Looking for advice on what to do for my water trough.
It’s absolutely huge - which worked fine when 9 horses were drinking out of it. Now there are only 3, and DH filled it to the very top trying to be helpful. There’s no way they’re going to drink it down before it slimy and green.
Is there an easy way to keep this clean, or should I just resign myself to pitching it out with a bucket until I can dump it?
Hi,
If there is access to an electric outlet, you can use a small water pump
There are also battery powered transfer pumps that could be used, downside is it could clog the filter. Otherwise take a short length of hose and make a siphon! No technology needed. Google it for how to do so, it does in fact work 
Maybe a solar powered air pump and some goldfish?
I know goldfish eat algae but I’ve never understood why they’re recommended for animal troughs over ghost shrimp or snails. Goldfish create a lot of waste, which just helps more algae grow!
You could make a cover for it to block sun, with just a hole for drinking (something may already exist on Amazon), which will help slow down algae growth.
I’ve known a lot of people that splash some bleach in the trough each time they fill it. I use chlorine tablets (flame suit on). A boarder put me on to them in Florida, and I never looked back. I use one small (1") tab for a large trough; it keeps the algae away for two weeks and you don’t get any taste or smell of chlorine. Have been doing it for seven years without issue.
Or as someone said, use a piece of hose to make a siphon, or go get an actual siphon from an aquarium store. If you want to just use a piece of hose, you’ll put one end in trough, and the end sticking out needs to be lower than the water level, then you’ll suck on the outlet end (with your mouth) until water starts coming, then it will empty itself.
Three ways I’ve tried for trough emptying, besides bailing them out with buckets.
Adding a hose bib to the side of the tank. That sounded better than it worked, as it would quickly clog.
Siphoning out using a “shaker siphon hose.” This I found in the well supplies section of Lowe’s. It has a ball valve that moves up and down as you shake the hose, thus priming the siphon without having to suck on the other end. It takes a long time to empty even my 50 gallons. So I tended to start it, walk away and forget it, and forget to refill the empty trough. It is the hose in the picture hanging next to the fence post.
Now I use a cordless pump I found on Amazon. It’s not a Dewalt brand but it uses a Dewalt 20V battery. I added two hoses, the intake one with a screw-on trash filter, also found on Amazon. It is much quicker than siphoning. If you use a longer hose on the discharge side you can keep the water away from the footing right around the trough. I have used this daily for about three years so far with no problems.
I used the chlorine tabs/pellets in NC, it worked just fine, horses drank with zero issues.
I found a dead rodent in one of the water buckets. I washed it out with bleach, dumped it out and had to walk away for a minute to do something else. My 4yo filly drank the remaining leach water instead of drinking out of the clean bucket next to it. Seems she likes the flavor.
Barley straw works great. I used to buy Stock Tank Secret, but now just buy the generic ones for ponds.
Do yours try to fish it out and eat it?
Thankfully no - I was going to actually mention that mine have left it along but some might play with it. In that case you might be able to weight it down. 
You can siphon it with a hose, and you don’t need to suck on the hose. Carefully put the length of hose into the water trough, starting at one end, making sure you do not introduce any bubbles.
Put your thumb over one end of the hose, blocking any water from leaking out. Keeping your thumb over the end, move that end ofthe hose out of the trough, to a level below the water level (even better if it is below the bottom of the trough). Take your thumb off the end, and the water will flow until either the water level drops to the level of the exposed hose end or until there is no water over the end of the hose IN the trough.
Having dealt with pool chemistry, there isn’t much chlorine in it for long, especially in the FL sun. Besides, city water has chlorine &/ other halogens in it; I don’t know people would get upset.
This. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve filled our water tub full and then, because it was Winter, unscrewed the hose from the faucet end and put it on the ground. Voila, (nearly) empty water tub 
Even if you don’t have any slope, this will lower the water level plenty low enough to use a bucket to get enough of the rest out to be able to tip the tub over
I’ve never been able to do this successfully, idk if my fingers are too small or what. My husband can do it this way, though.
Get a valve for the end. Fill the hose, close the valve and move that end to where you want it to drain, then open the valve.
Oh that’s smart
Almost every garden hose shutoff valve at the big box stores chokes the potential maximum siphon flow of a 3/4 inch hose down to a 1/2 inch opening.
I found nice brass valves on Amazon that truly have 3/4 inch openings. It is amazing to see the increase in flow, both while siphoning and while filling a water trough.
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