Pond Bacteria

07 Feb 2011

It is critical to your ponds health to encourage healthy bacteria populations in your pond.

Naturally occurring pond bacteria exist in ponds ranging from small garden ponds all the way up to lakes. The problem is, the numbers of beneficial pond bacteria exist at very small amounts in most natural ponds. This leads to a buildup of sludge, organic matter, nutrients, and harmful bacteria.

First of all, we need to identify the “players” in the pond bacterial game. The first group, and most beneficial, is the aerobic families. These pond bacterial colonies thrive in high oxygen environments and aid in the digestion of organic waste, sludge and nutrients. They exist in natural pond environments in small groups due to a low oxygen environment at the bottom of most ponds.

The second group, anaerobic, requires no oxygen for production. These include several families of pond bacteria including E. coli and botulism. Obviously, not all anaerobic bacteria are bad, but these two families are very dangerous for livestock, fish, and birds. These are bacterium that you want to avoid.

Now that we identified the “players,” we can talk about what can be done to encourage the beneficial pond bacteria and how to decrease the harmful pond bacteria.

The first solution is to add the beneficial bacteria into the pond. This can be done through adding active bacteria, bacterial spores, bacterial enzymes, etc. These come in two forms, including liquid and dry packs. These can be added easily from shoreline.

The second solution is to add aeration. This is a bubbler unit that pumps oxygen into the pond via a pump and air diffuser. This aerates the pond in such a manner that the aerobic bacteria thrive and the anaerobic bacteria begin to be reduced in population.

Remember, it is important for your ponds health to increase oxygen volume and aerobic bacterial colonies in your pond.

If you would like more information about Sanco's pond bacteria products Contact Us.