Beneficial Bacteria and Your Pond

Have you heard that you need to add beneficial bacteria to your pond? Have you added it and then looked again in a day or and thought, well that didn’t help? I’ve gotta say, that’s the same as eating all the good stuff and then checking the mirror to see if the one salad I ate yesterday is working…

Bacteria is in natural ponds and lakes. It’s part of normally occurring pond life. Bacteria is part of the process of breaking down nutrients in the water. When we have a manmade pond we often have higher expectations as to the clarity of water and lack of algae that Mother Nature does.

You've got to know the gallons in your pond

To keep a healthy looking and clean pond we have to speed up what nature might do more slowly. Add beneficial bacteria to the pond each week according to the container directions. You’ll need to know the gallons of water in your pond. If you know the dimensions of the pond you can check it in our pond gallons calculator.

If it is being drained and clean soon, it’s the perfect time to figure it out exactly. Get a 5 gallon bucket and time how long it takes to fill it from the hose. Then time how long it takes to fill the pond and use that to find the total gallons. (Ex. It took 1/2 minute to fill the bucket. That mean for every minute you have 10 gallons. If it takes 2 hours to fill the pond then we know that there are 1200 gallons of water!

How much how often?

Add bacteria once a week on a regular basis. You can add it to a place in the pond that has good circulation. In the skimmer, in the part of the pond that moves well, or even the waterfall. If you put in an area where there is very low circulation it won’t work as well.

Which beneficial bacteria should I use?

Honestly- you can use any one you want! I like to use dry bacteria because it has more strains in it and feel like it won’t spill like liquid does.

You can add powder bacteria, liquid bacteria or even a pond gummy (that is like a bacteria bomb!).

When should you add EXTRA bacteria and why?

Add extra bacteria when you see that algae is growing a bit more that you would like. Why? Because it consumes the same nutrients that algae does.

Add extra after we have a thunderstorm and rain. Why? For two reasons. Number one the rain dilutes the already treated Pondwater so you need more bacteria. Number two because we believe it or not. The lightning separates molecules into a couple things and one of them is NITROGEN! So it is literally raining fertilizer into the pond, just fueling that algae!

Wondering if you can put in TOO MUCH bacteria? You can, but it’s difficult. Read THIS for more info.

Important to know

If bacteria is being added to a pond that has no gravel (3/4 inch is ideal, pea gravel works for bacteria but I don’t recommend it), no biofall with media like bioballs, lava rock, bio ribbon or filter mats, then…..it really isn’t doing anything! Really! It is is just bare liner or just large rocks (even 6 inch cobble stone alone) there just isn’t a home for it. Bacteria needs surface area to colonize on. Little nooks and crannies. Did you know we get algae on our large rocks but the 3/4 inch gravel stays clear? Yep.

Make sure you have lots and lots of surface area for your bacteria.

What about algaecide?

Did you know that using algaecide kills beneficial bacteria? Yep. And sometimes you may be using it without realizing it. If the bottle has warnings and big caution areas showing the ingredients, that is algaecide!