The life in your pond goes far beyond the fish and plants that you yourself put there and the plethora of other creatures that made their own way there. On a microscopic scale, an entire army of bacteria will exist in the water and will be performing functions that are totally essential for your pond to remain a healthy environment for any life form.

Quite possibly your pond has crystal clear water for which you may well have taken much of the credit for a job well done. This is perfectly understandable as clear water is by no means a given with a pond. However, whilst you have created the environment for this clear water, what is the actual mechanism for doing this clean up job? Fish produce a constant stream of waste and further pollutants or debris are continually being added to the water, such as excess fish food.

Even if you have installed a top of the range filtration system, the real hard work done in maintaining clear water is not the result of mechanics and science but nature. Bacteria are continuously feeding on, and breaking down the pollutants and chemicals that would threaten the health of your fish through poor water quality. Even a biological filter can be misunderstood. The layman can easily understand the concept of a filter but the real story is in the “biological” part. A biological filter is simply a mechanism for ensuring that the entire volume of pond water is introduced to the cleaning bacteria with sufficient frequency. Bacteria truly are the silent stars of the operation.