hypoxia happens when algae and weeds die, sink, and rot.
That decay sucks up all the available oxygen… until the bottom of the lake turns into a dead zone.
And when there’s no oxygen?
Helpful microbes disappear.
Zooplankton that consume detritus in the sediment die.
Fish move up or move out completely.
But here’s the twist most people miss:
Aeration systems don’t fix this.
They may have some impact at the surface.
But blowing bubbles into the water isn’t the same as oxygenating water at the bottom of a lake.
It’s more like fanning smoke around a room and calling it ventilation.
Many aeration systems actually make things worse by stirring up muck and releasing more nutrients into the water.
We do it differently.
We use a proven technology – the RADOR system – that oxygenates the entire water column, from surface to sediment, delivering oxygen all the way down.
And when oxygen is restored at the bottom – the lake begins to breathe again.
The second root cause you need to fix is the nutrient-rich stockpile in the mucky sediment.
What’s sitting at the bottom of your lake isn’t just dirt.
It’s decades of dead decomposed leaves, algae and weeds packed with nutrients.
It’s like compost at the bottom of your lake.
And every summer, it fuels the visible symptoms of lake collapse again.
That’s why algae keeps coming back, even when runoff is under control.
It’s not being fed by the watershed anymore.
It’s feeding itself, from the nutrient stockpile at the bottom.
The solution?
Enzymatic bio-dredging.
No heavy machinery.
No torn-up shorelines.
No dumping or hauling.
Just natural, biological action that activates the microbes and enzymes your lake really needs to break that muck down and get rid of it — permanently.
Think of it like restoring your lake’s digestive system.
Instead of scraping out the muck with machines, we restore the lake’s microbiome to help it digest to muck away naturally, from the inside.
Over time, the bottom gets firmer.
The water gets deeper.
Weeds stop growing back.
And fish finally have clean, natural sandy bottom to spawn on.
You’re not just removing sediment.
You’re restoring balance to the ecosystem starting at the bottom.
Because when the foundation is healthy, everything above it begins to recover.
Now comes the step almost nobody thinks about, but it’s what makes recovery last.
Rebuilding the food web.
A healthy lake isn’t just water and fish.
It’s a complex, multi-tiered living system.
And when conditions are favorable, cyanobacteria take advantage.
Slowly at first, almost invisibly…
They push out the good algae.
They starve the zooplankton.
They poison the water.
So here’s the only way to help a lake recover:
Oxygenate the whole water column so the lake and animal life can breathe again.
Bio-dredge using enzymes to break down the sediment nutrient stockpile into a form the food web can actually use.
Lastly, special micronutrient supplements support the revival of beneficial algae and zooplankton.
These are the organisms that naturally take up nutrients, feed fish, and clean and clear the whole ecosystem to maintain balance.
Once they come back, cyanobacteria lose their competitive advantage and their grip on the lake.
This isn’t a one-time treatment.
It’s a full biological reset that continues to deliver, year after year.
Now, here’s the most costly mistake that lake committees make year after year:
Paying to get a report that says:
“We killed the algae with algaecide. Your chlorophyll-a levels came right down! We killed off the weeds with herbicide.”
They make it sound like a good thing!
But it’s not.
Algae blooms and invasive weeds are an early warning sign.
Using algaecides and herbicides is like turning off the fire alarm while the kitchen’s still burning.
Turning off the fire alarm doesn’t put out the fire. It just helps it spread, and the GAO Report stated that is exactly what has been happening for the past two decades.
All that dead biomass has been deposited into the sediment.
More oxygen gets sucked out.
The muck is thicker.
And the food web?
Even more depleted.
All that report really says – is that you managed symptoms, for one more year, papered over the cracks and turned the fire alarm off.
You didn’t do anything about the root cause.
You just played Whack-A-Mole with the symptoms again.
And now you’ll have to spend more next year to fight the same battle all over again.
And you know what? You’ll win every short-term battle against symptoms – but you’re going to lose the war, and your lake, your property values and your lake lifestyle in time.
So what does real lake recovery look like?
You have fix the root causes:
Oxygenate the lake, all the way to the bottom.
Remove the nutrient stockpile by bio-dredging.
Rebuild the food web from the base.
That’s not a symptom Whack-A-Mole game plan.
That’s a lake management ACTION plan that targets root-causes to ensure sustainable lake recovery.
And it’s what we’ve used to restore lakes in over 40 states.
From 2-acre ponds to 1,000 acre lakes and reservoirs.
Not overnight, but for good.
Want to see what it looks like?
Use the link below to download the Clean-Flo Lake Management ACTION Plan.
It’s free.
It’s clear.
It’s the missing link in your lake management plan.
And it works.
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