Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site New pond design

Steve - Excellent articles on pond building, design and construction were written by Mike Otto and published in the last six or seven issues of Pond Boss magazine. See the titles of his articles in the indexes of Pond Boss mag located in this Forum's heading of Product Sources (near the bottom of "forum home" button at top right of this page). In the January-Feburary issue of PBoss, Mike's article title is "Undercover Work" and in it he did a good job explaining types of structure and bottom features. In it he describes rules and planning for underwater structure & with pictures to include lots of ideas for building cover, structure, creating habitat for fish.

Use pea sized gravel for spawning beds that are located in one to 5 ft of water at the south end. Slightly larger gravel (1/2"-1") is a little better for the deeper (4'-5') bass beds. Beds should be at least 10'x10' but larger is better. You can make one large bed from shallow to deeper water or place gravel in two or three smaller areas or patches at the south end. Gravel should be spread 4" to 8" thick. Thicker layers are better in my opinion. Nests or spawning bowls of large bgill and bass can be up to 6" deep and 2' in diameter into the gravel. But typically small fish only make shallow (2"-3") depressions abt 12" -15" dia. . Often the same bowl shaped depressions are used each year by the same or other fish.

Since you are in northern US the the general rule of thumb is to have about 20%-25% of the basin at the deepest depth. This minimizes the chance of winter kill.

I think if the waterway contains fertilized field runoff and muddy water then you will see lots of filamentous algae growth each spring and summer from the nutrient laden incoming waters. This could be problematic depending on the water quality of the waterway and your goals or expectations. The pond will act like a big settling basin. If you have heavy silt laden drainage water it will contribute to excessive sedimentation and filling of the pond with mud. Periodic draining and scraping may be necessary every 20 or 30 yrs.