What It Is
The BioBoost Nest is a long-term, preventative tool for pond health intended to be used in conjunction with aeration and microbial inoculation. These subsurface matrixes provide the perfect place for bacteria to call home. As bacterial colonies develop, they gobble up the nutrients that cause most pond problems.
The BioBoost Nest units are constructed of a patented cross-corrugated material with fine nooks and crannies, which are ideal for microbes to colonize and be protected from flushing events. They have hundreds of square feet of surface area for biofilm to grow on, which results in optimized microbial power to combat water quality issues. The design of this media promotes continuous mixing and even distribution of water, air, and biofilm when used in conjunction with a bottom aeration system.
The BioBoost Nest provides an ideal habitat for beneficial bacteria, enabling them to build a thriving population. This is the cornerstone of the BioBoost Nest’s usefulness in water remediation. When placed in an area with sufficient aeration, the nest works in tandem with healthy bacteria. This is where bacteria love to live!
How it Works
Understanding the role of beneficial bacteria in water remediation is vital to understanding how the BioBoost Nest helps us clean up our pond water.
Bioremediation leverages the natural power of beneficial bacteria to remove pollutants such as nitrogen and phosphorus from pond water. It is widely used in the industrial wastewater management industry and often reduces or eliminates the need for chemical applications. BioBoost technology has been scaled to fit the size of recreational ponds and can effectively treat algae, odor, weeds, fish kills, and water clarity issues.
A Primer on Water Health
Environmental Factors
The overall health of your water and your pond’s ecosystem depends on the many environmental factors surrounding it. Every pond and environment are unique, but they all have these same factors that must be considered.
Nutrients
Most pond problems result from too many nutrients in your water. The amount of nutrients in your water is called the nutrient load. Nutrients, primarily nitrogen and phosphorus, accumulate from the breakdown of organic material, such as:
- Fertilizer, chemical, and road runoff.
- Grass clippings, leaves, sticks, dirt and mulch.
- Dying aquatic plant material
- Waste from fish and other animals
- Fish food
Nutrients are the food source for algae and aquatic plants in your pond. More nutrients in your pond water means more fuel is available for algae growth. The more we can keep these nutrients out of our pond, the easier it will be to control our algae and unwanted pond plants.
While preventing nutrients from entering our pond is our first defense, this is much more easily said than done. Many of us have ponds that have been collecting debris and/or chemically treated for generations, resulting in a very unbalanced, nutrient-rich pond.
Light and Heat Exposure
Sunlight and heat accelerate everything in a pond, including algae growth and the breakdown of organics. In warmer climates and during hotter months, algae grows more rapidly than in cooler environments. More sunlight increases your pond’s temperature and speeds up biological processes like photosynthesis (how plants and algae grow).
Vegetation
Existing aquatic plant life can play a positive role in absorbing excess nutrients but will also contribute to the nutrient load as decaying leaves and stems break down in the water.
Bioremediation
Bioremediation is the process of solving water problems through biological processes. This process is extensively used in the wastewater industry and has more recently been applied to the freshwater pond industry.
The Role of Beneficial Bacteria
Beneficial bacteria help break down the multiple layers of debris in our pond and consume the same nutrients that feed algae. When the microbial population is large and vigorous enough, it will absorb nutrients faster than algae can. Unlike herbicides that kill algae and add dead organic matter to your nutrient load, bacteria persistently starve out existing algae and stop new growth.
Bioremediation aims to balance ponds by ensuring that good bacteria outpace the nutrient load. It’s Mother Nature’s secret algae-fighting trick!
Implementing Bioremediation
To foster a bacterially dominant pond, you need three critical supports: aeration, bacterial habitat, and bacterial inoculation.
