Originally Posted by
KoiRun
I don't see why this wouldn't work. Nitrifying bacteria is indigenous in soil and water. Nitrifying bacteria, nitrosomonas and nitrobacter, are solely responsible for nitrification in soil. In soil, you won't find many in the top layer exposed to light as they get destroyed by ultraviolet light. There is a abundance just underneath the top layer that is protected from light. In agriculture, nitrifying bacteria compete with plants for fertilizers. If I were to seed my pond with nitrifiers using soil I would make sure my bio-filter is large enough and mature enough to dilute, outcompete, and detoxify any pathogens and toxins that might come with the soil. The compose and the composing organics in the soil would provide a constant release of ammonia required for nitrobacter to reproduce in large numbers which is in contrast to occasional dosing of ammonium chloride where the cycle seem to hang at the nitrite stage. The nitrite stage seems to (and I've read this somewhere) require constant continuous low dose of ammonia to be overcome (faster, if at all) such as when fish is actually used instead of ammonium chloride to cycle a tank.