| In my follow up to Aaron re: white spots on his carp, I mentioned high nitrite levels in my pond. Now, it's been a long time since my A level chemistry, but as I recall ...
Ammonia (from the fish poo) is broken down into nitrites by the bacteria in my filter. The nirites are toxic to the fish, but thankfully, other bacteria in the filter further break the nitrites down into nitrates. Plants in the pond then take up the nitrates as nutrients.
Now that my nitrite levels are under control, I've had a sudden bloom of algae. I assume that this is down to there being loads of nitrate available. My UV is coping but I'm having to clean the dead algae from my filter almost every day.
My question is - If I stick more plants in the pond, will they take up the nitrate and starve the algae ? The problem is, the koi destroy most of the plants I put in. So, how effective would an external veggie filter be ? How many plants would I need etc ?
My pond is approximately 1000 gallons, has a 9500 lph pump, 30w UV and bio filter suitable for a 4000 gallon pond. I only have three smallish lillies, a corkscrew rush, a grassy reed type thing and a yellow flower small plant (fish dstroyed the rest !) |
