Also remember, the investment you make in a quality pond habitat design will pay off every year with low or no maintenance expense. Most people lack the forethought to think ahead in this area.
i have a huge problem with algae where it grew and cover the whole pond, my pond is small, so later i found out it has 2 inch of muck on the bottom, i just took them out today
When using the pellets should I expect an increase in surface biofilm/oil slick-type looking results? It certainly seems like there is more of this sludge-y film after my application of pellets which is ok, just curious
Great question Mike...thank you for asking. Yes I would say that's very possible...as the pellets start breaking down this muck, there are many things that come out of it...or that get released...and this film like stuff certainly could be a part of that. If you have aeration going that may help some or if it get's a bit too much for one's taste to look at you could try slowing down on the pellet application or reducing the dose a bit...just to slow things down a touch.
I have a large pond and live across the street from a big farm that grows soybeans,corn,etc. The field used to have a low wet drainage area that I think drained into our pond. After the last bad hurricane, they did some leveling of their field and there is no longer a low spot there. Since that last hurricane, our pond has only been about 1/2-3/4 full. Any tips to improve the filling?
I can't say I have any really good tips for this. I mean you have to find a another source for the fill water. This might involve finding other drainage possibilities and doing some landscaping to route the water into the pond. Or look for possible sub-terrainian sources and drill for access. Either way I would get with some local resources...maybe the county extension service, or department natural resources to see if they might be of help.
Hi! Thanks for your video! Could you please recommend some good pellets for us to try? We have a quite significant much issue because the previous owners of the house (and pond) completely abandoned it for years… thanks again!
Hi...yes the lake would still be safe for both. These are naturally occurring microbes, they are just formulated in such a way to work best on muck breakdown and digestion. They are listed as class 1 microorganisms...same class as the ones found in yogurt so very safe. You could eat them...but they don't taste that good:)
I have a small 1/4 acre pond that was just built 6 years ago in Southwestern Va. I have had a 3/4 hp Kasco High Oxygen Pond Aerator (rated for 3/4 acre) that runs 24/7 in the pond since day one. I have never had to service the aerator until yesterday, and when I stepped in the pond about 3 feet from the edge I was in mud knee deep. I quickly turned around and got out before I sank to the abyss. My aerator fixed itself while I had it turned off, the debris clogging it must have fallen off the screen. Now my concern is all the mud, muck or silt that has accumulated. How do I differentiate what I actually have on the bottom? I do have large trees around 3/4 of the shoreline, and the deepest part of the pond is about 5' - 6' deep. The bottom is mostly clay, and as the pond was initially filling I walked across the pond everyday for 3 days or so just to see how muddy the bottom was going to be from day one. In the worst areas the mud was never more than ankle deep. So will the pellets work for me, and where do you get them?
Muck can certainly build up over time but this sounds pretty fast...trees and leaves can add to the accumulation no doubt. There are really two options on this build up...manual removal using heavy equipment of some kind for dredging, or microbes. The pelletized versions are the best for this because they sink down in the stuff and break it down. You can find the PondBiotix ME pellets on our site and for this pond I would use the 30 lb pail and see how that does for you. Keep in mind muck reduction is a bit of a process...not an overnight thing. But with some repeated applications you can work it down. www.pondalgaesolutions.com/pondbiotix-me-pellets.html
I have a pond next to a creek that some muskrats got into. The only thing separating the pond from the creek is the small bank between them. The muskrats dug a hole into the side next to the creek and the pond won't fill up all the way. It also has about 1-2 feet of muck at the bottom, and I was wondering how you would go about getting the pond functional again in order to plant fish.
Hi Caleb...a couple thoughts here. First as best you can I'd repair that damage done by the muskrats and see if you can get the pond more stable in water levels. I would consider aeration since fish are going to be involved and you have some reclaiming to do in terms of that muck clean up. You have two options on muck...dredge it (remove it mechanically) or work it down over time with biologicals...like our PondBiotix ME product for example. Aeration though to me is the place to start with because it's foundational...it sets the stage for everything else to work better (microbials) and protects the fish into the future too. Hope this helps for you! Send me an email mark@klm-solutions.com if you need any specific product recommendations. I wish you the best!
