How to Apply Biostim to Dam Water

Biostim products are a great choice of natural biological products for use in your dam. But every dam is different, so you need to understand how to use Biostim before you apply it.

When I talk about how to apply Biostim, think of it as guidelines — starting points you can use to put together your own approach using our practical tips. 

So here are some practical tips and explanations to help you apply Biostim to your dams.

Starting Dose vs Maintenance Dose: Your Unique Conditions Matter

The first thing you should understand with Biostim is that it’s a natural product: you’re dealing with microbiology and a specific ecology that’s developed in your dam. The dose rates that we give you are purely guidelines. What you should do is do your application, monitor your results — just look at the algae, the odour, and the general condition and health of the dam — and adjust your dose over time.

Our general recommendation is that you treat for a year and then reassess. The goal is that over time, your dose rate becomes less and less as your system rebalances. Because these are guidelines and every dam is unique, you might find that the instructions on the label work for you straight away, and you don’t need to adjust.

Or you might not: if you’ve got a really nasty situation, you might want to start off with more and then do a higher monthly top-up dose or maintenance dose if you need to. One good tip is this — you cannot overdose with Biostim products. They’re non-chemical; you can put in a whole 20kg when you only need one, and you’re not going to cause any harm.

You might get cloudy water because of all the bacterial activity that’ll happen, but it’s not going to harm anything — and it’s temporary. That said, if you have fish in your water, and you choose to overdose, you will want to make sure you have plenty of aeration in the water because the aerobic bacteria being fed by Biostim will also consume oxygen. Without adequate aeration, this can put stress on fish and other wildlife.

Dose Rates: Biostim Powder

Dose rates for Biostim Powder are:

– 1.5kg per surface acre to start

– 500 grams per surface acre per month after that

Biostim Powder comes in satchels, and each one of the satchels is 500 grams, so it’s easy to dose. 

Dose Rates: Biostim Pellets or Tablets

The suggested starting dose rates for Tablets are:

– 10kg per surface acre

– 5kg per surface area per month after that 

The suggested starting dose rates for Pellets are:

– 12kg per surface acre

– 6kg per surface area per month after that 

You can adjust based on what you think the condition of your dam is. 

Dose Rates: Biostim Liquid

For the Biostim Liquid, the recommended dose rate is:

– 1 litre per million litres of water

You don’t need to worry if you go over that; it’s not going to harm anything. You don’t need a perfectly accurate measurement of your dam. But again, as mentioned above, if you have fish in the water, make sure you have plenty of aeration if you choose to overdose.

How to Apply Biostim

Applying Biostim products is easy, but they’re each approached in a different way to get the most out of them. Here’s a handy tip that applies to them all — you don’t need to be too particular about where you put them because the bacteria will spread. It’s still a good idea to try and distribute it evenly, but you don’t need to worry too much.

How to Apply Biostim Powder

Biostim Powder is easy to apply: just toss it straight into the water. Ideally, you’ll throw it out into the water where the aerators are or close to it. This works if you have a waterfall or other moving water, too.

If you don’t have aeration or moving water, just walk around the perimeter of the dam and toss it in at various locations. Don’t be worried about the packet that it’s contained in, because that packet is water-soluble. It’s going to break down in the water itself, and the product will distribute out.

How to Apply Biostim Pellets

With the tablets and the pellets, the application couldn’t be simpler — you literally just walk around and chuck it in. It’s just like feeding the chooks. If you’ve got a boat and you want to get and distribute it evenly, you can do that. But you don’t need to: the bacteria will spread if you just walk around the perimeter of the dam and chuck it in that way. 

That said, Biostim Pellets and Tablets are great at targeting localised areas. If you’ve got a problem child of an area where you’ve got lots of algae and weed growing, put a bit more in there than what you would in the other areas of the dam — that way you can clean up specific areas. 

How to Apply Biostim Liquid

When applying the liquid, you can use a firefighting-type pump and spray if you have one; if not, you can use a battery-powered sprayer, such as one you might have on your quad bike, to spray it out. You can also use a backpack sprayer with Biostim Liquid, and if you don’t have any spraying equipment at all, you can put it in a watering can and distribute it… or put it in a bucket and chuck it in at various spots around the dam.

You don’t need to mist it: you just put it on a jet spray and walk or ride your bike around and spray it off into the dam that way. It’s a good idea to dilute the Biostim Liquid with water. You don’t want to dilute it from a concentration point of view; you’re trying to spray the water out as evenly as possible over the entire water body. 

If you have to put 5 litres of Biostim Liquid into a half-acre dam, in practice, that means you have to spread 5 litres over an entire half-acre somehow. In that case, we’d probably dilute it at a ratio of about 9 to 1 or 10 to 1, so you can cover a larger area with the solution.

A word of advice on sprayer-type equipment — make sure it’s really well rinsed so that you’re not getting any nasty chemicals going into your water, especially if you’ve got fish. Make sure it’s clean first.

Interested in Biostim? Contact Us

If you want to use Biostim for yourself, or if you’re looking for professional assistance with biological treatments, aerators, and other water quality issues, contact us or visit Love My Dam to purchase Biostim directly. We’re happy to assess, advise, and assist you in designing a practical, cost-effective water treatment plan.