Why Pre-Colonize?
Buying media without bacteria is like buying a car without gasoline. The car may have the potential to transport you from place to place but you won’t get very far without gas. In the same way, the media you put into a filter or skimmer may have the potential to treat the water from your pond, but it can not do anything until it becomes colonized with beneficial bacteria. Just as it makes more sense to buy a car with a full tank of gas, it also makes more sense to buy pre-colonized media so that you can derive the benefits from your filter or skimmer right away instead of waiting days to weeks for a biofilm to develop.
Of course, how beneficial pre-colonization is depends on the organisms with which the media is pre-colonized. Probably the most important bacteria to have on a pond filter media with fish are nitrifiers-the organisms that oxidize ammonia to nitrite and nitrate. This is because nitrifiers grow very slowly with growth rates 10 to 20 times slower than most heterotrophic (organic degrading) bacteria. Another reason colonizing with nitrifiers is beneficial is that ammonia buildup is one of the most significant problems that occur early on in the startup of a pond since ammonia can be toxic to fish at relatively low concentrations.
While heterotrophs (organic degrading bacteria) do grow faster, colonizing certain types of media-like activated carbon and carbon-zeolite combinations-can extend the useful life of the media. They do this by metabolizing organics and certain inorganic species that can be adsorbed onto activated carbon and zeolites. Much like carbon, which is thermally regenerated using high temperatures to oxidize these adsorbed materials, the bacteria can enzymatically oxidize many of these same compounds.
MICROBE-LIFT/BioBalls, Bio-Mini Sponges, Ceramic Bio-Rings and Zeolite are pre-colonized media loaded with the Nitrosomonas, Nitrobacter and Nitrospira which make up the nitrifying bacteria in MICROBE-LIFT/Nite-Out II. The MICROBE-LIFT pre-colonized media will provide for cycling of the nitrogen in your pond within hours, rather than days or even weeks. Using MICROBE-LIFT pre-colonized media will substantially reduce the potential for ammonia toxicity and allow for rapid stabilization of your pond. Get the “high octane” media for your filter or skimmer and watch them hum.