How To Combat Effluent Odour

Got a smelly effluent pond? Or do neighbours complain about the smell of effluent when you spread? Never fear! There are solutions to strong smelling effluent…

The Cause

It’s important to understand the reason your effluent might have a particularly strong smell to determine the best solution. The most common reasons for strong smelling effluent are:

• Stagnation – the effluent has been stored for a long time.
• Aeration – the effluent has been stored in unventilated storage, or below crust.
• Lack of biological activity – there’s not enough good bacteria to kill the odour producing bad bacteria.

Recommended Solutions

Pump Regularly

Try to keep a good pumping regime to avoid effluent sitting too long in storage. As nutrients sit unused, they degrade, and like anything left to degrade, the odour increases the longer it is left.

Over Summer or when it’s dry, try to keep the pond/storage as low as possible. Not only will you be giving the ground a good dose of nutrients, but you’ll have plenty of storage available for when the wet season sets in.

Stir Often & Well

Giving the effluent a good stir not only works to prevent crust forming and solids settling, it also gives the effluent some needed aeration. Just like food left sitting in a container, a stagnant effluent pond, tank or bladder tank will start to form a strong odour.

Use PondBugs™ Consistently

Regularly adding a dose of PondBugs to your effluent storage will help promote the biological activity needed for healthy effluent.

The PondBugs are an added dose of good bacteria that work to kill the not so good, odour producing bacteria. They also reduce pond crusting, improve the nutrient value, and reduce greenhouse emissions along with other benefits.

Avoid Highly Toxic Cleaners

When cleaning out the cow shed or anywhere that will wash into effluent storage, avoid highly toxic washes that use chemicals like chlorine. These highly toxic chemicals do a great job of cleaning and killing off germs…which also means the good bacteria in your effluent pond. This could be the cause of reduced biological activity in the effluent storage, and therefore increased odour. Use of these chemicals would also prevent natural effluent supplements like PondBugs from working.  

Apply With Low Pressure Applicators

Lastly, if you do have smelly effluent, use a low-pressure irrigator or an applicator like a RainWave for Slurry Tankers or Drag Hose Systems. These low-pressure systems minimise the amount of wind drift, so you’re less likely to get complaints from neighbours about the smell!