Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Muck Eating Bacteria Experiment

Hi all,
It's been a while since my last post, mostly just reading everyone elses has to say. Good Stuff! Been reading and thinking alot about these Muck Eating Bacteria and thought I'd give it a try. I've read alot of articles and studies and the results thereof. I need to prove it to myself most of all to find out if it is "snake oil" as some here have called it, or does it do what it is suppose to do.

As a disclaimer and to make sure what my intentions are here, I work for no company nor am I promoting any products in any way. I am a pond/lake owner in Southwest Michigan who has been battling muck and weeds for years. I only want to learn and educate myself of any and all efforts of lake management. I Love doing the whole lake management thingy anyhow. If I can help others in this experiment then how much greater this world will be. Hallelujah!

Last year (2011) I ran my aeration system 24/7 May thru mid October without the addition of bacteria. I'm sure there are beneficial bacteria already down there, but I did not add any. Things I observed last year were:

1)The water quality was considerably clearer.
2)rotten egg smell disappeared.
3)weeds were fewer (milfoil, algae) although still a problem.
4)sandy area was exposed on the shoreline by the end of summer by 3-4 feet from the shores edge.

My hope this year (2012) is that by adding a special blend of bacteria the muck will be reduced much faster. Anerobic verses Aerobic bacteria is where I find it the most interesting and it makes alot of sense to me. Here is what I'm doing. I have a 14 acre lake that has been around since the early 60's and is surrounded by trees. The south side of the lake where I live has the deepest muck. I havn't officially measured it, but I have pounded 4x4x12' posts in the muck for building docks and things and never hit anything solid. Very deep muck to say the least.

This year April 1, 2012 I started aerating the south side of the lake just like the previous year with 4 aeration stations that consists of 2 disc diffusers on each station. The average depth in this location is 8 feet deep. The diffusors are approximately 150-200 feet from shore. This is all before adding any bacteria. As a gauge to monitor the muck digestion throughout the summer I have an old wooden broom stick that I painted the first 10" RED and the rest of the broom stick is painted white. From here on out I will refer this broom stick as the "muck gauge". This muck gauge is stationed at the end of my dock, which extends 50ft from shore, and was pounded into the muck. I pounded/pushed it all the way down where the muck level was even with the line where the RED paint meets the white paint. The Red portion of the muck gauge can be seen under the water fairly easy by standing on the end of the dock. The idea is that the more the white is exposed over time the shallower the muck gets. The muck gauge will stay in this position all summer long without being disturbed.
After allowing the aeration system to run for 4 weeks I added 1 pound of this specially formulated Muck Eating Bacteria to each aeration station totaling 4 pounds in all.

I have a video that I will post here on this thread that I recorded as I poured the bacteria directly onto the boil of each aeration station. You can see in the video the 4 aeration stations. The introduction date of the bacteria was April 29, 2012. I will continue to make observations throughout the summer months and post my findings and pictures of the Muck gauge as time progresses.

If anyone has questions or comments, please post. Be nice! I am highly interested in your thoughts and comments. I will be posting on this thread throughout the summer to update everyone as to the progress.

(I'll post the video once I figure out how)

Stay tuned for more...
Bob

I would love to keep some of the trees because it is a beautiful look. My late father in law was a huge tree lover in fact he was Tree Farmer of the year in Ohio, some time ago. With that said, they are way too close, actually hanging over the water and I’m afraid they have to go.
The area around pond 2 is surrounded by plenty of filtering grasses, not sure of the names. That is until it hits the tree line and it is bare ground underneath the trees.
I feel pond 1 will be exceptional since I am currently putting the most effort into it. It will also be a model or template of what I have to do to make the others good or better.
It is very exciting times.
At some point I am going to try to add some pictures, I am not that great at this but I will try.

This is what the program director of aquatics at the Ohio State University sent me a few years ago. I had a heavily silted in pond and was using muck reducer pellets from various manufacturers all to no avail. I ended up draining the pond and had a dozer come in and he removed enough muck to fill a ~1/4 acre field 3' deep full of muck. He held it in by creating a bowl out of clay, otherwise it would have just oozed back into the pond. If you could see how much muck was in that little 3/8 acre pond, you can then realize a few gallons of magic elixir will do absolutely nothing to get rid of it.




1. Regarding overall pond longevity, bubblers are usually best situated near/along the deepest water, but in sufficient numbers and power to circulate the whole water column. The point is to destratify, to mix, the water column. If you break up stratification, oxygen dissolved from the atmosphere across the surface of the pond should then be mixed throughout. If your diffuser plates are only in shallow water, you’re leaving the deep water to stratify, lose oxygen (that may release excessive phosphorus to the water column and may put you at risk of a summer fish kill), and may be facilitating the accumulation of much in the deep water, losing important volume. I don’t know how many you have or how your deep water lies trough the pond’s area, but two or three diffuser plates along the deep water is probably appropriate.



Enough circulation to turn over the pond’s volume twice each day would be excellent. The pond will mix naturally in the fall, so I ordinarily recommend you shut down the aeration system in the fall (no need to spend energy to artificially mix a pond that is mixed naturally). If you consistently ice over, you can repurpose the diffusers (moving them back to shallow water) to erode a hole in the ice). That only has use if you’re worried about prolonged ice cover and winter kill of fish.



2. I am skeptical of beneficial bacteria/muck treatments at present. Related products almost certainly don't do any harm and may in fact do some good, but I'm not at all convinced that they justify their expense from the perspective of longevity of pond function in whole.



