Is chara generally considered good or bad in a pond? I have no vegetation, other than FA. Perhaps several kinds of algae, but no chara. It sounds like chara could provide much needed shelter for my forage species, if it's not likely to take over my pond.

I've been learning from the PBF mods and collective wisdom of it's members, that vegetation can be desirable or undesirable, even discussing the same species of plant. "It depends". For example, I hated the excessive FA on our pond, when it covered 75% or more of the surface last summer. But now, with just small quantities around the edges, it does provide a bit of cover. How much chara are you talking? Loads=annoyance and undesirable status; small/moderate amount=cover.

I'm sure one of the experts will be along shortly with more sound advice..

“How much chara” is part of my question. If I start with a little, will it eventually cover my entire pond, and if it does, how soon is that likely to happen in a 1/3 ac pon? And if it does, how bad would that be? I'm guessing my pond is not deeper than 3 ft now, and at spill, it's about 5 ft higher. Will chara survive with that fluctuation in depth? The fluctuation is probably the main reason I have no pond weeds now.

Chara,

Is it good or bad? Well......... Pros and cons of Chara...

Pros.
1. It can put off a lot of D.O. during the day.
2. It can provide a lot of good hiding spots for your smaller fish.
3. There are a lot worse things out there then Chara.
4. Chara is at least native to the U.S.

Cons,
1. Chara can spread out like crazy specially in clear water.
2. Hard to fish in thats for sure except top water.
3. Hard to control once you have it.

If you do not have it in your pond I would not make it a point to get it.... I am sure there is something else out there that is not as invasive as Chara..... I'll let the experts handle that....

RC

Thanks RC. I hope the experts will tell me of options that are comparable but not as invasive. I need something.

Here's our algae control story so far:

We have an old, eutrophic farm pond. In the few years since we've started managing it, we've had a lot of FA. The average depth is only four feet, so FA would blanket the entire pond bottom and form large floating mats that made fishing tricky. More importantly, Mama P. found FA mats unsightly. We always had some chara, too, but below the waterline and out of sight, out of mind for Mama P.

This year, we added Aquashade for the first time. It has done a great job on the FA. It now only grows in two feet of water or less, so it only shows up at the shoreline. Mama P. is very happy--key point. We waited to see which plants would show up to fill in the niche left behind by the reduced FA.

We have our answer, at least for this year...now there is chara EVERYWHERE. It grows up to two feet tall from the bottom, leaving 1-2 ft of 'fishable' water across most of the pond. Senkos can make it through, and you can pull blade baits if you keep them up, but cranks and swimbaits get caught.

For now the plan is to keep adding dye year after year, and see how things develop. We anticipate that rooted plants will begin to establish over time and the chara will have more competition. We'll see.

I've had the same thing with FA - from shore to shore across the bottom as far as I can tell, and so much on the surface that it's almost impossible to fish. But now it's nearly all gone from the surface and much, maybe most, of the bottom appears clear. I like to fish survace lures, especially dry flies, so the problem of fishing with chara in the pond is probably not nearly as great as trying to fish when the surface has many islands of floating FA. And even now, when the pond appears largely free of FA, it actually contains a great deal of suspended FA. Every cast with a spinner or wobbler brings in some FA with it.

I may have missed it in this thread, but what caused your FA to dissipate?

I don't know, but it happened very quickly. Since I've been feeding the fish regularly, the water has become much murkier. And the fish have spawned and my dogs swim and wade in the pond every day and stir up the muck. Formerly, it was very clear. Those are about the only changes I can think of?

Turtle man your actually answering the question and don't even know it. "Water is much murkier now" "Dogs stirring things up" Was much clearer.

There you go that's why you don't have as much of it. Ever see a muddy lake with lots of plant? Nope cause the sun cant penetrate into the water to get them to grow. That's what the Aquashade will do for you as well. Or supposed to do anyway.

this is why I have such issues with Chara my pond is clear 8 foot clear at times and that's not good when it comes to weeds and FA. That why most folks say you don't really want to see much farther than 2 feet deep with a disc cause to much sun penetration and then you have a whole lot of other weed/fa issues.... or can anyway.

RC

RC,

I wouldn't exactly say I didn't even know it. Or maybe I would say I didn't know it “exactly,” but that was my best guess, Maybe there were other factor too, but I don't know what. I'm still waiting for someone to tell me what's better than chara. The forage fish in my pond have no shelter other than the few remaining patches of FA. The GBH is waiting for them in shallow water.

LOL. As far as natural I guess Chara isn't to bad. Bob Lusk will tell you there are a lot of others things you could have a lot worse than Chara...