@@klmsolutions thank you for taking the time so long ago to write me a specific solution to my problem. I really do appreciate people like you who may get plenty of messages/questions and make it a priority to help them the best you can. *UPDATE* This is my father's pond on our rental property and we have not been able to make any improvements so far, just not a priority at the moment. Thanks anyways!
I have a 1/4 acre pond about 3-4 feet deep...the muck is about a foot or so deep and we have Koi that have gotten out of control. The water quality went from clear to basically solid brown. every time a fish moves you can see them stirring up the dirt. I bought a FujiMac septic pump and a 12" ring air diffuser for aeration....however the diffuser is stirring up the dirt even more, I have it close to the surface but it's still stirring up the dirt....I took it out because it seemed to make the problem worse....will your product help with the water quality and/or should I just get as many fish out of the pond that I can....should I put the air diffuser back in?
Thanks for your direct email Thomas...better to answer that way. One thing I forgot to mention in the short term, before you work on dredging this pond...although you don't have a lot of depth, you might try elevating your aeration diffuser a bit and see if that lessens the stirring up of the sediment. I suspect the fish are doing a lot of this too but for their sake, if it's hot there, the aeration may be helpful to them. All the best!
Thanks for the videos and threads. I have a similar issue to Dirk and am curious what your suggested solution was (you replied via email to him). I have a 15,000 gallon EDPM lined pond with recently reinstalled waterfalls with filter media after 5 year absence and a bottom aerator. ~ 100 koi. 2 foot shallow end 4 foot deep end. Water looks like a bubbling brown broth. The fish are healthy but the pond is ugly. I am contemplating trying to vacuum the muck but with the pond size it will be a chore. Is my solution limited to your Muck Eliminator products?
I have never used the Neptune Rake. It looks like it could work well, but I would determine for sure what weeds you have in there. Sometime of these will fragment when you try to remove them and actually make the problem worse. If one is more patient and you happen to have an plant that grass carp like, I do lean into them a bit more...but for manual removal, the Neptune looks pretty good.
In the case of a thick layer of muck, why is it necessary to keep applying the bacteria? If they are eating the muck, why are they not self sustaining as long as there is food (muck) for them to eat?
Thanks for the question Alex...it's a good one! So lets start with the simple part first...the way the pellets work, is they are somewhat broadly distributed...hand broadcasting for example. And in each spot where a pellet falls and sinks...it will start breaking down the muck. It will create a crater a few inches wide...so the reapplication helps hit most areas over time as the pellets fall in some new spots each time they are applied. This leads me to a similar point...in that observationally, we just get better results through multiple applications. So how much these bacteria actually colonize is debatable...they do to some extent but maybe not so much that we can favorably compare similar results from one application vs several in succession. The bacteria in most muck formulas is not terribly long living...maybe 30 days before some die-off begins. Plus you have a number of variables in water chemistry...from temperatures, pH and DO fluctuations which can all affect performance (activity vs dormancy) and longevity...so maintaining a consistent, adequate dosing of the products just tends to compensate for some of that. Finally, and I think most interestingly I was told by a microbiologist some time back, that the bacteria quickly adapt to the easiest food to eat and do not readily adapt to harder-to-eat materials. By adding fresh bacteria to the uneaten muck, the next group will then adapt to whatever is the most plentiful leftover. Once adapted to a food, they do not readapt but go dormant. They go dormant by changing their internal viscosity with the poly-phosphate until they are essentially solids and can remain viable until the food they can eat and the temperature within which they can function returns. Which would kind of support the observation that better muck reduction ends up occurring over time and multiple doses. So I hope this at least in part answers your question...in the end, in the simplest terms, and for a variety of reasons, if someone is specifically trying to reduce muck through bacteria supplementation, they will end up getting far better results through consistent and repeated applications over time.
