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Ponds & Aquatic Plants

What beneficial bacteria

14 years ago

I am curious as to what beneficial bacteria I should buy for my pond. I had been using up the last of the stuff I used in my aquarium when I had the koi in my aquarium. Now I have been looking at the stuff for ponds and they have so many differnt types. What should I be using in my pond? what brand and type do yo u all use in yours?

I have a 2000 gal. pond ball park. + or - 100 gallons.

Depending on who you talk to is to what is the better brand to use. One pond place recommends ecosystems products. They say microblift is crap and another swears by crystal blue. As most of you who read my post is what I used for a dechlor. and it killed off my livestock so that is OUT OF THE QUESTION. So any idea would be great.

This is the first year for my pond so I dont know if I should use liquid or powder. I have heard pros and cons of both. Please help.

Troy

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Comments (6)

jpinard
14 years ago
Crystal Blue is very very bad.

Here's what we use and like very much.

Pond-Zyme by Pond-Care
http://www.petmountain.com/product/pond-biological-additives/502766/pondcare-pond-zyme-plus-with-barley.html

Eco-fix by Pond-Care
http://www.petmountain.com/product/pond-water-clarifiers/502584/pondcare-ecofix-bacterial-pond-cleaner.html

Bio-Filter Booster by Pond-Care
http://www.petmountain.com/product/pond-filter-media/504375/pondcare-biofilter-booster-biological-filter-starter.html#
michelle_ncpond
14 years ago
Being in the pond business I have asked around a lot about this myself and really was shocked at what I found. Pretty much all the pond bacteria is grown by the same three chemical companies in the USA and none of them are in the pond business! What you want to look for is the bacteria count. In the dry the count should be at least 1 billion per gram and it goes as high as 5 billion per gram. Lately we have been using the American Pond brand, their Reg. dry is 1.5 per billion and the Super Dry is 5.1 per billion.
Dry gives you more for your money. Place it in your falls on bio media for two hours do not run you pond but keep water in the falls area by blocking the tube so the water does not drain out. If you do not have a falls just spread it around the edge of the pond and let it set up house on the rocks. Good luck on your new pond.

Here is a link that might be useful: NC Pond
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I'm confused as to why he would need to innoculate regularly. The stuff is sold (I've always been told) to seed a biofilter or jumpstart a biofilter so that it can begin to "eat" the ammonia and nitrates and convert them into nitrites. The more ammonia you have, the happy bacterias will breed to consume that much. In other words, why would he need to keep adding it unless he was also dumping in a huge ammount of ammonia in each week? To keep adding bacteria without increasing the food source would only cause the bacteria to die off anyway and add more pollutants to the pond... this just sounds wonky. Maybe he didn't have a proper biofilter set up in the first place and that's why he had to keep putting it in. If you have an estblished biofilter, there's no need to get any extra bacteria to put in there. Your own bacteria is enough to eat up the ammonias and nitrites that basically feed the algea growth. It will multiply on its own, in accordance to the available food source. Unless I'm just confused... which happens a lot these days. :-)
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I withheld from saying this in my first post because I thought others would chime in. I know you have very few fish, but you also have VERY little water. You have one koi and one koi needs 500 gallons, you have a max. guesstimate of 250 gallons. You also have other fish. IMO you are already over stocked and you're adding chemicals. Your pond had not had the time to develop natural benefical bacteria and I would think what beneficial bacteria that did happen to develop, you unknowlingly killed. Slow it down and let nature take it course. As for the koi, I feel sorry for it. It needs more space. Sorry for ragging on you, but you're wanting spristine results in a poorly planned enviorment. Read a bit more about ponds and fish, etc, etc. You'll get the hang of it and hopefully not at a lot of more fish deaths.
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rainbow_trout
14 years ago
I am sorry to say, but denitrifying bacteriaÂs are very short lived, do not form spores and therefore you can not really buy them? The stuff you buy is not doing much to your pond no matter the origin or brand.

You will be surprise to read that bringing soil, plants and getting leaves and fish waste in your pond is what truly starts your pond. A hand full of composting leaves, decomposing barley straws will kick start the production denitrifying bacteriaÂs significantly faster than the expensive stuff in a bottle.
jpinard
14 years ago
WHat about getting soil from a river or lake bottom?
rainbow_trout
14 years ago
Even better; or water from a well establish lake or pond... but remember that bellow 50F their is not much bacterial activity, optimimum activity and growth is obtained at 55-80oF at oxygen saturation. Best to wait a few weeks after the lake/river or water/bottom has reached 60 oF or more and then you will get a good start in your pond starting transfering the source of microorganism. I would do the transfer repidly in order to transfer "live" organismes. I would pay attention not to introduce leaches in your pond...
pondbucket
14 years ago
What rainbow_trout said is very close to what Prof. David (drh1) has told me. I've since asked a trusted pond store owner too and she admitted flat out that the organisms can't survive in a bottle very well and by using the bottle stuff you are essentially conditioning the water for colonizing/seeding of the filters/pond that occurs naturally.

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