Aeration
The principal type of bacteria that rapidly consumes nutrients is aerobic bacteria. Aerobic bacteria use oxygen in the process of consuming nutrients. To maximize the effectiveness of this bacteria, we must provide lots of dissolved oxygen in our pond water. Bottom aeration is the best way to increase the oxygen levels in your pond. Installing one, or often multiple, bottom diffusers in your pond will help support the aerobic bacteria and provide other benefits for overall water health, such as reduced odor, sludge, and fish deaths. In a pond that does not have an aerator, you will find aerobic bacteria only toward the top of the pond, where oxygen levels are naturally higher. With adequate aeration, aerobic bacteria can be found at all pond levels.
Bacterial Habitat
Bacteria and algae are in a power struggle, fighting for the same nutrients. To give your beneficial bacteria a fighting chance to beat the algae in this struggle, we need to provide it with an edge. This is where the BioBoost Nest comes in. By installing these units, with hundreds of square feet of surface area for our bacteria to colonize, we effectively give them the habitat they need to outcompete the algae.
Microbial Inoculation
All water contains bacteria, so adding the nests to your water will increase your bacteria levels over time. However, the best results have been found when coupling the increased habitat of the nest with additional bacterial inoculation. By bulking up your pond’s naturally occurring bacteria through inoculation, a more varied selection of microbial strains can be added directly to your water regularly so that your bacterial population stays sufficiently robust to handle new nutrients entering your pond and to break down the existing nutrients.
BACTERIA LIFE-CYCLING
Once a pond is inoculated with bacteria, the bacteria will immediately begin to feed on whatever nutrients are in the water column. As they feed on the nutrient load, the pond will start to achieve greater clarity, foul odors dissipate, and green events, such as algae blooms, will lessen.
Water remediation goals will likely appear to have been achieved in a few months. However, as the bacteria catches up to and gets ahead of the nutrient load, it will naturally reach the end of its life cycle. When bacteria die, they go through a process known as lysis. Lysis occurs when a cell has absorbed excess water and nutrients, causing it to burst and release the nutrients it previously absorbed back into the water body.
A green event may occur when excess nutrients are released back into the pond. The nutrients released back into the water column will already begin to be absorbed by algae and other undesirable inhabitants. These nutrients will likely consist of carbon, nitrogen, and phosphate. A new source of nutrients, coupled with sunlight and carbon dioxide, will result in the regrowth of algae and other unwanted species. This is why it is vital to always have large, vigorous colonies of bacteria in your pond so the nutrient removal process never slows.
TYPES OF BACTERIA
It is essential to have multiple strains of bacteria in your pond to help combat lysis. Photosynthetic bacteria may provide better results due to their ability to survive on sunlight and not just available nutrients. Photosynthetic bacteria will perform life cycle processes of nutrient uptake and absorb sunlight in a way that mirrors algae and other aquatic plants. This specific type of bacteria absorbs food that would typically become available to algae through a combination of denitrification and its ability to function via photosynthesis.
BioBoost Bacterial Study – Florida Gulf Coast University
BioBoost, in conjunction with Florida Gulf Coast University, has studied BioBoost nests that have been in various ponds for extended periods. The nest units were scraped to take bacteria samples, and the following list of bacteria was found.
Aerobic Bacteria
Aerobic bacteria require oxygen to survive and consume muck faster than anaerobic bacteria, but they can only start to consume the harder materials such as sticks and leaves once the anaerobic bacteria is finished making them into muck.
- Luteolibacter – found growing on a nest in a coalmine drainage remediation system.
- Verrucomicrobium – fermentative bacteria commonly found in wetlands, capable of degrading industrial detergents.
- Steroidobacter – often used in wastewater treatment.
- Burkholderia – helps with bioremediation, plant growth, and biocontrol.
- Hyphomicrobium – can reduce nitrates by 50-90%.
- Pirellula – commonly used for wastewater treatment.
- Limnobacter – used in water filters.
- Planctomyces – used to treat polluted water due to their nitrogen-fixing and ammonia oxidation capabilities.
- Clostridium – reduces sulfite.
