A Chat With March's Profile, Jason Blake, founder/president, The Pond Guy, Inc.

It was always, ‘Throw a chemical at the problem.’ Now it's becoming more and more popular, but when we first started there wasn't a lot of natural solutions out there. We've created different strains of bacteria and different products that actually naturally keep the pond clean.

When you buy into the Pond Guy philosophy, you're buying into a proactive solution to your problem. Meaning that we don't just throw a chemical at the problem and kill it … then it comes back. We really get to the root source, which is the excess nutrients. We try to educate the customer and say, ‘This is what you need to do long term to make this pond healthy. Work with nature and not against her.’ Once people understand that philosophy and buy into it and use it, they know that it works really well. It's not a cheaper approach, it's a better approach. Years ago, the choice you had was, ‘What chemical can I throw on it?’ It was kind of like your grass. You have weeds, you spray a chemical on it, they die. Now there's more organic fertilizers and different things out there that you can use that will give you better results.