Those products tend to be proprietary concoctions of facultative bacteria, some substance (enzymes or micronutrients) to promote their growth, or some combination of the above. Those "beneficial" bacteria do indeed consume muck/organic material. However, those bacteria need oxygenated conditions to be effective. Without oxygen, they’re not efficient; with oxygen, some related bacterial assemblage will be present along a pond's sediment and active anyhow. Because those products aren’t labeled as having any kind of pesticide effect, they aren't regulated; most makers don’t publish their ingredients—keep the ingredients as trade secrets—and so the ingredients can't be researched individually.



I search related literature periodically; I still cannot find any professional, peer-reviewed articles that support or refute the notion that these products substantially enhance a pond's water quality or slow the pond-aging process in whole. Thus, I'm skeptical regarding whether or not adding a jug of formula or handful of pellets to a volume of water the size of a large pond can make a pond-scale difference. However, some formulae may have useful localized effects (e.g., aggressive application around a dock or swimming area). Also, aggressive short-term treatment may “jump start” a depauperate bacterial assemblage, at least in the short term. Again, without peer-reviewed literature or controlled experimentation, it’s all just speculation.



Creating healthy habitat for beneficial bacteria by keeping dissolved oxygen circulating along the sediment throughout deep water (as with diffuser aeration) seems to me to have much greater potential to increase their populations and effectiveness. It’s usually recommended that bacteria treatments be made in conjunction with aeration; in such an application, it’s difficult to know how much recovery can be attributed to aeration alone. Thus, on pond scale, a properly designed bottom-aeration system seems to me a much better initial investment.



Of course, such bacteria have no effect whatsoever on inorganic sediment. If accumulated sediment is low in organic content and substantial enough to impede pond function, some form of physical dredging would absolutely be needed to regain it. Even with a fair amount of organic matter, if your accumulation is excessive, it might be time to bite the bullet and plan for a dredging operation.



I did pull up a satellite image of the address you sent. I saw several good sized ponds near there and am not certain which is yours. Most of them (the furthest north and east in particular) were forested enough to be concerning regarding their longevity. Trees to the west and south of a pond tend to speed up the aging process (to the east and north are less concerning and may even be beneficial). If there’s enough tree cover and input of leaf litter, you just won’t be able to keep up with biological degradation of the resultant muck. Once again, periodic dredging becomes the only way to maintain pond function.



3. Again, slowing its accumulation by effectively aerating deep water is the best bet for overall longevity. However, you may have a situation where you won’t be able to keep up with the input of leaves. Unfortunately, periodic dredging may be needed.



Do stay in touch. My classroom duties end when I post grades on Friday, and I should be much more available to these types of discussions after then.



Be well out there.



Best,





The Ohio State University

Well since no one seems to have tried it. I took a 1" clear water pump a piece of flexible hose a piece of 1" pvc pipe and a 90 capped the end drilled a hole in the cap and 8 more in the pipe 4 three inches above the cap and 4 more 12 inches above the cap. Then hooked it up to the pump. Set the intake about 2 feet below the surface then proceeded to move around the pond pumping surface water down into the muck. I would shove the pipe down till I hit solid bottom then pull the pipe up about 3 inches and pump water down until I have a cloud of dark grey or black water coming to the surface.My pump seems to be adding some air in the discharge. So I held it under water so I can see the bubble pattern. When I push the pipe into the muck I get about 5 times the bubbles from the disturbed h2s.The clouds of muck and organic debris creates a nice bloom. Before I did this experiment I had about 4-5 foot visibility after a few hours I get a nice green bloom with about 24 inches of visibility.

OK, I'm new hear and I'd like to see this topic and it's experiments keep going.

I have a 1/8 acre bean shaped pond that has about 2 feet of muck. Due to foreclosure, lack of care, and them damn cotton woods that they let grow around it. I just girdled 2 of them today with plans to dominate the rest in the near future. I understand that 2 feet of muck most likely requires manual removal but to be honest with you and myself, I doubt that's ever going to happen. I've got an aggressive fountain running at one end and a 2 ring bubbler running at the other. The fountain needs to go for electricity bill reasons but it has done a decent job of reducing muck when it was the sole apparatus in the middle of the pond. I've got my 1st hatching of bluegill from 5 that were released 2 summers ago, so that's a good sign. It was a swampy frog pond when we moved in and got the fountain going 2 years ago. Killed off the duckweed last summer and hope to keep the algae at bay. I'm with the crowd that thinks stiring it up and keeping the oxygen in there is the way to go. So... will I regret putting in some catfish to help work it up a bit?

And bob I'd say your in the clear.. It's not like your pushing products or slamming a product.. What your doin is exactly what this site is all about.. providing good information..

This a copy of the two year study from the fellow who stated this thread.

I did a test on a customers property. 4 ponds, all built within 3 years of each other, all about the same size and depth. It was a 2 year test.

#1 Was the control - no aeration
#2 Had bacteria added per mfg recommendations no aeration
#3 Had bacteria per mfg recommendations w/aeration
#4 Was another control - aeration but no bacteria added

The thickness of muck was measured 2x year.

#3 had approximately the same amount of muck reduction as pond #4. Pond #2 had slightly less muck than pond #1, (approx 1" per year) but the juice wasn't worth the squeeze..... Ponds were all 10'-12' max depth.