Hello i'm a new member and have spent my summer digging a sping fed pond with a pick and shovel. Pond size is 20' by 50'with an average depth of 2.5'. the water is pretty acidic because we live in an old mining town and i can only stock brook trout i recently put in 20 brook trout 12 in A peice. so how fast and how big will they get in a small pond like mine my goal is 20 in is this feasible. any imformation is much apriciated.

What are they going to eat?

I feed 50 percent protien pelets from the hatchery where i got the fish.

As long as you have sufficient oxygen, your ph isn't too low, temps stay between 55 and 65 in the hottest part of the summer, and you have enough turnover and nitrificaton to keep unionized ammonia and nitrites below toxic levels you could get your brooks up to 3 to 5 lbs.

With trout it's not about the size of the pond it's about the water quality. One thing you have going for you is your lower ph keeps unionized ammonia lower. Be aware that your brooks if they grow fast probably won't make it past their 4th year. They just don't live as long as browns and rainbows except in wild settings where growth is slow and winters are long.

Max growth rate for trout is 1.5 inches per month which is better than most species of gamefish.

What is your PH?

I know water circuilation is a big deal for disolved oxoygen and nitrates, and lowest flow rate for water this sumer was 2 gpm could i ad a water feature to circulate the water for better water quality nothing fancy just a pump to circulate the water through some buckets back to the pond would this help. also i stocked the fish a month ago and i'v seen 1 in of growth allready and i feed 1/2 to 1 pound of food a day how much food will they eat when the water gets to optimum growth temperature i'm currently feeding 2 to 3 times a day and i cant afford to be feeding more than a 50 pound bag a month.

The ph is usualy around 5.5 after liming i'v gotten the ph up to 6.5 when the water is slow.

Cecil Baird1 is the best trout raising person here; heed his advice closely. He grows big trout in little ponds. I suspect that your temperatures will get too warm in July or August due to your low spring flow rate (2gpm) which may even become a little less flow in the dry mid summer periods. Often in marginal trout raising conditions the lower the spring flow is the smaller the pond has to be to maintain adequate water temps for trout survival in mid-summer. If the brookies die this summer note the water temperatures at that time and monitor water temps the rest of the summer. Those temps will tell you if any trout species will survive in mid-summer for your conditions. You may have to resort to growing yellow perch and or smallmouth bass. Since your pond is so shallow do you think you will have bird or predator problems once they figure out a fish buffet is in the area?

Nitrates, the final product of the nitrification cycle, aren't too much of an issue in most ponds. It's the ammonia and nitrites you have to worry about.

Boy I don't know, your flow seems awfully low for survival as Bill says. Not sure which will come first ammonia and nitrite issues, oxygen issues once the water warms up, or gill infections from suspended solids. You should only be feeding a max per day of 2 to 5 percent of total body weight of the trout. This time of year if water temps are low only every few days.

The rule of thumb I use for carrying capacity for trout in flow through earthen ponds is about 12 lbs. per gpm of flow.

My spring is very cold 55 degeres in august and july and the pond has trees all around it so its got plenty shade. plus i recorded that low flow rate only one time this summer. my max flow was 35gpm.so i respectfully disagree but i will keep an eye on that this summer.Now the GBH might be a big problem though the sides of the pond are very steep as you see in the pic if they do become a problem what do you recomend to dispatch or deture these pests from stealing my fish. keep in mind money is a huge issue consideriding I am a teen and dont make a lot of money.

thankyou cecil for responding so fast. the water coming in the pond is 45 degeres right now and even with the cold snap we had with temperatures in the -0 range i didnt get any ice on the pond at all i havent measured the water temp in the pond recently but i suspect it's warm compared to other ponds in the area. muddy water is an issue after a heavey rain and the pond has been finished for two months now.will planting grass help and if so is there a certian kind you would recomend. i already have one trout with its gills fused open and i dont want anymore. thankyou for your profesional opion.

Also is there any way to get rid of amonia and nitrates.

Hope you have good luck with your project. Your inflow pipe looks like a well thought plan. You can use gunfire to discourage the GBH but they will come back. Could you get some old fencing and place around the top of the water to deter them. I wish I had a spring like yours, I would put a spring house on the top and have the overflow going into the pond. Good to see someone with enough drive to do something of substance.

Thankyou for the complement the trout love the inflow pipe,and they fight one another to get in it.

Small pond,

Now that 's better with up to 35 gpm! Hopefully since most of the country was experiencing high temps and drought conditions last summer the 2 gpm will be an exception. The fact that you are heavily shaded in the Sumer will help a lot even if the leaves aren't a good thing.

