How To Dispose of Garden Pond Waste
Okay, so you've given your fish pond a good spring cleaning, and you've scooped a lot of the mucky waste matter from the bottom of your pond. Now you're probably wondering how to dispose of this rather-foul material. The goop at the bottom of your fish pond is actually a mixture of millions of organic matter and bacteria that sinks to the bottom of the pond over time (or gets pumped back through your filter system). This process of organic matter collecting in a garden pond begins (especially if you keep koi or other fish) with a metamorphosis into ammonia and ammonia compounds. Ammonia, as you probably know, is a toxic substance to fish, which excrete ammonia as a natural by-product of their metabolism. In a balanced pond system, the oxygen dependent Nitrosomonas bacteria in your pond filter break this ammonia down into less harmful nitrites. These nitrites are then converted into nitrates, which are absorbed by plants in you pond. And some of this material will collect at the bottom of your pond over time. Now if you dredge this material out of your fish pond at any stage in this process, it's either going to continue its natural breakdown in the outside air. The question then becomes what to do with it. This sludge can be harmful to you plants, and if its still continuing its decomposition, it could leech the goodness out of the soil to aid in that decomposition. So your best option is to dispose of this material in a compost heap. There it can be diluted, or mixed in layers between other types of more fibrous material. This latter method is especially helpful because by keeping the collection of material open, oxygen is allowed in to help in the decomposition process. And if you keep a compost heap anyway, you'll find that there's nothing better for kick-starting the rotting down process than the sludge from the bottom of a fish pond. The mixture of nitrates, bacteria, and other organic compounds makes this material especially effective in a compost heap. Now if you don't have a compost heap, and you don't want to start one, there are other options for disposing of this unwanted material. If it doesn't smell too bad, you can spread it around your bushes, shrubs, and perennials. Disperse it around as much as you can, then as it begins to dry, mix it into the soil with a spade or trowel. This will avoid forming a suffocating layer of material over the surface of your soil. |
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