Do you have any other plants? And maybe a photo to better see?

You can reduce the algae by poking a garden cane, or similar, and spin the stick between your fingers to gather up the algae like a candyfloss stick. This will not harm the frogspawn.

Did you put any ramshorn snails in your pond? They eat algae - you'd need rather a lot to eat it all, but every little helps!

When your oxygenators grow they will compete with the algae and should reduce the amount.

I'd leave it alone for now. the tadpoles will eat the algae until they change diet and become carnivorous. once the nutrient levels in the water settle the algae will die off naturally.

but if you wish to remove the algae and I assume you mean the blanket weed type then you can do as Bulbaholic suggests.

Wow! I must get some of those snails! Great answers everyone...sadly, no frogspawn in my pond. :( but plenty of algae!

Take a broomstick and attach on one end with duct tape a round toilet brush....on the other end attach a fish net 8 inches in length will do. To remove string algae twirl the brush in the water clockwise take it out and remove the string algae from the brush counterclockwise but be carefully as you go because you will find that frog spawn love to hide and feed in it. The net on the other end of your self made pond tool can be used to catch and remove debris from the pond. Keep in mind that your pond should never be as clean as your bathtub and if you have a garden hose that can reach it overflow it for five minutes each week.

Hi Sheilat,
I have had a wildlife pond for many years and have the same problems as you every year. I try to remove as much of the algae as I can in autumn and again towards the end of winter, before the frogs arrive for mating. If you remove it while you have tadpoles you can't avoid catching up a lot of tadpoles in the process. Also, while hosing the algae off in an overflow is certainly effective, it also sweeps a lot of tadpoles away.
I use one of those flat splash guards for going over frying pans securely tied to a cane and find it very effective as you can slide it under the algae without dipping deep, but, as I say, not until much later in the year.
I find the tadpoles decimate the oxygenating plants very quickly, and I found they will eat fish food when they get bigger but I use this very sparingly as I wouldn't want to pollute the water. I don't know whether this is wise or not but I feel they are starving once the weed has gone! I know they will happily eat each other if they are hungry, which is probably normal.
A friend of mine suspends small pieces of raw liver from a cane lain across the pond and the tadpoles absolutely swarm around them, however, this really does require dedication as you can't leave the meat in the water for long. Again, I'm not sure this is a good idea but she certainly rears plenty of healthy looking frogs! I'm sure that if the pond is well balanced it will contain all that the tadpoles need to grow, but the balance is not always easy to achieve.

Wow, Penny, thats fascinating...and very helpful. Think I will try the overflow idea...never heard of that before.

On the other hand....thinking about that...does the use of tap water not exascerbate the problem of algae because of the nutrients in the tap water?

C, your local water company should have a yearly analysis of your water. If you look at it you will see if that would be a problem. Where I live the water is chlorinated a bit not a concern when overflowing the pond though, the dilution being so great. Credit to overflowing the pond goes to Noseypotter as I recollect I got the idea from him. Never lost a tadpole from overflowing ....though I really like to call them polliwogs(that what I have called them ever since childhood, though not sure about the familiarity of that in the UK)

Lol...polliwogs! Thanks! :))

Personally I wouldn't cause the pond to overflow while there are tadpoles as the one year I tried it, I had a squirming mass of taddies struggling for life in the mud. Maybe your pond is of a different design where this can't happen. I suppose it could be done with a sieve placed at the point of overflow?? Anyway, as the tadpoles eat some of the algae I'll leave it until late in the year. By the way, I have some ramshorn snails---I don't know how I got them and I didn't know they ate the algae, but I've certainly got less of the stuff this year!
Penny

Pennyfarthing, taddies eat greens while they are small, and change over to being carnivorous when they have grown their back legs, so you and your friend are both right! No need to worry about providing meat though - they have been managing without help for thousands of years, and if they didn't eat each other there would soon be a plague of frogs. Its a cruel world...

Hi Steragram, Yes, I agree! However, I think I need to get down to the garden centre for a lot more green plants as the tads seem to have devoured the few I had. Clearly I don't yet have the balance right this year, hence the experiment with the fish food! The kingcups are a glory though, so I don't think the tadpoles like those!
Penny.

Consider getting oxygenators rather than marginals then as they are what will help the balance. Don't worry unduly though because in the early summer they grow extremely quickly and you'll probably soon have more than you thought you had.