Hi Folks,
Introducing myself as a new forum member. I recently subscribed to Pond Boss magazine and love it!

My Uncle Pete was an amazing outdoorsman who taught me about trout fishing and a lot of other things. He unfortunately passed away at 60 from ALS, but gave me the advice, "Build a pond- then you'll never run out of things to do."

Thus, I had my first ever pond built on our small farm in eastern Iowa in Summer 2018. Max depth is 12 ft, about 0.5 acre surface area. Don the Pond Doctor designed it and advised me through the process- he also sent me here to Pond Boss. One interesting feature- there is no runoff or waterway going into the pond so I filled it completely with a hose from our well (and rain). Don thought it could take 8-12 months but it filled in about 3 weeks. Don also installed an aeration system with two bottom diffusers.

Here's what we've stocked so far:

Summer 2018: 12ish guerrilla-stocked goldfish
Fall 2018: 10 lbs FHM, 150 hybrid bluegill, 100 black crappie (an 'oops' from the hatchery), 2 grass carp
Fall 2019: 200 HB, 10 lbs FHM, 32 Wipers (HSB, 10-12")

The goal is 1) to have fun and enjoy campfires and fun around the water, and 2) to manage it for catch and release fly-fishing for the HSB, bluegills for catch and release fly fishing would be a bonus.

The first year and a half have been fun. The bluegill and crappie have grown to about 6" and I was able to catch several on the fly in fall 2019. There is no vegetation in the pond so far. I experimented with water lettuce and water hyacinth, they didn't do much, but we had a weird, super cold and rainy spring.

Summer was hot and dry and we had a couple blooms of bright red algae, which I assumed to be toxic. Although there's no runoff into the pond, my neighbor to the north is a cornfield, and the farmer sprays a ton of fertilizer into a wetland on his property, which I think may leach into my pond through the sandy soil.

I'm interested in any tips that folks can give me, or ideas on how to improve the pond in year 3. Also interested in any plants that might help serve as a visual screen from the cornfield. 8 feet or taller would be great, and they would have to tolerate wet feet, and not send roots that would break my clay liner. We've joked about bamboo but I'm afraid it would run wild.

As my Uncle Pete told me, having a pond is a lot of fun and keeps me busy. When I sit by it at sunset, I really appreciate him and his wisdom.

Professor H - Go Hawkeyes!

Welcome to the Forum! I'm not one of the pros here, but I think most would say you put the carp in to soon and that you may want to get them out. It will probably be hard to get vegetation going with them in there. They would probably say try to get the goldfish and crappie out as well.
Post some picture when you can.

Would recommend a total kill off (maybe with lime) and then starting over without grass carp, goldfish, or crappie. Since you are just starting out, little has been wasted. Then start with FHM for a year or two. That would give you plenty of time to get some plants going and decide on how to keep the pond from getting overpopulated with a lot of small fish as you stock the predator species. Been there, done that. My third pond is about 1/2 acre and has only FHM and lake chubsuckers so far (2 years), since the clay bowl is slow in developing vegetation. I stocked my second pond (1 acre) very slowly starting with sequential stocking of multiple forage species, and the later-stocked SMB have spawned and are growing at a phenomenal rate. A common mistake is to release everything you catch. Learned most of this here on pondboss over the years.

A friend with one he caught out of our first pond this past Fall.

Your 'oops' have created problems for you. With your current fish combination the goldfish will not do you any favors. Why have them; not much fun on the end of a fish pole, and not good to eat - mostly all problems. What they do or will do when they become abundant is make the pond visibility around 6"-12". As food becomes short supply they work the sediments for foods.

Commonly with fishes you now have, routinely the pond water will be clearest when the ice melts and until the water warms to around 48-55F. Then your bottom stirring fish become active and resuspend silt and the aerator helps keep it mixed. Low visibility will ruin your fly fishing success and reduce pond productivity for fish growth.

To adequately control reproducing goldfish you will need to add largemouth and allow them to become abundant and not get much bigger than 12". At this point I would be adding at least several 6"-9" LMB plus some fingerlings 3"-4". Abundant LMB should keep your goldfish reproduction controlled. You could have had a goldfish hatch last year? If not you will this year, and will need LMB to control overpopulating goldfish and later crappie.

The other problem with goldfish is with the resulting cloudy water the crappie will have a hard time finding enough good to grow. Over population of small crappie will be another fish management problem. With fairly clear water 18"-30" the LMB will be able to fairly well control small crappie and goldfish. This might make you pond a fairly decent fishery. HSB will also help control crappie but not likely goldfish; maybe, maybe not? Time will answer that question for you. Remove every goldfish and crappie that you catch which may not be enough numbers removed.

When your water becomes turbid of 6"-10" clarity, predator fish will not be able to reduce enough of the offending species to obtain clearer water. Then a complete fish removal is the your best option.

Thanks for the tips! I haven’t seen any reproduction of goldfish or crappie (or anything yet) but I’ll work to remove those from the pond. I’m hoping the HSB will put in work on the crappies. Have a few pictures but not sure how to post yet. Will work on that!

For pictures you can put them on a server then just add the link here and people can go there to see them if desired.

The HSB will help control crappie providing the water is not too cloudy as in less than 16". HSB are sight feeders. If your water is not clear it is your goldfish causing it.

I use Imgur as a free photo hosting site. If you then click on an uploaded picture you can choose a link and paste it into a post on the forum.