I have an acre sized pond. Its 60 years old w trees around it. Has 3 feet muck in deepest part 15 foot total depth to hard bottom. Tapers up to 8 feet then up from there to water line. In 3 years i noted differences every year. 1st year curly leaf grew in all but deepest part to surface after some duck weed out breaks. 2nd year brazillian elodea took over...no curly leaf or duck weed. This year i see a little duck weed a little elodea but in the dry spell now i see the water has turned green like in a day (algae bloom). It also has a brownish scum on surface w little floating bubbles? Not sure what that is. Fish have been good n healthy but during this green bloom n scum on surface the fish r no longer seen. (There r big bass n bluegill in pond) Oddly we have one storm w wind and the 2 tribs that feed pond put some muddy water in pond and it clears up in a day (green gone). I may dredge the sewer (deepest part) and i was going to add some aeration, but im limited to solar and dont have thousands to spend. Whats your opinion in my case? Im in SW Pa. Thx
Particularly with the fish involved I think aeration has to be your focus to start with. It's tough though because solar just isn't really affordable yet. If you had power within 1000 feet, or maybe even a bit more, it would be doable with some additional airline to get air to the pond...and I do prefer that over windmills and solar which can be more intermittent. But something in there would be really helpful, if nothing more than to just protect the fish, and secondarily help with water conditions too. It might help more than that actually but to try and turn the pond around from the muck and growths, we would use beneficial bacteria, but it too does much better with good aeration. So, no power at all in the area?
There is no middle man. When we started putting our PondBiotix line together, we sought out the best formulas we could find. Those cost more to make. That said, if you look around online at other muck products in the 25 to 30 pound range...there are some that are quite a bit more money than our PBME.
Eventually, yes they can help. However keep in mind that muck reduction takes some time and repeated applications over a period of time...the more muck, the longer it may take. And you'd want good bottom based aeration to help too. In optimum conditions you might see something from 6" and more during a typical warm season in most of the US. This might run for up to six months or a bit more. In warmer climates where water temps stay above 60 degrees you could treat monthly, year round. The key I guess is to remember there is no quick fix for muck, other than physical removal or dredging. Biological reduction is slower but a lot less expensive usually.
Natural ponds are fine to use this...the pellets primarily break down organic material...decayed plant matter, leaves, etc...the dark muck that can build up at the bottom, that you want to keep in check to a degree. Most natural ponds have clay which helps seal the pond a bit...this is unaffected by the microbes.
Hi Gordon...thanks for the question. I would say by far the most commonly suggested treatment for cattails is something like this - amzn.to/44fYEGw . Its suggested to combine this with some kind of surfactant which helps it stick better to the plant. Plex Mate is an example of that. If you have the equipment to do so, manual removal may be helpful and of course non-chemical. Cutting the stems below the water's surface can help but don't do it in the spring...July or later. You may have to go through this cutting a few times but they will reduce over time. You could also investigate the use of salt to kill the cattails...they don't do well in high saline conditions but thus far I have not tried the method myself but it may be worthy of more research on google or youtube.
Thanks for your helpful comment. I know this video is a few years old and we need to do some fresh content, ideally showing some before and after results. Great input which I'll pass along!
Nice video, thanks for the info
You are so informative
Great help. Thank you
Excellent!
very informative thx
Also remember, the investment you make in a quality pond habitat design will pay off every year with low or no maintenance expense. Most people lack the forethought to think ahead in this area.
your advice is always the best thank u
i have a huge problem with algae where it grew and cover the whole pond, my pond is small, so later i found out it has 2 inch of muck on the bottom, i just took them out today
When using the pellets should I expect an increase in surface biofilm/oil slick-type looking results? It certainly seems like there is more of this sludge-y film after my application of pellets which is ok, just curious
Great question Mike...thank you for asking. Yes I would say that's very possible...as the pellets start breaking down this muck, there are many things that come out of it...or that get released...and this film like stuff certainly could be a part of that. If you have aeration going that may help some or if it get's a bit too much for one's taste to look at you could try slowing down on the pellet application or reducing the dose a bit...just to slow things down a touch.
