I have never understood the aversion to testing water quality? I enjoy sitting on the banks of my lake and during that time, I test the water. I am a firm believer in knowledge. I can't change mother nature but I can gain some insight.
Do you phosphates and ammonia increase after a heavy rain? Do your total dissolved solids go through the roof? If you don't know the answers to the basic questions of an ecosystem you are trying to manage, you aren't a very good manager.
For less than 100 bucks you can buy a pond test kit, a digital thermometer that will give you temps to 25' and a TDS meter. A DO meter is expensive but I use a 30 dollar test kit with 50 tests.
I spend 50-100 dollars a year tracking my water, all while sitting in the serene environment of its shores. My fish kill is zero. Seems like a good deal.
The forum is comprised of thousands of long time pond owners/managers and dozens of pond management pros and fish biologists as well who manage vast private water and are aware that water chemistry influences a fishery - we wouldn't be successful otherwise. I'm uncertain where you sense an "aversion" to water chemistry tests from these posts - we embrace science on the forum and understanding the chemical characteristics of one's water is essential. What I see in this thread are posts trying to help walk Jason through the likely causes of the BG kill event - and in my case, I'm citing years of management experience on my own 7 ponds and dozens more I manage professionally. This includes managing [stocking/culling] millions of BG, whether I like it or not.
It appears you've been managing your fishery for a couple years - congrats and I hope things go well and it's great you found the forum. When you've been at it a wee bit longer you might face some similar challenges - although ag runoff clay ponds behave significantly differently that deep quarry ponds - far less volume of water means far less tolerances for errors. I learned early that legit challenges occur once a fishery carrying capacity is approached and ponds become increasingly eutrophic - that's when the real learning begins. While we should probably focus on Jason's fishery, I encourage you to think about interpreting the data you're collecting: how does increased phosphorous impact your fishery, specifically, considering it's a quarry pond and likely doesn't pose the same potential vegetation growth issues? Considering the volume of water you manage [87' max depth], what steps could you feasibly fiscally execute to impact the water chemistry in the event of an emergency [low DO levels, high phosphorous/dense planktonic algae blooms]? It's one thing to measure water chemistry, it's another to interpret the data and how it will impact water QUALITY and fishery performance. Thankful for our experts on the forum who can help us with that - they've taught us all quite a bit - still lots more to learn - that's why we subscribe to Pond Boss Magazine.
Embrace the honeymoon phase of fishery/pond management - I miss the easy breeze of those first few seasons when fish just grew - regardless of the frequency of testing my water chemistry.
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