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Accredited third-party lab analysis of a commercial swine manure lagoon, before treatment and again 41 days later, showed total suspended solids fall from 37,500 to 3,400 mg/L, a 91% reduction, with phosphorus down 85% from 363.25 to 54 mg/L, COD down 84% from 66,600 to 10,720 mg/L, and BOD down 52%. Settleable solids went from 1,000 to 3 mL/L over the same six weeks.
| Parameter | Baseline | After 41 days | Change |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total suspended solids | 37,500 mg/L | 3,400 mg/L | 91% lower |
| Settleable solids | 1,000 mL/L | 3 mL/L | 99.7% lower |
| Phosphorus (P) | 363.25 mg/L | 54 mg/L | 85% lower, goal beaten |
| Chemical oxygen demand | 66,600 mg/L | 10,720 mg/L | 84% lower |
| Biochemical oxygen demand | 11,850 mg/L | 5,699 mg/L | 52% lower |
| Total nitrogen | 4,100 mg/L | 3,012.5 mg/L | 27% lower |
Goals shown are the operation's own internal reduction targets, not a regulatory discharge limit. Analysis by ANAM, Analisis Ambientales S.A., an A2LA-accredited environmental laboratory. Day 0 is a baseline, not an untreated control.
A commercial swine operation held its raw slurry in an anaerobic manure lagoon and was measured on one thing: how far it could pull down a full effluent panel. The load was heavy. Total suspended solids ran 37,500 mg/L, chemical oxygen demand 66,600 mg/L and biochemical oxygen demand 11,850 mg/L. Settleable solids were pegged at 1,000 mL/L, the top of the scale on a standard Imhoff cone. Phosphorus, the nutrient that most often decides what an operation can do with its effluent, sat at 363.25 mg/L, and total nitrogen at 4,100 mg/L. Dissolved oxygen of 0.2 mg/L and pH of 8.0 confirmed a textbook anaerobic lagoon.
The operation had set its own reduction goals across the panel: 1,500 mg/L total suspended solids, 1,500 mg/L total nitrogen and 120 mg/L phosphorus. These were internal targets, not a regulatory discharge limit. The practical constraint was that nothing about the site could change. No aeration, no dredging, no new equipment and no interruption to normal loading. Whatever moved the numbers had to work inside a lagoon that kept running exactly as it always had.
Pit Puck went into the lagoon as a drop-in tablet. It is a high-CFU microbial tablet carrying the same bacteria as Animal Waste Treat, which is the liquid and bulk form of that biology used for lagoon-scale dosing by volume, and it is built for manure pits and lagoons under low-oxygen conditions. The tablets sink and dissolve on their own, so there was no mixing, no dosing equipment and no added labor. The bacteria digest manure solids, and solids digestion is what drives almost every number on this panel.
Measurement bracketed the program. A baseline sample was drawn before any product went in, and a second sample 41 days later. Both were analyzed by ANAM, Analisis Ambientales S.A., an environmental laboratory accredited by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation under A2LA certificates 6134-01 and 6134-02, following Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater, 23rd edition. Two honest limits apply. Day zero is a baseline, not an untreated control, so this is a before-and-after rather than treated versus untreated, and the sampling was done by the operation, not the lab.
Before: the anaerobic swine manure lagoon at the first application, full and heavily loaded with an oily scummed surface.
After: the same lagoon at the end of the program, surface cleared and level drawn down as digested sludge left the basin and recovered storage capacity.
As the bacteria digested the accumulated solids, the sludge blanket shrank and the water level dropped, exposing the pale banks around the rim. The lagoon was not drained. It digested its own load and recovered storage capacity.
Total suspended solids fell from 37,500 to 3,400 mg/L, a 91% reduction. Phosphorus, usually the hardest nutrient to shift, dropped from 363.25 to 54 mg/L, an 85% reduction that cleared the operation's 120 mg/L goal by more than half. Chemical oxygen demand fell 84% and biochemical oxygen demand 52%.
