The pool in the Garden of Consciousness

The pool in the Garden of Consciousness and its flowing cascade have become a bit of a biological adventure, due to a very high UV index and temperatures above 41 degrees Celsius that we experienced during the summer months of May and June.

All bodies of water, unless they are doped with strong chemicals, are living arenas, filled with microscopic plant and animal life. They feed on the minerals and organic compounds in the water and they are fed too by the life giving energy of the sun. Such bodies of water will very quickly become home to burgeoning populations of plant and animal life, and the first to come will be Algae. (Only natural ponds which are well shaded by trees and filled with aquatic plant life and fish can escape this green transformation!)

Within a few hours the beautiful clear freshly filled pond began to turn green, and within about four days it was covered with a brilliant green layer of very healthy algae. It looked good enough to eat, like Spirulina. We, of course, were expecting a development like this, as we knew that there were a lot of nutrients in the water for the algae to feast on which could give only this result as a preliminary stage in the pond’s development.

We temporarily covered a third of the surface of the pond with Water Hyacinths to begin to absorb these nutrients and to help cool the water that was reaching a temperature of up to 38o Celsius under the hot sun of May-June. This double action of the Hyacinths began to make it harder for the algae to continue reproducing.

But our main combatant against the algae was a special mixture of microscopic beneficial organisms called Consortia Probiotics. Consortia Probiotics, composed of 16 strains of microorganisms, were known to be effective against the spread of algae. We had prepared small sacks of clay-like balls ahead of time, inoculated them with the Probiotics and had then placed these sacks in the pond to act against the algae – but would they be a strong enough agent to reestablish the clarity of our previously pristine pond water?

On the morning of day five, we were amazed to find that the marvellous green layer of algae seen floating on top of the pond the evening before had mostly settled down to the bottom of the pond – this was due to the action of the Probiotics seeded in the small balls in the pond. The microorganisms in the Probiotics reduce the phosphorous and nitrogen available in the groundwater which had been used to fill the pond. These are the two main foods of the algae, and so, deprived of their nutrition, the algae die, and in dying they clump together and fall to the floor of the pond.

Over the next two weeks, the pond became more and more clear, until it returned to being quite transparent, as on the day of the original filling. We had indeed hoped that this would be the case, but were very happy to see that the Probiotics introduced were powerful enough to produce this very fine result.

Follow up was then required: 200 small fish were introduced to consume more of the decaying plant life and deposited algae. And then, to really clean up the pond, we started to vacuum its floor. This is continued now once a week to remove any fallen plant matter along with the thin layer of dead algae that accumulates there.

Algae continues to grow because fresh nutrients are introduced into the water of the pond regularly, either by rains ( which we are thankful for!) or by the top-up water that we have to add to the pond to replace water lost constantly due to evaporation under the hot sun of Tamil Nadu.

Thus it is an ongoing cycle – some new algae is formed as it feeds on these nutrients – then this new algae too soon dies off because of the action of the Probiotics and after it falls to the bottom of the pond we vacuum it away to maintain the overall clarity of the water.

This life process has stabilized now, and as long as we keep up the supply of Consortia Probiotics organisms (adding a little bit each week to the water) and keep up with our vacuuming, we will have a wonderfully clear pond to enjoy in the Garden of Consciousness. And we await the marvelous day, soon to come, when our Lotus plant in the pool, now showing many new green leaves, will offer its first white bloom to the sun.

This article first appeared in the Matrimandir Newsletter of August, 2014