I have an old pond that is less than 0.1 Acres with an average of 3’ deep. The soil has a lot of clay and the water clarity has always been bad. I am going to run a seine through and get out all the good fish I want and move to one of my new ponds. After that I want to kill everything in there and start over and use it as a breeding pond, grow pond or something like that. A friend mentioned “lime” could do both. Can anyone tell me how much I would need, how to use, how soon I could put fish back in, best place to get lime or if something else would work better. Any thoughts or suggestions would be great.

Also I have two new ponds, spring fed. One is filling great with crystal clear water. It is the catch pond for the other larger pond that is not filling yet. We did get a good rain and the larger one did get some water. The water clarity is not good in that one in some of the pools and has remained cloudy for weeks without new water. My question is should I treat that one now or wait for it to fill? If treat with what and how. It will be about an acre when it fills. Only part of it has clay. Any thoughts?
Thanks for your help

Drew

Welcome to the forum dcase! Heavy doses of lime can help kill off your remaining fishery in the small grow out pond once you seine out desirable fish. Alum or gypsum can help with a potential ionic imbalance causing turbidity issues. Experts can advise on lime dosage for fish kill off and gypsum or alum treatment formulas for clearing turbid pond. Might be wise to wait for full pool in the bows needing alum/gypsum treatment or you may be facing multiple treatments.

Welcome aboard and experts please advise!

Not sure if it helps but I use a couple of bags of lime in my 1/10th acre pond to sterilize it and kill any fish I was not able to get out of the pond before refilling. However that is once I've drained it down completely and have a couple hundred gallons of standing water.

That's not a lot of water at 3 feet. I would pump down as far as possible and then apply the lime. That is if you have a way to fill it again.

D Case, just a FYI, know the differences between agricultural lime and hydrated lime........

Ok, would you like to explain the difference?

Q: Is aglime the same as lime?
A: The term agricultural lime, or "aglime," usually refers to crushed limestone. Limestone (calcium carbonate) is not the same as hydrated lime (calcium hydroxide).

http://www.lime.org/lime_basics/faq.asp

hydrated lime = pH 12.4
Calcium Carbonate = pH 8-9

Hydrated Lime will raise the pH of the water enough to kill fish, you can use all the Calcium Carbonate you want and you won't kill the fish.

Thank you Sir, that was very helpful! One more question if you dont mind. Do you know the best place to get hydrated lime and what quantities do I need to apply? I appreciate your help.
Drew

i have found hydrated lime at feed stores(they can order it if not in stock generally). It use to be used on feed lots or outhouses to cut down on odor and biodegrade. you have to be very careful when using it, it can burn your skin and do not get in your mouth or eyes.

Ditto feed stores or farm fertilizer suppliers. As to how much to apply, I'd get a pH test kit and keep adding/mixing it in until the pH was mid to high 10 to low 11 range. You could drain water out of the pond by using a sump pump and concentrate fish in a smaller area, that way you have to use less hydrated lime.

Let me toss up a link here. Read it, do the jat test that they describe in it and go to google planimeter to calculate the surface area of your pond. Then do some depth readings to get a good idea of how much water volume you have. That, along with the jar tests will tell you how much Alum and Hydrated lime you need to use to clear up your pond.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=124005#Post124005

Use the hydrated lime to kill the fish, use the alum to clear up your water. It might be easiest to do both, (not just kill the fish) and if the pond is that small, you could do everything from shore.

I now have several resources for the alum and how to apply. I think I am good on how to clear up the water if using alum. Not sure where to find it, working on that.

Now, I need some feedback on the cheapest method of "KILLING" my fish so I can start over. "Lime" has come up several times.

Is lime the solution? Will it take care of the clarity problem as well as killing my fish? If lime, ....how much and how to apply? Thanks for the help.