- Sphingopyxis – biodegrades aromatic compounds in pollution sites.
- Novosphingobium – can degrade polychlorinated phenols (used as a herbicide, biocide, and preservative worldwide since the 1930s)
- Terrimonas – used in wastewater treatment.
- Sinorhizobium – removes chromium (III) oxide from wastewater.
- Methylosinus – degrades methane and trichloroethylene (industrial degreasers and refrigerants).
- Acidobacterium – fermentative bacteria which reduces iron and is used in wastewater treatment.
- Cytophaga – found in soil and contributes to sewage purification.
- Blastopirellula is found in eutrophic and salty environments.
- Allokutzneria – This bacteria is typically found in soil.
- Thioalkalivibrio – salt-tolerant and obligately alkaliphilic (needs high PH to survive).
- Arenimonas – used for wastewater treatment.
- Neorickettsia – one of the elements found in the flukes that carry Salmon poisoning disease.
- Mycobacterium – used in water treatment plants, lines & water distribution systems
- Mesorhizobium – used in wastewater treatment and increases biomass while being fungicide tolerant.
- Rhodoferax – used in sand filters for drinking water treatment plants.
- Rubrobacter – can be thermophilic (thrives in high temps) and is used in wastewater treatment.
- Candidatus Competibacter – capable of denitrification and is used for wastewater treatment.
- Niastella – degrades phenol and is used in drinking water biofilters.
- Conexibacter – used in drinking water purifiers
- Sphingobium – used in wastewater treatment plants
- Flavobacterium – found in sewer water.
Anaerobic Bacteria
Anaerobic bacteria thrive in low-oxygen-level areas, typically where leaves and other debris reside in a pond. These hard, slow workers are responsible for breaking down physical material like whole leaves, dead weeds, dead algae, fish, and waterfowl waste.
- Geobacter – a key player in bioremediation.
- Ignavibacterium – used in highly contaminated waters.
- Bellilinea – found in wastewater treatment.
- Caldilinea – capable of reducing perchlorate and chlorate
- Cetobacterium – usually found in fish intestines.
- Sporichthya – usually found in soil.
- Pelobacter – can biodegrade ethanol and digest industrial sludge.
Varieties that are Both Aerobic and Anaerobic
- Ralstonia – lives in both aerobic & anaerobic environments.
- Eubacterium – often used in sewage treatment.
- Aciditerrimonas – aerobic, but anaerobic in the presence of ferric iron.
- Thiobacillus – important for wastewater transport.
- Rhodobacter – a very powerful bacteria that is commonly used for wastewater bioremediation.
Photosynthetic Bacteria
- Synechococcus – capable of desalinating water and removing sodium and chlorine.
- Lamprobacter – used in wastewater treatment.
A total of 44 bacterial strains were identified on the unit, so it is clear that the nests are performing as designed and that they attract and allow large bacteria populations to grow.
One of the most prevalent strains found was Rhodobacter. This naturally occurring bacteria is a true powerhouse when it comes to consuming organic matter and has been used successfully in the wastewater treatment industry. It is clear that this bacteria migrated to and proliferated on the BioBoost nest units.
A dynamic population of beneficial bacteria in your pond will help break down and consume the excess nutrients that contribute to persistent water problems like algae blooms, foul odor, and clarity issues.
Assessing Your Pond and What to Expect
Every pond is unique, and various factors, including weather, nutrient sources, and drainage, influence the results you will see and when. You should never approach natural pond maintenance with a strict deadline or timeline. If provided the right help, nature will do what it can to balance your pond. We need to have patience and understand that our ponds have taken many years to get to where they are today. We cannot and should not expect them to turn around overnight.
The quick-fix chemical world has led us to expect green grass and clear water overnight. This short-sighted chemical approach has led to many of the global ecosystem problems we are having today and must be stopped. All our water quality goals can be met naturally; we need to give Mother Nature the time and the tools she needs to help us.