Nope. The more surface area the bacteria have to cling to in your bio filter the more there will be. The bacteria will only grow so much and only as much as there is food for them. Add 3 dozen feeder Goldfish and the bacteria will multiply to accomodate them. Remove the fish after the pond stabilizes and the bacteria will be out of a job. The Green soup that occurs in new ponds is just nature trying to balance things. Once the Phytoplankton use up all the food thay will die off giving you a crystal clear pond. Treat your pond like a huge aquarium. Read up on aquarium maintenance and you'll see term like nitro bacteria and nitrosomonous bacteria, these are the ones that breakdown wastes. These are only 2. Remeber, Feed your fish not your pond. Excess food will feed the algae.

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. :-)

OK, there has been discussion on this subject but the experts who know the correct scientific answers have been AWOL for the past year or so. They could even name the different strains. The simple answer is yes, you can use the septic tank bacteria in your pond and it will work just fine. I don't use bacteria other than what grows naturally in the Skippy filter. I bought a package of it when I started my first pond and forgot all about it. I never needed to use it. I drain the Skippy after I turn off the pump in the winter down time and rinse the sides with a hose. I leave the quilt batting in to separate the leaves and winter gunk from the stuff the bacteria colonizes. When the temps are back up, I replace the batting, connect the pump and prefilter (for larger debris) and turn it on. I check for excessive muddy water and drain out the first fill. Snow melt is dirty! I also set up a UVlight and filter on a separate pump. Next year I am going to install a different UV light because it was difficult to find a replacement bulb. There is no start up algae bloom. Despite the fact that I over feed the fish it is rare to get murky water unless a raccoon dumps a plant, pot and all into the water. If that happens, I drain the Skippy a couple of times to get rid of the mud and top off the water. The mud would likely do bad things to the bacteria colonies since it would reduce the oxygen in the water and clog up the spaces where the colonies live. The shock of the chlorine in the tap water probably kills off some of the bacteria but it grows back fast. If I thought I needed to use canned bacteria and couldn't find fresh stock in the pond stores I would feel OK using the Ridex but I would check with the manufacturer for quantities. I think I read a comment on this subject on Koivet but it has been a while. I imagine the Ridex people could be reluctant if they thought about lawsuits that might occur. Sandy

Hi Woe, I hope I can answer all questions..When I changed the cartridge in the filter, it was not mucked up at all, as a matter of fact I was quite surprised with the length of time that the cartridge has been there that it wasn't more dirty, (maybe this is where I have in my head that the filter might not be working properly).When I did the water change I did not smell a rotten egg smell, can tell you when I siphoned the gravel my water was black, not what you call brown crud. My normal maintenance usually is doing water changes about every two weeks, at least a 20-30% change with cleaning the gravel. Now here is where I get my hand slapped, I probably went about a 1 1/2 months and last week was when my water started getting cloudy. So since late last week I have done 2 major water changes, cleaning gravel, and the other night changed 2 gallons of water without disturbing the gravel. Again, the water tests seem to be checking out ok. I also have live plants in tank, amazon swords, anubias, and java ferns. The swords looked like they were getting in bad shape so I removed them. Maybe they were starting to decay, (could this be something?) As far as decorations, or changing food, etc., I haven't added anything or changed anything. As far as phosphate or silicate tests, no I don't have these. I think I'm doing good just checking ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, etc. LOL All I plan on doing now is try to be patient and hopefully this tank will clear up. I will continue to do partial water changes. This cloudiness is a first for me. I wish I knew just what has caused this so I can try to prevent this in the future. Thanks for your help.