To remove bottom sediments, we use a dirt pump and a Bagermaster suction nozzle.
I have a large pond and live across the street from a big farm that grows soybeans,corn,etc. The field used to have a low wet drainage area that I think drained into our pond. After the last bad hurricane, they did some leveling of their field and there is no longer a low spot there. Since that last hurricane, our pond has only been about 1/2-3/4 full. Any tips to improve the filling?
I can't say I have any really good tips for this. I mean you have to find a another source for the fill water. This might involve finding other drainage possibilities and doing some landscaping to route the water into the pond. Or look for possible sub-terrainian sources and drill for access. Either way I would get with some local resources...maybe the county extension service, or department natural resources to see if they might be of help.
Hi! Thanks for your video! Could you please recommend some good pellets for us to try? We have a quite significant much issue because the previous owners of the house (and pond) completely abandoned it for years… thanks again!
Hi Avra...thanks for the question. Here's what we have. www.pondalgaesolutions.com/pondbiotix-me-pellets.html
Thank you very much
What are the drawbacks to introducing bacterial pellets to a lake with a muck problem? Will the water still be safe for swimming and fishing?
Hi...yes the lake would still be safe for both. These are naturally occurring microbes, they are just formulated in such a way to work best on muck breakdown and digestion. They are listed as class 1 microorganisms...same class as the ones found in yogurt so very safe. You could eat them...but they don't taste that good:)
I have a small 1/4 acre pond that was just built 6 years ago in Southwestern Va. I have had a 3/4 hp Kasco High Oxygen Pond Aerator (rated for 3/4 acre) that runs 24/7 in the pond since day one. I have never had to service the aerator until yesterday, and when I stepped in the pond about 3 feet from the edge I was in mud knee deep. I quickly turned around and got out before I sank to the abyss. My aerator fixed itself while I had it turned off, the debris clogging it must have fallen off the screen. Now my concern is all the mud, muck or silt that has accumulated. How do I differentiate what I actually have on the bottom? I do have large trees around 3/4 of the shoreline, and the deepest part of the pond is about 5' - 6' deep. The bottom is mostly clay, and as the pond was initially filling I walked across the pond everyday for 3 days or so just to see how muddy the bottom was going to be from day one. In the worst areas the mud was never more than ankle deep. So will the pellets work for me, and where do you get them?
Muck can certainly build up over time but this sounds pretty fast...trees and leaves can add to the accumulation no doubt. There are really two options on this build up...manual removal using heavy equipment of some kind for dredging, or microbes. The pelletized versions are the best for this because they sink down in the stuff and break it down. You can find the PondBiotix ME pellets on our site and for this pond I would use the 30 lb pail and see how that does for you. Keep in mind muck reduction is a bit of a process...not an overnight thing. But with some repeated applications you can work it down.
www.pondalgaesolutions.com/pondbiotix-me-pellets.html
I have a pond next to a creek that some muskrats got into. The only thing separating the pond from the creek is the small bank between them. The muskrats dug a hole into the side next to the creek and the pond won't fill up all the way. It also has about 1-2 feet of muck at the bottom, and I was wondering how you would go about getting the pond functional again in order to plant fish.
Hi Caleb...a couple thoughts here. First as best you can I'd repair that damage done by the muskrats and see if you can get the pond more stable in water levels. I would consider aeration since fish are going to be involved and you have some reclaiming to do in terms of that muck clean up. You have two options on muck...dredge it (remove it mechanically) or work it down over time with biologicals...like our PondBiotix ME product for example. Aeration though to me is the place to start with because it's foundational...it sets the stage for everything else to work better (microbials) and protects the fish into the future too. Hope this helps for you! Send me an email mark@klm-solutions.com if you need any specific product recommendations. I wish you the best!