The settleable-solids reading tells the same story in a simpler way. At 37,500 mg/L of suspended solids the slurry was still overwhelmingly water, but at baseline it never separated: after the standard settling hour there was no clear liquid above a settled layer, just one flocculent mass filling the Imhoff cone at 1,000 mL/L, the top of the scale. After 41 days the same test settled to 3 mL/L, a distinct sludge layer with clear liquid above it, a 99.7% change. That is a measurement, not a claim, and it is the physical reason the suspended solids and COD numbers moved the way they did.
Nitrogen came down too, which is the point on a lagoon judged on reduction: total nitrogen eased 27% and ammonia 28%. Two readings did not improve, and we report them for the same reason we report the missed goals. Dissolved oxygen held at 0.2 mg/L, expected in an anaerobic lagoon, and conductivity rose about 7%, consistent with dissolved material staying in solution as solids break down. The suspended-solids and total-nitrogen goals were not met. Phosphorus was.
Suspended solids in a manure lagoon are undigested organic matter, so the biological route is to give the lagoon enough of the right bacteria to keep breaking those solids down instead of letting them settle and mat. In this trial total suspended solids fell from 37,500 to 3,400 mg/L over 41 days, a 91% reduction, and settleable solids went from 1,000 to 3 mL/L. Less solid material on the floor is also what makes agitation and pump-out faster, which is usually where the labor savings show up.
Chemical and biochemical oxygen demand are measures of how much organic material is in the water, so digesting that material is exactly what lowers them. Here chemical oxygen demand dropped 84%, from 66,600 to 10,720 mg/L, and biochemical oxygen demand dropped 52%, from 11,850 to 5,699 mg/L, over the same six week window. COD moved further than BOD, which is normal: COD captures material that is chemically oxidizable but slower to digest biologically.
Phosphorus is usually the hardest nutrient to shift, and it is often the one that decides what an operation is allowed to do with its effluent. Most of the movement comes indirectly, through solids digestion changing how phosphorus partitions between the solid and liquid phases. In this lagoon phosphorus fell from 363.25 to 54 mg/L, an 85% reduction, which cleared the 120 mg/L target by more than half.
This trial ran 41 days, just under six weeks, between the baseline sample and the follow-up. That is a realistic window for a lagoon under a heavy program. Results vary with lagoon volume, loading rate, temperature and how much accumulated sludge is present at the start, and a colder lagoon or a lightly dosed one will take longer.
The published maintenance rate is 1 Pit Puck per week per 100 sows or 300 finisher hogs. This particular program ran above that rate on purpose, because the operation was being measured on reduction across the whole panel rather than on any single parameter. Sizing a program properly depends on lagoon working volume and what you are being judged on, which is worth a conversation rather than a table lookup.
The only honest test is whether something measurable changes, verified by someone who is not selling it. In this case both samples were analyzed by an environmental laboratory accredited by the American Association for Laboratory Accreditation and certified to ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001, using Standard Methods for the Examination of Water and Wastewater. Eleven of twelve parameters moved in the intended direction, and two of the three numeric targets were still not met. Both halves of that belong in the answer.
Because the two operations are judged on opposite things, and the program is dosed accordingly. A dairy that spreads its own manure wants nitrogen retained, because more plant-available nitrogen per acre is money in the ground. That is what the Wisconsin dairy trial shows, with nitrogen up 37%. This swine operation was measured on reduction across the panel, so the lagoon was dosed heavier to bring nitrogen down along with everything else, and total nitrogen fell 27%. Same biology, different objective, different rate. The one result both trials share is phosphorus down, and in both cases the mechanism is solids digestion.
No, and the difference matters. A control is a second, untreated lagoon or parallel stream measured over the same period. A baseline is simply the same lagoon before treatment started. This trial has a baseline, not a control. Over 41 days a lagoon also changes through settling, temperature, rainfall and shifts in loading, and this design cannot separate those from the treatment. The operation reports that nothing else at the site changed during the period. We say all of this plainly because the numbers do not need borrowed authority.
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