| The word "manure" has a somewhat different meaning in agriculture than it does in street usage. Any organic fertilizer is manure whether or not it is composed of animal feces.
Chicken manure is very "hot" in that it contains a lot of nitrogen and reacts quickly. You have to be careful using chicken manure. Cow manure has a somewhat higher carbon:nitrogen ratio.
Personally, I would use a combination of inorganic (chemical) fertilizer and organic fertilizer. This works as well as animal manure without the unpleasantness. Miracle Grow is a convenient, but somewhat expensive, inorganic fertilizer for small ponds because it dissolves instantly. For larger volumes you can use a lawn fertilizer, a combination of prilled urea and superphosphate, or the liquid fertilizer made just for ponds. The inorganic fertilizer is great for promoting development of green water which in turn drives the rest of the food chain. However, green water takes a few weeks to develop so you can-jump start the development of zooplankton by also adding an organic fertilizer. Choose an organic fertilizer which will break down into small particles quickly. Cotton seed meal or alfalfa pellets (rabbit pellets) work well. You can also use fish food.
Ideally you will give the pond plankton 10 to 20 days to mature before the fish are ready to feed. The optimum time depends on local conditions and how fast things like dragon flys move in. In an ideal situation, there would only be about 10 fry per square foot (100/sq.meter). At this density, there is plenty to eat and water quality does not deteriorate. However, very few people have the will power to use that low density when pond space is limited. When conditions are more crowded, supplemental feeding with prepared formulations and water exchange or bio-filtration are needed and the growth rate is never as good.
-ste veh |