I use a toilet brush - I still have to bend but not so far.
I think it is interesting that you all don’t mind putting chemicals like bleach or other things into your horses water tank and then into the ground water but are afraid of a little fish poo! I personally try to stick with all natural/biological remedies to lessen the pollution into the ground! I should add that mine also drink out of a pond…gasp!
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I am not afraid of fish poo at all. I only saw one person who said they did not like fish for that reason.
I did goldfish for a couple of years. I did not find they helped and since we like to dump and scrub a couple of times per week our trough was not the happiest place for them either.
I do not use bleach because though many posters make it sound like it is easy to use with out getting it on your clothes, I am not that person. I look at a bottle of bleach and I get it on my clothes somewhere.
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A friend used the gold fish method in a large trough. It didn’t work. I remember well helping her to catch them all. She finally dumped it and we were catching flapping fish on the ground. The poster that offered information on ‘fish poo’ was a water biologist. I appreciate such input in these discussions.
Uncorked - What do you use to keep your water barrels clean?
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Besides fish nothing - I let the tank level go down to under half way often to put more fresh water in and do dump it completely once a year but have never scrubbed it or used anything. Now at the barn the water is unfiltered from the well so it could be that it either lacks the nutrients or has something in it that deters the growth. I have never tested it. I have both a degree in Microbiology and Chemistry and have managed a large breeding farm as well as a couple of high performance dressage barns - didn’t use fish at those places because we had automatic waterers in the fields/paddocks
LOL, I am definitely not afraid of fish poo, I work in rivers/streams/lakes with…fish. But OP asked specifically about control of algae growth. The N-based compounds the fish excrete will feed vegetative blooms and therefore would be counterproductive to what OP was trying to achieve, hence my recommendation to try other options.
For anyone who does put fish in troughs, please please please DO NOT ever release them into ponds, streams or other waterways. They are a form of pollution, i.e. exotic species, which do much harm to aquatic systems and in some cases, introduce diseases & pathogens which can affect your horses & you. In most states, such releases are also illegal (unauthorized stocking) for this reason. If you want to keep fish in your trough, that is up to you, no problem, but if you don’t want them anymore, find them a new captive home or humanely euthanize them.
I obviously support using less chemicals wherever possible, but in terms of rinsing things outdoors with bleach, this has no harmful impact on groundwater (obviously you should never pour bleach into surface waters or let your rinse water run off directly into a pond or stream). Reason being bleach is an oxidizer & rapidly breaks down when exposed to light and oxygen - this is why bleach is sold in opaque containers. When you dump out rinse water that contains a small amount of bleach onto the ground, that bleach very quickly breaks into trace amounts of salt and oxygen. I don’t personally use it because (a) I don’t want to buy the bleach, (b) I have a picky drinker, but people dumping very small amounts on upland areas exposed to sunlight does not impact water quality.
But I greatly appreciate everyone who is aware of the importance of water quality & takes measures to protect it! 
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No, they seemed to take to it right away.
I forgot to mention that the reason my friend dumped out the fish to catch them was that the water was so dirty we could barely see them.
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I am getting a huge water trough next week - free from a friend. I’m not certain how to keep it clean and am considering using fish as well. I would probably drain the top of the water tank a few times a week, as the hot dirty water always ends up on top. Would goldfish be okay with that?
I learned through lots of trial and error that the only thing that will keep trough algea at bay and produce sparkling clean water is pool water chemicals (the granular shock treatment that renders the water acidic which is what kills algea both in the water and on surfaces that the water contacts), or covering the trough to keep the light out and just keeping a drinking hole open.
None of my crew minded the treated water - they seemed to prefer it 100% over untreated water. (Yeah, tested them one year by offering a tank treated with pool chemicals and one with untreated water already turning green, and it was unanimous - they all drank the treated water and ignored the untreated. I found that to be very interesting.)
Ditto. When I used tubs, they were the bomb.
Partial water changes won’t harm fish, in fact, if your primary goal were fish health, it is better for them, we do water changes routinely when transporting or holding many rare aquatic species.
I also checked out that link for the clear water tabs, looks like they are a mix of chlorine and salts, according to their FAQ, which would probably be similar to the poster above who used pool chemicals (that’s a new one to me, never heard of that).
Mine get algae all the time (HOT and Texas), I’m interested in the pool shock…just because when I put up my above ground pool for the summer, if I happen to let horses out grazing around it they LOVE drinking the water which I thought was really weird. Hmmmm on using the shock in their water troughs…has anyone else used it?
Very educational post, thank you.
Now I am wondering what method of euthanizing a fish is considered “humane”. Several methods come to mind but seem cartoon-ish. What method do the pros use?
What is the problem with a little algae? I just let mine( 100 gallon) get low enough to dump every few weeks, wipe it out ( with my hand) and refill it. As wet as it is everywhere I can’t fathom dumping a trough daily.
There are several depending on the human & what condition you want the fish in afterwards (i.e if it is needed as voucher specimen). The simplest is scoop up in a net & smash it. Yes, it sounds terrible but it’s instantaneous & painless. I do this with exotic species. I don’t like killing anything but I’ve been alive long enough to witness that there are many things worse than being simply dead.
For fish you don’t want smashed (or humans who don’t want to), clove oil in water is a fishy sedative & an overdose will kill them (or you can just sedate them & kill them a more efficient way when they are out of it). Benzocaine works as well, but I don’t think that’s available at the corner drugstore.
My thought was just to give them a good blow to the head, or squish them. I’d think that drugging or poisoning would, however much better the “hands off” method may make some people feel, be less kind to the fish.