@@klmsolutions thank you for taking the time so long ago to write me a specific solution to my problem. I really do appreciate people like you who may get plenty of messages/questions and make it a priority to help them the best you can. *UPDATE* This is my father's pond on our rental property and we have not been able to make any improvements so far, just not a priority at the moment. Thanks anyways!
@NY UK I should have thanked him, my bad.
I have a 1/4 acre pond about 3-4 feet deep...the muck is about a foot or so deep and we have Koi that have gotten out of control. The water quality went from clear to basically solid brown. every time a fish moves you can see them stirring up the dirt. I bought a FujiMac septic pump and a 12" ring air diffuser for aeration....however the diffuser is stirring up the dirt even more, I have it close to the surface but it's still stirring up the dirt....I took it out because it seemed to make the problem worse....will your product help with the water quality and/or should I just get as many fish out of the pond that I can....should I put the air diffuser back in?
Thanks for your direct email Thomas...better to answer that way. One thing I forgot to mention in the short term, before you work on dredging this pond...although you don't have a lot of depth, you might try elevating your aeration diffuser a bit and see if that lessens the stirring up of the sediment. I suspect the fish are doing a lot of this too but for their sake, if it's hot there, the aeration may be helpful to them. All the best!
Thank you sir.
Thanks for the videos and threads. I have a similar issue to Dirk and am curious what your suggested solution was (you replied via email to him). I have a 15,000 gallon EDPM lined pond with recently reinstalled waterfalls with filter media after 5 year absence and a bottom aerator. ~ 100 koi. 2 foot shallow end 4 foot deep end. Water looks like a bubbling brown broth. The fish are healthy but the pond is ugly. I am contemplating trying to vacuum the muck but with the pond size it will be a chore. Is my solution limited to your Muck Eliminator products?
What is your opinion of the Neptune Rake for cleaning a 2 acre lake?
I have never used the Neptune Rake. It looks like it could work well, but I would determine for sure what weeds you have in there. Sometime of these will fragment when you try to remove them and actually make the problem worse. If one is more patient and you happen to have an plant that grass carp like, I do lean into them a bit more...but for manual removal, the Neptune looks pretty good.
In the case of a thick layer of muck, why is it necessary to keep applying the bacteria? If they are eating the muck, why are they not self sustaining as long as there is food (muck) for them to eat?
Thanks for the question Alex...it's a good one!
So lets start with the simple part first...the way the pellets work, is they are somewhat broadly distributed...hand broadcasting for example. And in each spot where a pellet falls and sinks...it will start breaking down the muck. It will create a crater a few inches wide...so the reapplication helps hit most areas over time as the pellets fall in some new spots each time they are applied.
This leads me to a similar point...in that observationally, we just get better results through multiple applications. So how much these bacteria actually colonize is debatable...they do to some extent but maybe not so much that we can favorably compare similar results from one application vs several in succession. The bacteria in most muck formulas is not terribly long living...maybe 30 days before some die-off begins. Plus you have a number of variables in water chemistry...from temperatures, pH and DO fluctuations which can all affect performance (activity vs dormancy) and longevity...so maintaining a consistent, adequate dosing of the products just tends to compensate for some of that.
Finally, and I think most interestingly I was told by a microbiologist some time back, that the bacteria quickly adapt to the easiest food to eat and do not readily adapt to harder-to-eat materials. By adding fresh bacteria to the uneaten muck, the next group will then adapt to whatever is the most plentiful leftover. Once adapted to a food, they do not readapt but go dormant. They go dormant by changing their internal viscosity with the poly-phosphate until they are essentially solids and can remain viable until the food they can eat and the temperature within which they can function returns. Which would kind of support the observation that better muck reduction ends up occurring over time and multiple doses.
So I hope this at least in part answers your question...in the end, in the simplest terms, and for a variety of reasons, if someone is specifically trying to reduce muck through bacteria supplementation, they will end up getting far better results through consistent and repeated applications over time.
