I haven't yet invested in an aeration system (hoping to one day) but in the mean time I am thinking about using some good bacteria to help get rid of algae and mud/sludge that keeps accumulating.

I have a 0.4 acre pond and it has some Koi, a ton of goldfish (soon to be bait for the bass...!!!), and some sterile grass carp.

I was poking around on Amazon and found lots of selections of things, but not really sure what's best. I could also go the Auquafix route through a site like clean ponds.com, but really not sure what's best.

Thanks!
Mike

Anyone?

I am not the expert to answer this, but choosing which bacteria and enzyme to use is really hard. There is seemingly no industry standard and you really must trust your supplier. That said, using one of the advertisers in Pond Boss Magazine is likely as good a reference as you can get as they do not just accept advertising with anyone. I just would not buy any of these products based on advertising talk. Finding someone who has used something successfully would be the best advertising.

HOWEVER, from what I have read using any of these products without aeration has not been demonstrated to produce good results. Since bacteria type products are relatively expensive, I think, that if I did not have aeration, I would save my money, get aeration, see what results you get from that for a while, and then look into additives.

I get so sick of all the resellers who take a generic product, change the name and raise the price a few thousand percent.
Oxyclean (the infomercial stuff) is just sodium percarbonate, put in a fancy box and raise the price thousands of %.

So what is all the pond scum reducer really made of? Where do we get it from the factory with out all the scammers in the middle.

Here is a novice opinion because I have been interested in the bacteria route for some time. In Short I would not spend the money to put bacteria in a pond, mine or any other for that matter until I knew that it would help. I did ask my fish supplier, Todd Overton at Overton fisheries who happens to be a biologist to boot and he said he had heard little positive in the way of sludge removal/ algae control of any kind.

The second reason I would not do it is a bit more abstract in that I want to utilize pond water to supply feed water for a dirt-less aquaphonic garden system. In my research, the current systems, many today utilize bacteria to convert nitrites into nitrates and it requires aeration/ bacteria/ and time(days to months) to establish the proper bacteria conditions in the water recycle process. I will not get into it any more than to say it takes time and certain condition to make the bacteria do what it is suppose to do and the ammonia cycle I did not even get into.

I would say with what limited knowledge I have that you can put the product in your pond but it may or may not work. If it does work you will just be lucky.I defer back again to Mr. Overton, who has forgotten more than I will ever know and he was skeptical at best.

I may know more from experience in the future of how and what conditions it takes for bacteria to work in ponds, the way you and I wish they would.

My caveat here is I think and have read that there are, if not millions, at least thousands of different bacteria and some may work in open pond water conditions,but I have NO idea what those specific bacteria are. I have not been able to read any specific tests(fact based) that have indicated any success and maybe others have.

If you try it, let us know how it goes I would be interested in the results or the lack of.

As I've said before I'm skeptical of the commercial pond bacteria too. I think a lot of the credit that bacteria gets should be given to using diffusers to keep the bottom aerobic so the bacteria that is naturally present will work.

All I see out there is anecdotal evidence. No credible scientific studies complete with controls, i.e., similar ponds in similar conditions side by side complete with a control pond.

I bought some once. Appeared to be mostly sawdust. I found that rather suspicious.

The best bacteria live in the guts of animals and are pretty good at eating up sludge. You get your beneficial bacteria just by animals pooping in your pond. Good aeration speed up microbe digestion rates almost exponentially and stops the bacteria from living in an anaerobic state, where they start to cannibalize each other. You have the poop just add air, as it is way more beneficial then adding bacteria.

I'm not sure if I agree with adding poop to my pond is beneficial?

You don't have to add it, as it is already there. Fish, bugs, crayfish, birds, rodents ect... already added the poop/bacteria.