I am a professional landscaper. love your website and am new at water scapes. I have a 300gal pond and am wondering if you can add too much beneficial bacteria and too much barley? I have a mini barley bale and using barley liquid weekly. Also just starting using the eco-carbon as my pond was tea colored. I am also using the bacteria weekly as well as the s.a.p every two weeks. Is that too much?? I also don’t have any plants or fish but would like to start small with the lettuce and Hyacinth till i get things figured out??

Have you read our Pond Tips? To have a completely balance pond, you need fish, plants, rocks, and filters. You cannot add too much bacteria. But I am concerned about the brown water. The barley can cause the water to go brown and the other reason might be that you have some run off from mulch or surrounding landscape. Check it out to make sure the liner is high enough so that rain water cannot wash into the pond. I would recommend you get one lily and a few marginals and a few floating plants. Make sure the plants you purchase are clean of any string algae as you don’t want to introduce that to your pond. Clean plants with fresh water before putting in pond. Buy fish all at once from the same location and make sure their tanks are clean and non-diseased. Look for healthy fish. Small ponds do well with Shubunkins and Fantail Goldfish. No feeder goldfish. Fish count is 1″ of mature fish per square foot of your garden. Sounds like you only need a few Shubunkins. Goldfish matures to about 6 to 8″.