What do you use for biofall media?

[SEKCOBRA]

Woke up this am and water is crystal clear. Crazy

 

[Gemma]

lava rock has been used for a long time .My dad and I built a pond when I was 9 and he used them and his water was clear so when I built my pond I used his notes .I was 50 when I built here and now 64 and still use them .Tried and true never fails

I'm giving the Matala pads a try, and if I'm not pleased with them I'm going back to lava rocks!

 

[Lisak1]

Woke up this am and water is crystal clear. Crazy

I TOLD YOU!

 

[Mmathis]

I TOLD YOU!

Amazing!

 

[sissy]

lava rock is cheap and I have 1 of my ponder friends here that uses a pumice type rock .It is light but not sure how it will hold up .The rocks are slightly larger than lava rock

 

[carolinaguy]

We have used them all. Our best results were with k-1kaldnes moving bed biomedia, Matala pads and 4 inch in diameter fish brushes. It also helps to use a plant pond settlement chamber.

 

[SEKCOBRA]

I TOLD YOU!

I know you did and I believed you but its still pretty crazy. It seems like it swapped again. My stream and waterfall rocks got covered in algae in a matter hours and then the water cleared. Im guessing the same thing may happen again. when the algae dies off the stream it will go into the pond and create the bloom in the water and my stream will be perfectly clean again. I have more suds and they don't dissipate as much during the day. What actually is the dissolved organics? I don't overfeed, I don't have a lot of fish or large fish, The bottom is not mucked up, matter of fact there is no debris on the bottom. I thought I might be in for a surprise when the water cleared but that was not the case. The only thing I can think of that might be decaying in the pond are tadpoles. I put about 20 in and I see them here and there but I thought I would see them more frequently with that many. They may just be hiding because there are a lot of caves and rocks to hide under and around. It seems like I used to see them more often when I put them in. I made the mistake of not acclimating them to the ph and temp like you do with the fish. I just took them out of the bag and placed them in. I read somewhere afterwards that they can die from the water change if its done to quickly. Just another theory. Have not seen any dead ones. And they were definitely not ready to leave the pond. Im going to post a pic of the suds at 5:00pm, the stream and waterfall and one looking down to bottom.

 

[Lisak1]

Good question. Here's a possible answer for you from a thread from last year. Pay particular attention to the information shared by Meyer - he was a knowledgable and much respected member of this forum who unfortunately passed away late last year. We miss his wisdom and his humor - luckily the information he so kindly shared lives on in these threads:

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/adding-salt-to-pond-causing-foam-after-waterfall.21265/

 

[SEKCOBRA]

Good question. Here's a possible answer for you from a thread from last year. Pay particular attention to the information shared by Meyer - he was a knowledgable and much respected member of this forum who unfortunately passed away late last year. We miss his wisdom and his humor - luckily the information he so kindly shared lives on in these threads:

https://www.gardenpondforum.com/threads/adding-salt-to-pond-causing-foam-after-waterfall.21265/

Thanks. Ill read it now. Happy 4th everyone.

 

[SEKCOBRA]

Thanks. Ill read it now. Happy 4th everyone.

I read that thread. I thought about the salt also but I don't think that's the cause. It may well be but the suds have not lessened as the I have been dropping the salinity. I'm at 0.3 now and seem to have more suds then when it was at 3.0. That being said I will never add salt again. It came down from 3 relatively quickly but is taking forever from 1.0 till now. I probably changed the entire volume of water 3 times and I still register salt. I turned the pond over at least once in the last two weeks and it went from 0.5 to 0.3. Just going to wait it out and see what happens next. lol

 

[Lisak1]

That's one of the cautions I've read about adding salt to a pond - it can be very difficult to get it out. I guess you just keep at it. There's probably some chemistry involved, but that would involve math so... I'm out!

Your foaming isn't really that bad, for the record. I've seen far worse. It could just be the algae that died off in your stream. I don't think it would be the tadpoles - even if they did die, they would decay pretty quickly.

And I did want to confirm that you are correct - your pond may go through several more cycles of clear and then green before it finally settles down.

 

[SEKCOBRA]

Thanks Lisa. I would be happy if the water stayed clear like this and the stream was green but Im sure its going to flip again. The question is when. I know you said you don't use anything in your pond and im trying to head in that direction. Did you use the beneficial bacteria, sodium bicarbonate, or any of the recommended crap in the early stages? I have been using Sodium bicarbonate to keep my KH levels around 150. Koi guys want it up to 300. Im thinking about stopping this since my PH levels are consistently high and I was told by some that SB is basically adding phosphate for the algae to feed on. My phosphate level is always 0.25 on the scale.

 

[SEKCOBRA]

PS. I would even slow the water changes down but I am still at 0.3 and want to get that to 0.

 

[Lisak1]

I used beneficial bacteria in the beginning. Not sure if it did much, but I'm sure it didn't hurt anything. I've never added baking soda. My pH was high (off the chart when I measured it) in the beginning but it leveled off at some point. Not sure why, but now it measures right around 8 on a strip. My husband tried to get me to add salt to the pond in the beginning - old aquarium idea that he couldn't shake. I convinced him that it would kill my plants and he relented, thankfully.

I may have said this already but we were told by an old time pond guy that pond water takes 2-3 years to mature. You'll know when it happens. Before that point, anything is possible. Our first two seasons we were pulling giant balls of string algae from the bottom of the pond on a daily basis. Every day I bet I harvested several pounds - no joke. Great for the garden and I'm sure it was good for my pond, too. Then one day it was gone. Never happened again.

 

[sissy]

I have always used koi clay since the beginning and lava rock .It buffers the water ,the water will look cloudy in when you put it in but 8 to 12 hours later water will be crystal clear .A chep fix for just about any water quality problems along with a little peroxide