Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Very small pond renovation...

Hi all-new here...this post has all of the facts about the pond I would be looking to "renovate":

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=493479#Post493479

Basically all I want is for this pond to support some kind of fish-any kind of fish-I'm not picky. Just as long as my kids can catch and release and have fun.

With a 5' minimum depth, it will be hard to avoid fish kills in your location. Distance to electric may not be as economically prohibitive as you think for aeration if you cover the distance with an air line rather than electric.

I'm guessing this is because it will get too hot in summer and too cold in winter plus the solid freeze would trap gases, etc...? So would the only option be to dredge? If so, how deep would it need to be ideally? I was already tipped off to the idea of running air line instead of electric and am reading up on that now.

Swamp_Yankee,

I really enjoyed the photo of the Black Bear ... thank you for posting it.

With regard to fishing, this pond qualifies as a wetland so one approach is to work with fish species that dominantly inhabit such waters naturally. Generally these species can withstand very low DO conditions which is why they tend to dominate wetlands. Since you are not picky, here a few ideas to consider.

1. For mosquito control consider a topminnow which can be obtained locally. If a live-bearer variety is local to your area, all the better. Topminnows like the Gambusia-holbrooki or varieties of killifish may be locally available and naturally occurring where you are located.

2. To forage the muck of your pond, you may consider eastern mudminnow. Larger specimens can actually be caught on small flies and small hooks with bait (eg bits of hotdog).

3. As a predator you could consider a locally common bullhead species. These tend to over populate a pond but with a little effort you could learn to sex small adults and stock them single sex -- perhaps 20 to 40 of them every 4 years or so. They should easily reach 1/2 lb and larger under this scenario and you wouldn't need aeration for this set up.

4. Might be worth looking into a triploid grass carp if you don't want as much vegetation. Might also reduce DO events. The species above can withstand DO events however. I would mention that grass carp may not be able to survive DO levels that BH, EMM, and GAMs/KF can withstand.

The species above would work with your BOW as it is, attract other wildlife like herons and kingfisher, and control mosquitoes. Good luck with your project.

Went to work cleaning up the banks, raking some of the muck out of the shallows, and pulling out aquatic plants:



I want to try to keep the banks trimmed short going forward-any tips on how to do it without making a mess in the water? Its tough to see but on the far side I pulled an actual woody/thorny bush that looks like it had started on the bank and then extended its root system into the water. The grass I'm going to have to pull by hand. I'm planning on putting an old canoe in and throwing the stuff inside as I pull it.

I freaked out when my rake caught this on the end of a stick I pulled out of the bottom:





My first thought was that it was eggs and that I had killed an entire generation of fish that I didn't even know that I had! Fortunately I found on Google images that it was just a bryozoan. Apparently their presence indicates good water quality, so that's a plus.