Hi John

Aeration can help at least keep up with organic buildup by eliminating stratification of your pond, introducing O2 to your bottom layers. This enables aerobic bacteria to thrive in new zones and they are significantly more effective consuming organic matter than their anaerobic cousins. I'm not a aeration expert so I don't know what to expect regarding muck elimination, but I believe aeration should assist in at least keeping up with new buildup.

How to remove existing muck? I've only used mechanical removal [trackhoe] - it's expensive and sloppy and one can risk damaging the integrity of the clay liner - so it's risky, too. While I have no experience using bacteria, there exists an entire school out there that support it's effectiveness. I spoke with a guy at Newtechbio.com [where I buy my chemicals] and he raved on it's efficacy for 20 minutes. Of course, that's his job to sell products - I didn't purchase any, but learned a lot. Hopefully someone can chime in with some scientific evidence regarding bacteria applications.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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