Gravel Downsides

1. If you didn't have gravel in the pond, the fish could not ever get a piece of gravel stuck in it's pharynx. Yep, it happens. It happens in your pond and it happens in nature. If it happened you would see a fish that tries to eat but whose mouth seems stiff or stays open. If you haul up the fish, you can actually see a stone in the back of the throat. The stones are usually easy to remove and the problem is VERY rare. I see a pretty good number of fish, and I've seen oral foreign bodies FOUR times since 1994. Two were acorns and two were gravel.

2. If you didn't have gravel in the pond, it would be MUCH easier to clean out the pond and get that pond bottom nice and clean. This may or may not be a good thing, because without a slime coat on the pond bottom, you've lost a lot of nitrogen reducing biofilm. The gravel bed is "your friend" as far as nitrogen reduction and biofiltration until it's full of solid waste, then that solid waste needs to be reduced and removed. There are two ways:

• A complete pond tear down with gravel stirring and siphoning off all that bad water. (Not a bad idea once or twice per year with fish removed)
• Deployment of bacillus cultures (highly refined cultures of bacteria not unlike septic tank Rid X. available with brand names like SAB, Microbe Lift PL, Winston Products, etc. These cultures will digest solid waste and convert it to gaseous and chemical compounds which can be removed by water changes.

3. Using gravel as a form of filtration opens the door to possible misuse or neglect. When you use gravel in the pond you have to maintain it, with gravel-cleaning teardowns (fish out!) and water changes. And you have to be vigilant that an installer should NOT use more than 2-3 inches of gravel on the bottom, or on the shelves. If you didn't have ANY gravel in the pond, then there'd be no chance of being too much, right?

When an installer comes to furnish the pond, they will necessarily come with an estimated amount of gravel for the pond bottom. If this amount is too much for the pond, which would result in dangerously deep gravel on the pond bottom, they have a choice of two things. They can break their backs loading an excess of gravel back onto the truck, or they can just dump into into the pond. Many times they will dump the gravel into the pond, creating dangerously deep areas which could potentially go anaerobic and which will make you weep when you try to clean these deep spots.

One of the BIG purposes of this site is to get consumers to appreciate what a great thing gravel filtration is, UNLESS IT'S MISUNDERSTOOD OR ABUSED.

You really have to read this article about Gravel Filtration on a Pond Scale