You ask "Does feeding pellets increase the rate at which a pond would become eutrophic?" Answer is yes. Adding food to a system causes the fish /animal biomass to be greater. More fish produce more manure which results in more overall pond fertility. Adding any type of organic material such as tree leaves or windblown or watershed materials adds additional nutrients once the organics are decomposed and processed into basic nutrient elements. Nutrient accumulation almost always increases the overall eutrophic condition or status. Available nutrients in the system tend to fluxuate throughout the year, usu weekly-monthly.
"Is there anything that can be done to slow stop the process or some type of fish/organism that can process all the organic material?" Yes. There are several things. Bottom aeration that produces one to several pond water volume turnovers per day will keep the bottom water oxgenated which will allow thousand if not millions of various forms of invertebrate organisms and trillions of bacterial processors to flourish. All are responsible for relatively quick and clean decompostion of sedimented organic materials as opposed to loss of oxygen in the deep zone that results in very slow "dirty" decomposition that produces septic black conditions and accelerated internal nutrient recycling of phosphours which is the main factor in eutrophication. Very few fish if any are directly responsible for the consumption or breakdown of sedimented organic materials such as leaves, muck, and sludge. Bacteria and invertebrates still have to process fish manure.
At least some of the available nutrients can be absorbed and or tied up and make unavaiable to new plant growth. But unless these bound nutriets are perminantly bound or removed from the system, the nutrients can sometimes or often be recyled back into the pond system to grow a new set of plants.
The addition of some beneficial forms of microbial (bacterial) and enzyme additions may influence and increase the decompositonal rate and nutrient recycling in the bottom sludge layer depending on several conditions. Many forms of microbial or bacterial products are available. Buyer beware. The limited knowledge that I have of these products causes me to question if the additions are supplying any bacterial or enzyme substances that are not already present in most natural healthy settings. Often these additions can be beneficial in situations where herbicides or chemicals have been used that have compromized the natural bacterial flora. In these cases additions can help reseed or enhance the normal aerobic community (oxygen consumers). Thus without good pond mixing and a homogeneous water body (aeration) bacterial additions would have limited affects on the entire pond.
I don't think one can ever stop eutrophication, just slow it down to various degrees. Eutrophication is dependant on rate of nutrient increases. In some aggressive cases or methods eutriophication can be reversed and or slowed at least temporarily compared to previous input rates.
I suggest you take the things you have received and read so far and reread them on vacation. Rarely does one absorb everything on the first reading. Review is always good. When watching a movie two or three times one usually sees things missed in the first screening. With additional knowledge and perspective, this allows one to absorb more from the same material.
"Also, what happens when you add a new pond to what I would guess is a relatively eutrophic marsh?" It probably depends. I don't think there will be a lot of nutrient exchange between the marsh and the pond unless there is a major flow or current of water that moves from the marsh to the pond. It is possible that the marsh could contribute nutrients to the pond. But in most cases the marshes serve as a nurient sinks or nutrient deposition sites where nutrient movement is delayed, suppressed or stopped. Marshes and wetlands have very good benefits in nature.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 12/22/07 11:03 PM.
