OK I have been out on lakes. Deb we are on good terms I will try to keep it this way so please hear me out I mean no disrespect but this whole thing is starting to make sense to me.
1. First we disagree on what is recommend for pond mgmt, I thought this was the case but you seemed to think it was the diff in gpg or ppm. You are indeed reporting ppm. IN aquaculture it might be that you want hardness/alk above 100 ppm or more. In pond mgmt most agree( I think) you want it above 20 ppm. IN GA I rarely see it above 10-12 naturally without lime. Now just last week hit a spot in NW GA htat had 180 so there are exceptions. Also guess what there is a high limetsone area near Alapha. This makes for a great sitaution for you to grow fish. However IS NOT NECESSARY for hardness to be this high to grow fish in a sportfish pond. It needs to be above 20 ppm for many reaons (limited time here) but no dramtic reason to get it to 100 ppm. EXCEPT with HSB I think it is real improtant to have high hardnes and the reason I feel we have limited success with survivial in many GA ponds. We can talk about this later but ask and most will tell you 20 ppm is what to strive for.
2. What are you reporting...17 ppm if his water is similiar to ML's. It is not 300's.
3. You are using a Very basic kit. Like I said almost all water in GA is less than 20 ppm. So the dropper method is very inaccurate. I use a diigital titraotr and depending on reagents can report to within 0.1 ppm with accuracy. Deb there are other cheap kits that have a conversion of 4 drops/ppm that would be big improvement.
4. What does he need to do. ML is doing exactly what I tell clients here if they have less than 20 ppm alkalinity.. add 4 tons of aglime.
5. Ammonia...you may have stumbled onto what I also disagree with in a major way. I have never seen a sportfish pond have a fish kill from Ammonia! I used to check it reguarly and have never had a reading as high as you just got. Ammonia is an issue moslty in aquaculture situation. I guess with the high numbers you rec. it could come into play. ANyone else want to explain this better to Deb. I know the catalog has a big full page that states "Ammonia is the number one cause of fish deaths". This is another one of those deceptive deals. This is probably true (I don't know) in aquaculture but Deb this is NOT the #1 cause of fish deaths a fishin' pond.
6. Why the high ammonia reading? Deb I believe you. I know you are not lying and probbaly folks in the pat have had high ammonia levels by the time the sample is tested but feel this is a "false positive". I'm guessing but bet the ammonia level for the pond in question is fine something happens as stated by Cody to the sample for it to read this high. Maybe there are testing procdures that can be improved? Deb I appreciate you trying to learn this stuff. I hope this will help use start to understand our recommendaitons better.