I have an acre sized pond. Its 60 years old w trees around it. Has 3 feet muck in deepest part 15 foot total depth to hard bottom. Tapers up to 8 feet then up from there to water line. In 3 years i noted differences every year. 1st year curly leaf grew in all but deepest part to surface after some duck weed out breaks. 2nd year brazillian elodea took over...no curly leaf or duck weed. This year i see a little duck weed a little elodea but in the dry spell now i see the water has turned green like in a day (algae bloom). It also has a brownish scum on surface w little floating bubbles? Not sure what that is. Fish have been good n healthy but during this green bloom n scum on surface the fish r no longer seen. (There r big bass n bluegill in pond)
Oddly we have one storm w wind and the 2 tribs that feed pond put some muddy water in pond and it clears up in a day (green gone).
I may dredge the sewer (deepest part) and i was going to add some aeration, but im limited to solar and dont have thousands to spend.
Whats your opinion in my case? Im in SW Pa. Thx
Particularly with the fish involved I think aeration has to be your focus to start with. It's tough though because solar just isn't really affordable yet. If you had power within 1000 feet, or maybe even a bit more, it would be doable with some additional airline to get air to the pond...and I do prefer that over windmills and solar which can be more intermittent. But something in there would be really helpful, if nothing more than to just protect the fish, and secondarily help with water conditions too. It might help more than that actually but to try and turn the pond around from the muck and growths, we would use beneficial bacteria, but it too does much better with good aeration. So, no power at all in the area?
I just got property and have this issue in two acre ponds. Thanks guys
why does the product cost so much? Is it because of the mark up from the middleman? or just production cost?
There is no middle man. When we started putting our PondBiotix line together, we sought out the best formulas we could find. Those cost more to make. That said, if you look around online at other muck products in the 25 to 30 pound range...there are some that are quite a bit more money than our PBME.
where can I purchase a pond vac
Hi George...many places, but most important is knowing what to get. How many gallons is your pond and how deep is it?
Hi, will pellets remove muck of 2-3 foot deep?
Eventually, yes they can help. However keep in mind that muck reduction takes some time and repeated applications over a period of time...the more muck, the longer it may take. And you'd want good bottom based aeration to help too. In optimum conditions you might see something from 6" and more during a typical warm season in most of the US. This might run for up to six months or a bit more. In warmer climates where water temps stay above 60 degrees you could treat monthly, year round. The key I guess is to remember there is no quick fix for muck, other than physical removal or dredging. Biological reduction is slower but a lot less expensive usually.
i am not sure that physical removal is an option at all here, in Ontario..
Where can I get the pellets?
Hi Liz...they are on our website. Here's the link: www.pondalgaesolutions.com/pondbiotix-me-pellets.html
What about natural ponds that don't have a liner
Natural ponds are fine to use this...the pellets primarily break down organic material...decayed plant matter, leaves, etc...the dark muck that can build up at the bottom, that you want to keep in check to a degree. Most natural ponds have clay which helps seal the pond a bit...this is unaffected by the microbes.
Contending with cattails
Hi Gordon...thanks for the question. I would say by far the most commonly suggested treatment for cattails is something like this - amzn.to/44fYEGw . Its suggested to combine this with some kind of surfactant which helps it stick better to the plant. Plex Mate is an example of that.
If you have the equipment to do so, manual removal may be helpful and of course non-chemical. Cutting the stems below the water's surface can help but don't do it in the spring...July or later. You may have to go through this cutting a few times but they will reduce over time.
You could also investigate the use of salt to kill the cattails...they don't do well in high saline conditions but thus far I have not tried the method myself but it may be worthy of more research on google or youtube.
No actual before/after photos. Just you talking. Not very useful.
Thanks for your helpful comment. I know this video is a few years old and we need to do some fresh content, ideally showing some before and after results. Great input which I'll pass along!