I am new to pond management, I have a small pond(in the attached picture)that is about 7 feet deep at the deepest. Currently it is so full of algae that no respectable species of fish can be stocked. I have tried poisoning the algae and the pond is too small to be issued a carp permit. As of now it has a large population small bluegill which would make good forage for any species. From what I've deduced from my reading on this forum is that bullhead catfish are generally frowned upon but they have do eat a fair amount of algae. Could stocking bullheads at a low rate be making the best of a bad situation? Bear in mind I'm on a small budget here. Input would be appreciated!

Welcome to Pond Boss. What did you treat the pond with ?

Manual removal would be a good start as that will remove some of the excess nutrients bound up in the plants. What type of equipment do you have access to ? Also have the soil and water tested.

I treated it with copper sulfate crystals several times throughout summer without any noticeable change. I have general farm equipment, as I'm new to pond management I don't have any pond orientated equipment.

Carp aren't all that wild about algae anyway. Start nuking it early in the Spring, when it first appears, before it becomes an infestation. And, stay after it. Once it gets ahead of you, it can't be stopped.

Where are you in Texas?

You need to remove nutrient load from the pond. This means either manual removal of weeds, or putting in fish to utilize these nutrients. An additional issue may be fertilizer runoff from surrounding ag fields?

I would never purposefully add bullheads to even my worst enemies pond, but that's just me

Listen to the experts above

I had some FA this year and the guy that sold me my stocking fish said as others have here on PB that grass carp are not much use for FA. He did say that CC were pretty good at eating FA.

Can anyone else confirm this? Was he correct that CC eat the FA?

One problem I can see even if CC do eat FA is I would suspect if a person was feeding them pellets, they are going to prefer the pellets over the FA. And of course pellets are going to add to the already high nutrient load.

So if CC do eat any significant amount of FA, would it be good to not be feeding pellets?

Sorry I can not answer your question but instead ask more questions, but your mention of bullheads caused me to remember what I was told about CC.

I'm in Hamilton, Texas which is Central/North Texas. What kind of fish would utilize the nutrient load? And yes fertilizer run off is a likely answer.

Another interesting point is the clarity of the water, you can see almost to the bottom in most places. Generally when there are a lot of nutrients present it causes the water clarity to decrease, right?

For a small pond a tractor , strong rope and a section of chain link fence will drag out a lot of FA.

An old box springs does a fair job as well.

My three FA eaters were 6 Israeli Carp, 20 KOI carp and Channel Catfish for my one acre pond. These did a great job for me. At the time I had 18 GC that denudided my submerged plants and so those plants played no part in the FA control.

This was my pond free of FA using the fish combination above with some control of FA by the above water lilies.


This was my pond the spring after my winter fish kill that wiped out my fish. Notice the FA around the log. But also notice how the above water plants stop the FA from going on out into the pond.


Now you see the same log without the FA that my fish controlled before they died in the winter fish kill. Absolutely no FA in the same area.


Now notice in this picture there is no FA out in the center of the pond when I didn't have above the water plants controlling the FA but just the three fish species I mentioned.


Another picture of the shore showing just a slight trace of FA but kept well in check. In my opinion besides using the three algae fish eaters if you can get the GC numbers about right you can also control the submerged plants but to do this it take time my adding some and watching the results over a year or two and then adding more if need be.

I realize John had success with that stocking, but take a look at the amount of other plants that he has utilizing the nutrients in the pond too. I wouldn't tell my customers that 6 Israeli Carp, 20 KOI carp and Channel Catfish per acre would take care of their FA problems. Besides, where TODAY can you get Israeli Carp?

I'd go with Tilapia for the FA. Much more of a proven fish management tool to remove nutrients and eat FA.

I like John's attitude that he enjoys different types of ponds. I would think satisfaction would be more easily obtained if a person enjoyed what the pond evolved into rather than some of us have certain expectations and a picture in our head and are disappointed when that picture perfect pond doesn't quickly appear.

The Tilipia sound intriguing to me. The nice thing about them, at least for northern latitudes, if you screw something up at least they go away and do not hang around to become an everlasting problem.

Zett's in PA sells Israeli carp. They tout them as great filamentous algae eaters. They also make a lot of other far fetched claims...

Israeli carp eh? That must be right up there with Zett's European Yellow Perch. Which btw if they really were could get them in some serious hot water.

I'm absolutely certain it would be far easier to simply accept what nature has in mind. But is that satisfaction, or resignation?

For me, satisfaction is gained by the realization of my goals...and the more ambitious the goals, the greater the satisfaction. And yes, the flip side of that maintains that goals of a less robust nature will probably be easier, and quicker to achieve.

Everyone looks at their pond/lake destination differently, and has different ideas on how best to get there. That's one of the most rewarding parts of this whole PondBoss thing, for me at least.

I suspect my personality type more closely resembles yours than John's.

Sometimes I wish I could "go with the flow" a little better than what I do, thus my comment.

LOL. Yep, I have their catalogue. Some comical stuff in there. Heck, they'll even sell you bullheads and tell you what a good deal they are. However, according to them the fish they sell are better than anyone elses.