Flexible liners give you flexibility in terms of harvesting methods, and they allow you to harvest all of the algae in the pond. To start, there are several different ways you can harvest algae—and each will work if you’re using a flexible liner like AquaArmor from BTL Liners. It can be skimmed from the water, or you can treat it with a flocculant, which causes the algae to settle to the bottom where you can easily harvest it. Ponds can also be drained so that you can scoop out the algae. All algae ponds are best off with a liner, but the latter two methods virtually require a liner so that you’re not scooping up mud along with the algae.
In fact, if you don’t use a flexible liner in your algae pond, then you can expect to lose anywhere between 10% and 30% of your harvest as it mixes into much at the pond’s bottom. In mud-bottomed ponds, digging through the muck at the bottom will contaminate your harvest, resulting in a devalued product or potentially even an unsalable product. For that matter, seaweeds are easier to harvest in lined ponds, too, and they grow back more quickly after you’ve trimmed them.
