New Pond, First Testing

[wonderboynj]

Hey all, I just tested my pond for the first time today and I just want to make sure things are okay so far.

I have a 110 gallon stock tank pond, it's been up and running for two weeks now. There are several plants in it, plus about 10 trapdoor snails. No fish yet.

I did add two capfuls of Pond Start when I set it up, nothing else yet except I did give the snails two small algae tabs.

Today's results were (using Master API Kit)

Ammonio - 0
Phosphate 0.50
Ph 9
Nitrite 0

If I understand correctly that PH is slightly high and I might need to do something for it.

Hoping for some feedback

Thanks!
Brian

 

[TheFishGuy]

Did you forget a zero in the phosphate number? that is very high. The PH is a bit high, so you may want to bring that down to 8 or lower.

 

[wonderboynj]

Indeed I did, it's 0.50.

 

[WaterGardener]

Please look up fishless cycling. Running filters with no source of ammonia to feed the beneficial bacteria is just circulating the water. You need to get the nitrogen cycle established (cycle the pond) before adding fish.

We love pictures!

 

[TheFishGuy]

Please look up fishless cycling. Running filters with no source of ammonia to feed the beneficial bacteria is just circulating the water. You need to get the nitrogen cycle established (cycle the pond) before adding fish.

We love pictures!

I belive that if he has no ammoniana or nitrite and there is a phosphate prescence then the pond is most likely cycled.

I would preform a water change to lower the phostphate levels before adding fish.

 

[WaterGardener]

I'm not familiar with the presence of phosphate meaning the pond has cycled. Could you please explain that?

I can see that if nitrate is present that might be the case, but this pond doesn't have anything in it that would have produced much in the way of ammonia that would start the cycle, just a few snails.

 

[TheFishGuy]

I'm not familiar with the presence of phosphate meaning the pond has cycled. Could you please explain that?

I can see that if nitrate is present that might be the case, but this pond doesn't have anything in it that would have produced much in the way of ammonia that would start the cycle, just a few snails.

I believe phosphate and nitrate show up together once organics have been cycled, I may be incorrect however. I would have to assume that in an outdoor pond enough organics make their way into the water source to start a cycle?

 

[WaterGardener]

Thanks for the reply, but I still don't understand. Do you have some reference for this so I can look into it more? I'm a curious type of person and like to know as much as possible about my hobbies.

There is no mention of nitrate in the test results. That would be helpful if we knew that. But it has been set up for only 2 weeks and I would think there wouldn't be much organic breakdown in that amount of time. That would also be pretty fast for a complete cycle of the pond to be established, wouldn't it?

 

[WaterGardener]

I just tested the water in a pool I have set up for water lilies. It has been set up for 3 years now and contains just over 20 water lilies. The pool is 2,000 gallons. I did not have a filter in it last year, but do this year and it had one in the first year.

These are the results:

0 ammonia
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
0.5 phosphate

I do fertilize those lilies fairly regularly, so I would think that could be a source of the phosphate?

So, is that pool cycled? Or has it never started one?

Color me confused.

A bit more information. My better half tells me that phosphate has to be present for there to be life, and that applies to bacteria. So there has to be phosphate in the system for the nitrogen cycle to even begin.

I suspect my lily pool has never cycled and I think the OP's pond hasn't either. Just my opinion.