What will be the roles of bacteria in a pond?

What will be the roles of bacteria in a pond? The term "bacteria" tends to have a negative connotation, when in fact these are good pond bacteria.

These bacteria will be responsible for what is called “the nitrogen cycle”. They will therefore be essential in your pond. But why ?

When you have a lot of organic matter that arrives in a pond, be it rotting leaves, food, fish excrement, etc., you have this same organic matter that will turn into ammonia; and this transformation will only be possible with the presence of bacteria.

The ammonia will be transformed into nitrites, which then will be transformed into gaseous nitrates or nitrates assimilated by plants. And it is each time very distinct types of bacteria that will ensure the different stages of the nitrogen cycle.

If you have a defect in either type of bacteria, you risk either an ammonia spike or a nitrite spike which could be quite damaging to your pond. That's why it's important to choose the right bacteria for each stage of the nitrogen cycle.

What are the types of bacteria?

There are two kinds of bacteria to use for your pond:

• starter bacteria
• Maintenance bacteria

starter bacteria

Also known as nitrifying. They are used when you create a new pond and put water in it. If you put tap water, which is still the best. It will be necessary to wait one or two days to allow the evaporation of all the chlorine, before putting bacteria.

This step will be essential, because the chlorine present in tap water kills bacteria.

For the dosage, count one liter of bacteria per 10 cubic meters of water. This will be for seeding in new ponds or when you put a lot of water in your pond.

Eventually, if one day you encounter a nitrite or ammonia problem, do not hesitate to double the dose. You can put up to 2 liters of liquid bacteria per 10 cubic meters of water, which will very quickly reactivate the nitrogen cycle and reduce this peak of nitrites and ammonia.

Maintenance bacteria

After the liquid bacteria which are the kick-start bacteria, there are also bacteria in maintenance powder.

But what will be the best way to administer these products which are in powder form?

You have to take a bucket of water from the pond to put the necessary dosage in it.

If we take the example of 20 cubic meters, you will use four spoons each week that you will put in a bucket of water. You put on an oxygen diffuser and let them work for two to three hours, so those freeze-dried bacteria get activated. Afterwards, you will spread all of this liquid on the surface of the basin.

These products are very important in a pond. Why ?

Organic matter will accumulate and inevitably you will have to empty it much faster. The filter in the technical installation will be like the septic tank of your pond. Bacteria will help break down organic matter so there is less organic matter in the pond.

Thanks to this, you will clean your filter less often.

When you clean your filtration system, if you're manic, you leave your manic side out, because when you're done cleaning it, it should stay dirty.

If you wash your filter completely, you are left with a dead filter when it certainly takes three to four weeks to begin to balance it.

So, when cleaning your filter, be sure to always leave it: either barely cleaned, or even just rinsed, or with parts that you are not going to touch.

You start once with the brushes. The week following possibly your Japanese carpets. The week after your foams. But make sure you never wash a filtration system completely.

These bacteria will indeed help you to have an ecosystem in balance and this is very important. Before starting to put bacteria, it is very important for the survival of bacteria to be in a favorable environment, it is therefore necessary to have a pH which will turn between seven, or seven and a half, even eight, to have sufficiently high hardnesses. So, a pH around eight to ten knowing that these bacteria will only be effective when the water temperature is above eight to ten degrees.

When is the best time to put the bacteria?

For starter bacteria, it is best to put them in the spring. As a rule, from March and April.

For maintenance bacteria, you can put it all year round from March after putting the starter liquid bacteria. You will use maintenance bacteria periodically until the end of the season when the water is 10 degrees.