That is one plus I like about it. By the end of summer I have a ton of fish hiding in it and then when it all dies off in fall my LMB and HSB eat real good!!!

I would love to have some of them reeds... Not sure what they are actually called but I think that reed grass that is about 2 feet tall and sticks up out of the water about a foot would be sweet for fish. And you can still fish some what with a Texas rigged worm or a spinner bait and not get all hung up in it. If I had no weeds to deal with at all that's what I would be looking into but that just M.O. of course.

RC

The MN DNR says that if you have chara in your pond you should leave it alone. The post didn't say why.

Are there any opinions on how chara competes against FA? Does floating FA hold all the cards?

Well Chara is FA its just a different form of it... So not sure how it can compete against itself?

Not sure why he would have said what he said except for 2 reasons.

1. Chara is a good place for a lot of organisms to grow and for smaller fish to hide.

2. I believe if you try and rake chara out of your pond it can just make it worse as the spores fall off the trunk and fall back to the pond and you can end up with even more chara the next season.... Don't quote me on that last part but I believe it's true!

RC

Interesting. I knew Chara was an algae but I thought is was a different species than FA.

Hey Bill you may be right? I could be wrong on this... I am not a plant / algae guy so maybe I should not have answered this. Please someone clarify this if I was wrong. I have no problem with that. I don't want to give out wrong answers to anyone...

Thanks,
RC

Well, when you say "it" and you are meaning algae, you are correct. I remember Bill Cody a few years ago saying that there are 17,000 different types of algae. So, if you are referring to Chara as a type of algae, you are correct.

But, if you are saying that Chara is a type of FA, that is incorrect. That is like saying that a Poodle is a type of German Shepard. They are both dogs, but that's about it.....

Thanks Esshup for the clarity....

RC

I asked MN DNR about their post and got this reply:

The main reason it's best to leave chara alone is that it typically is not a nuisance. It can form thick mats but usually it doesn't grow as high as plants such as coontail. With the extreme water level fluctuations it will be difficult to establish aquatic plants. Plants that grow deeper, such as flatstem pondweed and coontail would be more resilient to changes in water levels. Chara does grow from a foot deep to around 6 feet so it may be ok in your situation. In any case, you would need to obtain whatever plants you choose, from a clean source free of invasive species. Just in case your pond is on the public waters inventory, I attached an application to transplant aquatic plants.

If you have any further questions my contact info is below.


Shane McBride
Mn DNR Fisheries
Aquatic Plant Management Specialist
1200 Warner Road
St. Paul, Mn 55106
651-259-5779
shane.mcbride@state.mn.us

I'm not too worried about chara because everything else seems worse. I'd rather have 2 ft of fishable space at the top of the water column than a forest of coontail.

I can tell you this by experience I would say no they don't hold all the cards. I have some floating FA early on in spring but once my Chara kicks in and starts growing that floating FA goes away pretty quick... I think the Chara in my case because I have so much of it is sucking up all the nutrients in the water so the floating FA don't have a change to get going.....

RC

There's a small lake I used to fish in Ohio that had lots of chara. The disadvantage was that that after the water warmed, the shallow areas were hard to fish. But the advantage was that it cleared the water and gave smaller fish a place to hide, which of course drew the bigger fish.

I caught many a nice bass out of the chara, and fewer in areas where it did not exist. The very best spots were deep weedbeds, down to about six feet in depth -- I didnt find chara growing much deeper than that.

When some grass carp were put into the lake to control the chara, the fishing definitely worsened and the water became much murkier.

If you don't have deeper water, say more than six feet, chara can be a real pain in the rear. But if you do, it can be a plus. Besides, it crowds out worse things like FA.

That for sure like I said above my FA will go away fairy quick once the chara comes out. I have that very problem with my chara. My pond is only 9 feet average 6 feet so yeah I end up getting a lot of chara because of it but the good thing is you can spot treat it here and there and give yourself some decent fishing spots. Cutrine plus granules work real good on Chara IMO... I had some American pond weed I wish I could just have that instead but my GC ate that up in a hurry... they love that AP. then they will work on the chara but near as hard... If your water is right depths you can run a pop R on top or a frog and hang on you never know what might come out of that stuff to hammer it. Then you got to get it back out of all that junk once you get it hooked...lol You could end up with a 2 pound bass on that feels like 13 pounds....

RC

Yeah, the bass would dive into the salad when they could! Oddly enough, sometimes this helped, as they would calm down and stop jumping (which is when they had the best chance of getting away) when their head was in the weeds. I think the darkness made them feel safe, rather like blindfolding does to many animals.

So long as their eyes were covered with weeds and I pulled them at a slow, steady pace, they would come right up into the net without objection.

The weeds may smother them too if they can't get their gills open.