bacteria in a bottle

[MajorDan]

I receive a bottle of dry bacteria with my aquascape pond kit. My pond is now full of water, the bog is full of gravel and some plants that were just planted, some new water lillies in the pond and lots of water turnover through waterfall and bog. No fish yet, will be another 2 weeks before I can get them. SO, the question is, do i dump those dried bacteria in now, wait until the fish go in or just throw them out?

Also, can I have to much water flow in my bog or doesn't it matter? I have valves on both bog and waterfall 2" lines so I can adjust the flow either way.

I thought I would be out of questions by now but I keep finding things i need to know and appreciate the forum members replies, mucho!

Learning more every day.

Thanks,

Dan

 

[MitchM]

Your pond already has bacteria in it, what that existing bacteria needs is food.
I would not use that bacteria in a bottle. Instead, I would add some grocery store pure ammonia to your pond to feed the existing bacteria plus the plants will feed off it as well.
How much ammonia you add depends on your pond size. Post your pond size if you like, there's a calculator available we can use.
http://www.fishtanksandponds.co.uk/calculators/ammonia.html
For bog flow, you only need enough to prevent as few dead spots as possible from accumulating detritus over time. The flow rate number isn't critical, so use an inline valve and try different flow rates and use what seems best.

 

[addy1]

Also, can I have to much water flow in my bog or doesn't it matter?

Agree with Mitch, mine is way too fast by "net advice", but it does great. I have all except a small bit of around 6800 gph running through it. The bog is big.

 

[MajorDan]

The approximate volume of my pond, bog and waterfall is 1200 gallons. Going to go to store to get some ammonia. Will one quart do?

 

[MajorDan]

Using the pond master test kit the results were:
PH 9
Ammonia .25 ppm
Nitrite. 0 ppm
Phosphate 0 ppm

PH seems really high

 

[MajorDan]

Just tested our water we used to fill pond and it was also a ph of 9. We have hard water.

 

[MitchM]

You can put in about 10 oz, so a little more than a cup of ammonia.
Make sure you don't get a scented ammonia.
The ammonia I have is 5% which I used for the calculation, check what strength the ammonia is that you get. If it's different, post back here what strength yours is and we can recalculate.
When you get a chance, measure your KH and GH. A PH of 9 isn't terrible, but some plants will struggle.
Also make a note of what your water temperature is.

 

[MajorDan]

Water temperature is 55 degrees. I guess I will need a different test kit to measure KH and GH.

 

[MajorDan]

My waterfall is all locally found limestone rocks. All the “mountains” around our house are limestone so there is plenty of interesting rocks to retrieve. Also all the wall rocks around my pond are fake concrete blocks from Lowe’s.

 

[sissy]

crushed oyster shells will help .

 

[Sparky]

If the limestone is in contact with the water enough, it will raise the pH if I’m not mistaken.

 

[MajorDan]

You are right about limestone and concrete. The PH is maxed already. Water supply is Ph 9+. So I need to keep KH high to buffer PH for when it rains. KH is currently 24 drops from the test kit.

 

[Bluerooster]

Your pond already has bacteria in it, what that existing bacteria needs is food.
I would not use that bacteria in a bottle. Instead, I would add some grocery store pure ammonia to your pond to feed the existing bacteria plus the plants will feed off it as well.
How much ammonia you add depends on your pond size. Post your pond size if you like, there's a calculator available we can use.
http://www.fishtanksandponds.co.uk/calculators/ammonia.html
For bog flow, you only need enough to prevent as few dead spots as possible from accumulating detritus over time. The flow rate number isn't critical, so use an inline valve and try different flow rates and use what seems best.

I went a different route for the same result. I bought a dozen minnows at the local bait shop. They provided enough ammonia to feed the bacteria, and I had fish in my pond. One survived and three years later he's grown to be huge for a minnow.