Hey folks, first time poster, long time lurker. I have been studying ponds for a couple years since I built two at my mom and dads property. I think I have read every single posting on this site. Well, my wife and I bought our first property about two weeks ago and I have a 1.4 acre pond that averages about 4 to 5 feet deep. I am in the piedmont of NC. No aeration in the pond yet, lots of watermeal and filementous. Clear water. Not many big bass and my bluegill are pretty small. Runoff doesnt seem to be a huge problem, but I am leaving a large buffer around the pond.
Ok well that was some history, Now what I have done and my futere plan. I started treating the filementous 2 monthes ago with cutrine and did a pretty good job. Days later I ended up with watermeal taking over. Didnt want to spend much money on the property untill we closed 2 weeks ago. Well I brought my gold dredging equipment to the pond and sucked out about half of the watermeal, concentrating it into the corners with floating ropes. My wife doesnt like the idea of spending the money on sonar, so I sprayed the watermeal with a half and half mixture of diquat and cutrine sunday morning. Got a good burn on about half of it and the rain tonight seemed to sink the dead stuff. I have 125 mixed sex tilapia coming thursday morning, and I am thinking about adding some water hyacinth to use up some nutrients in the pond.
Sorry about the long post, just wondering if the pros think im heading in the right direction. Btw, I have added 3 gallons of strike out pond dye over the last couple weeks untill my sechi disk is visible to about 17 inches. My objective is to controll watermeal and filementous algae. I will work on my fish population later.

What are your fishery goals? Watch using water hyacinth, its on most states' prohibited noxious plant list (even though the water garden industry still makes it readily available).

So far so good, I like the plan of taking out the nutrients by taking out the plants. You can remove the hyacinths before they die off for the winter to get more nutrients out of the pond.

Hello Mike,
Welcome to the forum. Glad to see another tarheel on here. I'm in the piedmont also in Mocksville. I stocked tilapia, and installed aeration in may to contol FA, and have been extremely happy with results so far. Keep us posted on the hyacinth, I am curious if it will work.

Hi Mike
Congratulations on the new place and good luck with the new pond. I have a similar scenario as my pond is 2 acres and I just moved in March 1st. This old, established and yet, neglected pond has become my passion to bring it back. I just installed an aeration system last week and I know I have a lot of work ahead of me, mainly removing the FA mats and controlling the weeds. I treated with Cutrine plus liquid about a month ago which turned the mats a yellowish color but they're still floating and the pond is now covered in Duckweed. While on the pond to start removing those mats last night I also noticed a ton of what appears to be hydrilla, and very thick. I've been contemplating tilapia for the FA but I know it's getting late in the season and they likely won't survive past Fall.

I'm trying to decide if it's still a good investment as I've read on this forum about the great results. But I can't find anyone local and not much info on the right (trustworthy and reliable) place to get them.

I'm near Lincoln, NE. Any ideas or suggestions on where or who to contact for stocking Tilapia?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Pond Boss Rocks!

Wade, my goals are to have a decent looking pond, with a balanced, healthy population of bass and bluegill. I also use the pond for swimming. I understand that it is difficult to have a multi use pond, but its between the road and my house and I need it to look good. I want it to be inviting so that I can get the wife to do some swimming with me, and I really love to fish.
Lovnlivin, I was told to stock about 100 mixed sex tilapia for the controll of watermeal and algae, that comes to an investment of 125 bucks. I have already spent almost 300 in chemicals this year with so so results. If the tilapia do their job it will be worth the investment. And if not, I will have a lot of fish to put in the freezer this fall. Win win for me.

Thanks Mike, and I'm all for the investment, just don't know where to buy the tilapia.

Try sending Rex (Rainman) here on the forum a PM.

Rex has been missing the last few days.. oh the life of a traveling fish hauler lol

The fish guy only brought me 65 tilapia today, 99 percent are solid white. It might be hard to believe but they are already pairing up, and eating watermeal and algae. It has only been 10 hours since I introduced them to my pond! The fish were all about 4 to 5 inches long and im scared that they might be real easy targets for bass. I caught two bass about 12 inches this evening and we are having cold boiled bass and coctail sauce for Hors d'oeuvres.

Can you get some pics of these fish in the pond?

Where did you get your Tilapia from?