GBH's would be easy to keep out of a pond that small if it's too deep for them to land in. Just run some stakes around the pond made of furring strips (you don't need many and and furring strips are cheap) and run some heavy lb. test mono from stake to stake at a couple of heights so the bird can't go under or over it. GBH's are wading birds that come in from the bank so they won't land in the water unless they think it's shallow enough. You can get 30 or 40 lb. test really cheap at Walmart.

As you surmised the fused gills are the result of a gill infection probably from when your pond got muddy too many times. I digress to others on what kind of grass seed to use. However if you can get some straw down ASAP to prevent erosion that would be good.

Cool pond picture! Keep us posted!

I'm also impressed seeing he is only a teenager. Sounds like a future aquaculturist or engineer to me! And not many teenagers have something like this to work with.

This summer i'll try that for sure the guy at the hatchery laurel hill trout farm said the same thing aperntly there a big problem there he said they lose 10,000 or was it 1,000 pounds of trout each year thanks to the little jerks. one more question not that it will be my last as my Grandpa says im full of it.Anyhow i'd like some big fish before opening day of trout season that way if i get skunked i can still say i caught the big one i'd like 16-17 in trout i have the money after the snow storm how many would you recomend putting in. cant aford more than 10.

Maybe you should put in 5 this time and if they do well you can add more later. It is nice to have a cash reserve.

Thankyou Cecil I know most of what I know by reading your posts and many other menbers posts on this site before i became a member.also by experimenting with blue gill and bass this summer while digging the pond by hand no backhoe for the poor northern boy.

I'm flattered!

Btw "poor northern boy" sounds like me at your age. But making do with what you have is one of the best ways to learn how to be creative.

Btw grandpa sounds like a real card!

I suspect that there is a lot of people who was poor when we were younger. No shame in that and it does not take money to make one happy.Some of the most unhappy people are the ones with money. I think you will go far with your drive and attitude.

helo today i'm going to put something up to stop erosion.We live next to the railroad tracks so limestone is available to me could i cover the banks in lime stone to stop erosion. I also have sand available from the river near by. If i used sand from the river would i have to worry about parasites from the river geting in the pond.

One more pond pic. moved pic

Hell, I was poor when I was older too! Dug a largish garden pond by hand over a summer while in my 30s as I could not afford someone to dig it for me. I now look at that little pond and forget the passion that went into that lily-choked 8x18 puddle. Our soils are very heavy, and in the summer required a pick-axe to break it up enough to shovel a little bit out. It seemed like a monster hole at the time.

Now that my big pond seems to have sealed itself (what?) I may get someone out here to enlarge the garden pond. It is an eyesore now after several years of neglect, and at 43, I am not willing to do it by hand anymore.

BTW I would have loved to have that as a kid, I spent a lot of time rooting around in a nearby creek catching fish by hand, and chasing trout up the creek with no luck. If I had my own pond, I probably would have went down a different path in life. The rest of my time I rode my bike into bad parts of the city to get electronic parts for my other hobby which turned into my career.

I know very little about trout, so I wont be much help at all. I do know that the only way to really learn your stuff is to try it yourself. Like another person said, start with 5 and go from there. No sense putting a bunch in all at once and loosing them. They do become like pets.

Good luck, and have fun!

Lsquid,are you as poor now as when you were growing up? I didn't think so. I hope it is the same for our kids and grandbabies but I doubt it.

No, certainly not poor anymore (relative term anyhow!) I was blessed enough to have a hobby that has lead to a fun, yet very difficult decently paying career. I have hopes that things will improve, but hopes don't pay the bills :-(.

I have a feeling that those who produce food in the next several years are the ones who will be successful. Never a shortage of mouths to feed. Aquaculture? Perhaps... especially since they just limited cod fishing to prevent a fishery crash.

Sometimes I wish I was a kid again so I could live in blissful ignorance and not be up all night or on these forums to try and not think about it.

Lsquid,if you are self-employed,you will always be concerned about your finances. That is just the nature of being the Headcheese.However I suspect you are good at what you do and you treat everyone as you like to be treated you will do fine. However, you have to a needed product but the public will let you know that right away. I have read that Bill Gates was worried about his ability to meet his payroll for quite a while. My prayers are with the fishermen up your way as they are going to have many sleepless nights. Maybe it is sad but I have no desire to return to my childhood.

During the Depression era those in the cities had it the worst. Those in rural farms were often poor but they always had ample food. Maybe that is a good reason to not live in the cities.