What are Beneficial Bacteria?
Beneficial bacteria should be a regularly added item to any koi pond, water garden, fish pond, and/or garden pond. Although our ponds may look natural, they are far from anything but natural. Ponds in nature receive nutrients from the earth. Our ponds are cut off from the earth with a rubber pond liner.
Beneficial Bacteria are essential helpers in the garden pond and for pond filters, pond clarity, and the overall quality of pond water. They munch on pond fish waste and other organic matter and convert deadly ammonia into first nitrites and then into nitrates thus being an integral part of pond filtration. The nitrates are taken up by the pond plants. This cycle, known as the nitrogen cycle, makes the Beneficial Bacteria essential to the health and well being of the water and the creatures of the pond including koi and all other pond fish, and it also helps reduce problem nutrients that algae feed on and thrive with such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
Without using a filter inoculant, like Microbe Lift PL Gel, it can take up to six or seven weeks for a Beneficial Bacteria colony to grow large enough to handle all the waste created by the pond fish and dead plant matter in a garden pond. It is best to help this process along by maintaining a pH level as close to neutral as possible and adding Beneficial Bacteria, available in liquid, granular, or dry form, to avoid stressing, injuring, or even killing the pond fish. New ponds, freshly cleaned ponds, or ponds with new pond filters can experience severe water clarity and water quality problems from high nitrites and ammonia resulting in fish loss. Using Microbe Lift PL Gel, Microbe Lift PL, and Microbe Lift Nite Out II in these types of situations ensures restoration of the nitrogen cycle in as little as 24 hours.
The rate at which water flows through the biological chamber of the pond filter plays a major role in the effectiveness of the beneficial bacteria colony. If the water flows too fast the beneficial bacteria becomes ineffective, if it flows too slow it may not circulate enough of the pond water through the bacteria colony in the pond filter.
The biological chamber of the pond filter should only be cleaned when absolutely necessary and care must be taken not to eliminate the entire beneficial bacteria colony. Chlorinated water should never be used to clean the biological part of the pond filter. If it does become necessary to clean the biological chamber of the pond filter, beneficial bacteria should be added immediately to replace to bacteria lost during the process.
PondMarket carries a large selection of
Beneficial Bacteria for Garden Ponds and Koi Ponds
