9 Small facts about waterbiologi. In a new pond the biological balance hasn't started yet. It starts by itself. If everything is right in the pond: the light, a real plantation, water with little lime in it, fishes that is fed spaningly, signs will soon show of biological balance. To understand and avoid the problems with the life in a pond it's important to know something about nature circulation.    Biological balance    Nourishment contents    Waste products    The waters sourness PH-value When a new pond is built it is very sterile. To get fishes and plants to thrive, you have to build up a good microfauna. Bacteria's that breaks down nourishment and wasteproducts wich furnishes the pond. They are for example wasteproducts from fishes, dead animals, plantparts or other organic materials. The break down makes the pond act as a closed biological system. All under assumption that the relation between fishes, plants and circulation is working properly. If there is unbalance, if the plants doesn't grow properly or if there's not enough plants there will be an surplus of nourishment in the pond. In this case it can cause to powerful algagrowth and the pond looks really bad. In worst case both fishes and plant could die. The most common breakdownproduct is ammonium, that breaks down in two steps of bacteria's, first it becomes nitrit (very poisonous) after that it will change into nitrate. This is a material that the plants can utilize as ordinary nourishment. If this process isn't fast enough, high levels of nourishment contents will form. In the worst case poison, and then algas will grow. The waters sourness PH-value is important too. Normal water has a PH-value on 7-8, then it raises in a new pond to 8,5. The optimal value for a pond in balance is 6,5-7,5.    What can you do ? Leave the pond for a while before you put fishes in. You can add some MicroStart to the pond. MicroStart is breakdownbacterias on a bottle, wich you can buy at your Special shop. Breakdownbacterias need a lot of oxygen to work properly. It's good to have a lot of fast-growing plants in the pond. It will raise the biological activity.(Suitable floatingplants are: Hornwort, Elodea densa, Water chestnut, Water soldier.) With a simple test you can often notice the problems before you can see them. You can put a tablet into a testpipe, fill it with water from the pond and read the result. If the PH-value is to high (above 8) you can lower it with AquaVital pondpeat wich you can buy in a net bag. Even if the PH-value is to low (below 6,2) wich can happen if the pond is in a place with very soft water, or in a forestground, it is easy to higher it with PH+. Building a pond 9 * Building a pond 10 First page * Page index All material is: © ® of AQUA INTERIÖR AB ,  AQUA NAUTICA Aps Revision and inlay made by: Georg Dahl Email