Pond Treatment & Additives

Yes, some treatments use chemicals but some use natural products such as bacteria and enzymes.

All of our water treatments are safe for fish and plants when used as per the instructions. The only exceptions are products designed specifically for water features and therefore use a formulation that is not suitable for fish or plants.

Filtration systems are designed to reduce the amount of pollutants from a pond and starve algae of its food source. The first step is to make sure you’ve got a filtration system that is capable of filtering the size of your pond and the amount of fish you have in it (further information on filtration can be found in the filtration section of the FAQ’s). If you have a well balanced pond with a good working filter then it’s unlikely that you’ll be a regular user of water treatments but you may need some from time to time. 

If you’re experiencing problems with excess algae, poor plant growth or fish health problems then you should start looking at the reasons why. Testing the water is a good start as this can determine if the pond is out of balance. Testing the water before you use a water treatment is also a good idea because many of them won’t work as well if the pond has unfavorable water conditions. Testing the water will help identify problems that water treatments can fix or if you need to consider other alternatives such as filtration. 

You can start by looking through the product descriptions on our website or by reading the packaging in the shops. Some water treatments are easy to work out because they target a specific problem.

In most cases the best method is to take a bucket of your pond water, mix in the correct amount of liquid or powder and distribute throughout the pond. Some treatments differ from this procedure so please follow the instructions.

There are treatments for a range of problems including; -killing floating algae that turns water green -preventing algae -balancing and stabilizing the pond’s water chemistry -reducing sludge -increasing oxygen levels -altering important water chemistry conditions like pH and hardness -improving biological filters with beneficial bacteria -removing algae from water features -removing chlorine from tap water -improving the hardness of rain (tank) water -clearing cloudy water -removing ammonia from the water There are water treatments available to help with most pond problems.

When you need to. Although water treatments are safe to use it’s not a good idea to use them when you don’t have to. For example, it’s unlikely that you’d need to use an algaecide over the winter months because algae naturally die off over this time of year so why load you system with unnecessary products? Depending on your pond, you may need to use balancing products all year round as these products provide stability and maintain the general health of your pond.

While water treatments are effective, the need to use them usually identifies underlying problems with your pond such as excess nutrients from runoff, organic pollution, too many fish or over feeding. If you’re using water treatments all the time you should look at the reasons why to work out better long term options. In many cases the cost of purchasing a filtration system is soon recovered by the savings on water treatments.