The
muddy water in the pond may have two major reasons, both states can coexist.
1.
Clay particles.
(Description: Water like coffee with a lot of water or milk coffee.)
Small clay particles do not
sink to the bottom due to electric charge. In some areas with specific soil
conditions the particles do not sink to the bottom but stay suspended in the
water. The proven solution is too add gypsum.
How to calculate the right
dosage. If the pond is very big then a test on 10 containers can be conducted
with different amount of gypsum. The treatment is not destructive for plants or
aquatic creatures so no risk of “overdosing” exist. It will be to obtain the
best result for the minimum price. For smaller ponds the dose of 100 g per one
cubic meter of water is reasonable dose to start with. Practically if your
garden pond is 50 cm deep and has the size of 4mx4m than it is 16m2 and if it
would be 1 m deep you would use 1.6kg gypsum but as the deep is only 50 cm you
use 0, 8 kg gypsum. The first decisive improvement should be visible after 12
hours.
2.
Ammonia (Description: water
green, green-brown)
Such conditions prevail
often if the pond contains fish or a lot of organic material falls into the
water, like leaves etc. The gypsum will not help. A right bacteria flora has to
be established. One can buy a pond starter kit from Amazon. It work well but if
you have a fish in the pond the water will never be perfectly clean. If you have
capacity you may construct a simple filter. You may need some kind of water
pump. Safest would be to acquire small 12 volt pump. No risk of electric shock.
(You should use a thick power cable between the transformer and the
pump.) Pond bacteria: description of
Pond kit should contain two set
of bacteria Nitrosomonas and Nitrobacter.
In a very simplified way the
following processes take place:
I.)
Nitrosomonas
bacteria genus transforms
ammonia into nitrite.
N. alkalicus
N. hamburgensis
N. vulgaris
N. winogradskyi
II.)
Nitrobacter genus
transforms
nitrite to nitrate
which can be used by plants.
N. aestuarii
N. communis
N. europaea
N. eutropha
N. halophila
N. marina
N. nitrosa
N. oligotropha
N. ureae
Best growing temperature (20
to 30°C)
The optimum for both bacteria
groups is different but about 28-30 C should be a compromise. The PH value
should be between 6-8.
Unfortunately, the majority the
pond bacteria kits available on the market do not specify which bacteria are
present in the kit. Lack of information makes the conclusion on the problems
with the water improvement difficult.