Water looks pretty good now, but it was completely covered in watermeal and algae about a week ago, before I skimmed and sprayed with diquat. Im hoping the tilapia will maintain all of the work that ive done.

About a week ago.

Mike, "white" tilapia are likely a Nile or nile hybrid tilapia and will get lethargic around a 65-68* water temp and die by 55*. Duckweed and watermeal control is a real crap shoot with tilapia...it is their desire to eat it over being eaten from below..they often opt for surviving. The price is good, but the seasonal control times will be relatively short over a blue tilapia.

^ So far that was my only resource for getting any tilapia in NC. I would likely buy some blue fish if I could get my hands on them.

LL

Hey Husker - I'm in Lincoln. Sorry just ran into you today. Congrats on your new place and pond project. Feel free to PM me anytime and I'll help in any manner possible as I do for all local guys whenever asked. You can email me too at tjhudson@hudrix.com.

Here's a tilapia I caught the other day on a nightcrawler. These guys are interesting fish, extremely hard to get to bite.

Mike be prepared to treat the watermeal several times with diquat. Keep after it when wind blown in corners. It does work but dotn wait long between treatmetns. Combo if diquat and tilapia might give you a chance for eradication. Dye seems to not limit watermeal so much. It could actully limit phytoplankton that would bind nutrients in a beneificial for the pond and fish standpoint.

We sell much bigger tilapia to ensure bass dont eat them but if 4-5 inches most should make it. so you bought them for a little over $1 each delivered? Just curous what others are charging if that is correct great price for that size.

Yup, $1.25 each. I understand that the aquashade will limit phytoplankton growth, but I was scared to fertilize with the amount of algae and watermeal that I had. For now it does seem like the diquat/cutrine combo is doing the trick. I had a lake service guy come take a look and he told me not to waste my money on diquat. But I am limited by my wallet (and my wife) as to how much I can spend on the pond right now. I dont know if I will ever be able to eradicate the watermeal completely as my pond feeds another pond on my neighbors property and I doubt he will ever get his pond cleaned up. So contamination by geese will most likely be a problem.

Haven't had to deal with watermeal in our area lately, but Clipper is labeled for watermeal. It is our go to choice now for duckweed, it will flat scorch duckweed even in higher pH waters. A little more expensive than diquat/copper combo but one application does it. Kelly may have some thoughts on this.

Mike we try to talk folks out of diquat as well but we have also seen it work if you stay after it with its use. Agree fertilizer not recommended at this time but also might save money vs aquashade use especially once you shift towards fishery goals.

Wade you want to share app rate for clipper? It works but the price comes out near flouridone cost in our experience.

Spinner, the tilapia you pictured is a cross/hybrid of Nile and Blue Tilapia...with leanings toward the more hardy blue genetics...a MUCH better stocker than a straight nile/moz cross or Nile! The "Whiteness" may be because the original stock was bought as a food fish and they used "Pearl colored" brooders to hide scale loss when sold and handled.

Expect total death around 52 degrees and amazing and noisy bass gorging activities at the coolest time of night when water temps hit 58 degrees and all watm pockets are gone.

From what I read on the valant website, 5 pounds of clipper can treat up to 5 surface acres of water. I understand that it is a contact spray and it is possible to miss some plants, but at 200 dollars an acre as apposed to over 1500 dollars to treat my pond it seems like it would be a better choice. Being able to selectivly kill watermeal or duckweed seems like a better choice for me also. If I dont keep a handle on it with the tilapia and diquat, I may try to find somewhere that I can buy clipper in less than 5 pound batches. I also have a lot of outflow in my pond, scared that flouridone would get washed down the drain.

They're fun to watch, and lightning fast. I will probably be ready for complete death of these guys at 52 degrees, they're churning the mud where they're spawning so much. Seen another with fry today, and some large ones are showing up at the feeder.

We've been using 12oz/surface acre of clipper for duckweed, surface application w/MSO. Like I mentioned have not used it on watermeal yet. In pH<7.5 waters control has been excellent regardless of spray coverage. I can't use flouridone in most of my systems because of volume fluctuations.

Im a little confused about using a certain amount of product per surface acre for spray application. My pond is 1.5 acres but the watermeal is normally bunched up into less than .2 acres. With a product like clipper you only spray the floating weeds dont you? No reason to spray the entire pond?