Pond Management: Before & After Treatment

If your pond looks a bit like the picture above, you aren’t alone. This is a before picture from one of our Healthy Ponds clients, and our pond management products helped transform their pond water from murky and covered with floating green organic matter to this:

But how do we get these results? We typically recommend a three-step approach to help improve water quality.

Step One: Remediate

Our client informed us that this floating green organic matter was a common issue with their pond, and we created a pond management treatment that could remediate these issues as quickly as possible. The pond owner used two of our all-natural pond management products – AquaSpherePRO® and Natural Blast®.

Both of these products are chemical-free microbial treatments that use beneficial bacteria to consume the excess nutrients in the pond, including the floating green organic matter that you see in the first picture.

The AquaSpherePRO® is a sphere-shaped dispenser that contains a propriety mix of beneficial bacteria. You simply toss in enough spheres to accommodate the number of gallons of water in your pond and the sphere sinks to the bottom of the pond and biodegrades over the course of 30 days, time-releasing the bacteria.

For this client, because they already had an accumulation of floating organic matter, we recommended the additional treatments with Natural Blast®. This is a supplement that we also recommend that our clients keep on hand. It’s the perfect jump-start treatment at the beginning of your warm season, but it also can be used for pond maintenance to prevent problems after a temperature spike or substantial rainfall.

Natural Blast® comes in water-soluble bags that contain beneficial bacteria. You simply toss the bags into your pond, evenly throughout the water, and the product will disperse as the packets dissolve. You can repeat this treatment every 7 to 10 days or as needed. Typically, when a pond has a preponderance of floating green organic matter, such as in the first picture above, multiple treatments will be needed.

The AquaSpherePRO® and Natural Blast® can and should be used together. They are especially effective when your pond has an aeration system in place. We highly recommend aerating your pond water. Not only does it help circulate the beneficial bacteria, but it also keeps temperatures down and oxygen levels up, both of which slow the growth of floating organic matter.

Step Two: Pond Maintenance

After a few treatments of the AquaSpherePRO® and continual treatment with Natural Blast®, our client’s pond was restored to a healthy and beautiful condition. It is important to note that they continued to add a proper amount of AquaSpherePRO® every 30 days and used Natural Blast® on occasion, such as when temperatures spiked.

You cannot overtreat using AquaSpherePRO® and Natural Blast®, and both of these products are veterinarian-approved and safe for fish, wildlife, livestock, pets and people. Using beneficial bacteria can be one of the easiest and safest ways to improve pond water clarity and quality.

Step Three: Enhance

While this wasn’t a step used by this particular client, using pond dye can be a third step in the treatment process. Our blue and black dyes improve the aesthetics of your water feature or pond and, at the same time, keep water temperatures lower. Again, this is optional, but many people love the way it makes the water look at it can be a good option for ponds with little natural shade.

Severe Pond Issues

With this particular pond, AquaSpherePRO® and Natural Blast® handled the job successfully. However, if you have a stagnant pond that is heavily matted with floating organic matter, we recommend that you use AquaSpherePRO® and Rush®. This combination works well for ponds with severe issues. Rush® is a higher concentration to help combat issues related to stagnant water.

The directions for use with Rush® are a bit more complex than with AquaSpherePRO® and Natural Blast®, and you may need to apply it every 3 to 7 days. Ponds with large fish populations should reduce the dosage by 50% and treat the affected area every 2 to 3 days. Please read all of the directions for use for this product, and feel free to contact us if you have any questions about using Rush®.

If you aren’t sure which pond maintenance products are the best fit for your situation, we offer free personalized treatment plans for any size water feature at https://healthyponds.com/free-pond-plan/. If you have any questions about treatment or our pond maintenance products, please don’t hesitate to contact us at any time.