Julles,
I'm not sure if I'm saying that.
I never had a lot of leaves in my pond because there aren't any trees near it and the only leaves that blow in are little desert type on windy days. The reason I say that Aqua One has been so good is that I have a very flat bottom pond (the swimming pool conversion) that is now 3' deep. I have a Pondvac 3 and no rocks, so I just vacuum my pond easily. As in most ponds, the sludge tends to collect in certain places more than in others. I had a specific spot at the base of a drop-off in the pond where the water went from 15" to 3' that collected LOTS of sludge. It seemed like it reappeared within days of vacuuming it.
When visiting my daughter in CO, I saw a pond store and zoomed in like a bee to honey.
Pond stores are lots of fun, I think. This was a really good one and they had many of their products in LARGE containers, which I need for a 5500 gallon pond. I decided to buy some because their prices were good and I could save shipping since I was driving.
They talked me into trying Aqua One when I came in to buy Microbe-lift, which I had been using for a couple of years. They said their customers were much happier with it than Microbe-lift and since it was obviously a big store with knowledgeable staff I decided to try it. It is a bit more expensive than M. alone but it combines the efforts of a couple of Microbe-lift Bacteria and Microbe-lift Sludge Away products. If you buy both those M. products, the Aqua One is cheaper. It is also all-season.
In a matter of a month I saw a huge decrease in the amount of pond sludge I had to vacuum. The spots that used to get pretty bad quickly because it tended to collect there were almost clear of it.
Now it has gone all winter without a vacuum job and there is some sludge, but not much. Last year in the spring there was lots of sludge. Since I'm in AZ, our pond doesn't shut down completely in the winter so our fish eat & poop year round
and our plants grow and shed year round.
One of the things that really struck me, and our local pond builder, is that Aqua One gives you a use-by date right on the bottle, like on a milk bottle. Most of the bacteria manufacturers say their products have a shelf life of a certain amount of time but don't tell you when your batch was made. The people in the pond store said that the reason for the use-by date is that the bacteria are packaged in a liquid that contains food for them and when the food is consumed, they will die. So, you need to use it before they would have consumed their food. Our local pond guy uses Microbe-lift but is going to try Aqua One based on my experience.
Hope that helps to answer your question. And, no, I do not have an interest in ANY pond products, no connection to the pond store (other than liking it), no fee for promoting it (well, they did send my a small bottle & a hat for our watergardeners group's raffle) and no renumeration for anything connected with this post. I will, however, be happy to tell you the name of the store and their online link if you are interested.
Casey
