Moments before taking that leap of faith into the pond DavidM at
was heard opining:

Thank you both for the suggestions. I want to ensure that as the
weather warms, the main bacteria colonising the pond are not harmful.
As you say, one teaspoon of dormant/half dead floating bacteria are
not going to colonise a pond and process nitrogen in a hurry. I was
hoping to hear that people buy live cultured bacteria ready to go,
but I guess it is not used.

I've had ponds since 1995 and never added anything but KoiZyme which is
supposed to out-compete the bacteria that cause ulcer-disease of koi and GF.
I believe it works as this disease has not occurred since I've been adding
it to my ponds. I buy it fresh and add it every spring.

I changed the filter last year, so have no experience of it's over
winter retention of bacteria. The pond is four years old though, so
should have a good amount of nitrogen converting bacteria already, and
not need intervention.

The good bacteria would be on all pond surfaces.

I'm probably just paranoid. This time last year I lost quite a few
fish. The filter clogged, overflowed and half emptied the pond. As a
result, the filter was not turned-over for over 12 hours and the fish
got very stressed. In the next few days a bacterial infection took a
few of them. Thanks again,
David
--
Koi-Lo....
Frugal ponding since 1995.
Aquariums since 1952.
My Pond & Aquarium Pages:
http://tinyurl.com/9do58
Killfile info.
http://www.hyphenologist.co.uk/killfile/
Reading Headers:
http://tinyurl.com/amm9s
*Note: There are several *Koi-Lo's* on rec.ponds.
~~~ }((((o ~~~ }{{{{o ~~~ }(((((o