Here you can read about my next step in small fish pond cleaning with beneficial pond bacteria and micro-organisms that should help in keeping the pond water in balance.
In my previous text, I described the situation in our small fish pond when we moved into our new house. So the pump which I had installed has been working fine, but I felt that this would not be enough in the long term.
Namely, our fish in the pond looks healthy and happy, and we feed them regularly, so you can imagine there will be sludge and fish excretion accumulating in time. This has negative effects on the water quality. There is also lots of pollen and dust in the air, so such stuff can eventually end up in the pond. I am pretty confident that our physical filter will do the job, but a part of this material may not get to the filter.
So to deal with the stuff that can accumulate on the bottom, we decided to add some healthy micro-organism into the pond water. There is a number of such products on the market. We ordered something that was available locally, the product is under the name Microferm Effective Microorganisms by Actiferm shown in the picture.
There is a pipe on the bottom, visible in the picture, so we just let it run directly into the pond water. It is brown in color and does not look great really, but it spreads and dilutes in the pond water. See how it looks when we added it:
The idea is that these micro-organisms will settle on the bottom and on the objects in the pond, and they will eat the sludge and help to keep a healthy balance in the water. We decided to switch off the pump for a while to give it time to settle, otherwise the UVC lamp inside the filter may kill them.
These bacteria will break down organic stuff and fish droppings, and they are also supposed to convert deadly ammonia into nitrates that are absorbed by the pond plants. My understanding is that there are two types of bacteria here, aerobic and anaerobic. In the first phase, the aerobic ones break down organic matter, and they also reproduce exponentially and they may run out of food.
This is where/when anaerobic bacteria start to play a major role. They act slower but they release nutrients like phosphorus that is used by plants and algae. They essentially restore oxygen levels so that plants and fish can survive, and this also helps aerobic bacteria to continue their work. The whole process may take several weeks.
Right now we are a bit concerned after seeing the color of the water, hopefully, this all is for the better and it should be only temporary. I shall keep an eye on what is happening, and might add a few lines later. So bookmark this text and come again.
By the way, do you remember my story about the mole in the garden? It is still there after several months, I have not found a way to get rid of it. We have added a few traps in the garden, and just today I was changing their positions, but I feel this is all useless. If you have any solution, let me know.
Thank you for reading. There is a comment box below so let me know if you have questions or comments.