Fish Kill - 11/15/18 06:04 AM
I share a sand pit with my neighbor that is about 45 years old. When we bought our home 16 years ago the pond was 13 feet deep on the south end and 10' on the north end. The pond is about 70' from a small branch of the Platte river to the south of us. The level of the river determines the level of our lake. At the time the river was backed up with several beaver damns that kept our river level and lake level up. Water clarity was about 3' and I could see bass and bluegill in the shallows. My neighbor reported that the summer before we moved in there was a fish kill when the water turned over at the end of the summer. People in the region talked that that pond used to be a great pond to catch large bass (4-6#'s according to their fish stories). I was able to catch a few small crappie at that time as well.
About 5 years ago we had a flood that wiped out the beaver damns and a local got permission to trap the beavers the winter before so they have not reestablished themselves. The State is also spraying to keep down invasive weeds that plugged the river up as well. Ultimately the river level and our lake level dropped 4' and has not recovered. The lake had become infested with green sunfish, yellow bullhead and carp despite the fact that the river cannot flood into it. I had not caught a LMB or true BG or Crappie in 4-5 years. Neighbor claims catching channel Catfish. Water clarity was about 3 ". It looked like a mud hole. When the ice came off this past winter I counted about 1000 18-22" common carp that were very uniform in size that were floating. I only saw a few floating small catfish and sunfish, No LMB or BG.
When O2 Levels are low what fish die first? the carp or the LMB and BG, or crappie, or Catfish?
So now I have a 3.6 surface acre pond with much improved clarity. In the early spring it was about 4' visibility. Now it has about 2' visibility. It is 9' deep on the South end and 6' deep on the North end after the water table dropped due to no beavers in the river. No significant vegetation growing. It has concrete chunks on the east and north for erosion control along roadways. One small tree that died and fell into the lake. I recently added some unique man made PVC habitat for shade, shelter and spawning. The north end of the lake does have about 8-12" of silt in it.
I thought I had a complete kill as I did not see any small minnows or fish of any size. A biologist from the game and parks was unable to electroshock it due to no access to put in the boat. He visually assessed the pond and felt that there was a near complete kill as he said it is very rare to have a total 100% kill. Then in June I saw schools of baby bullhead and green sunfish. Now the bullhead I'm catching in minnow traps are 3.5" long and the green sunfish are 2" long. The green sunfish have a lot of little black specks on them which I am guessing is a parasite from all the snails that are now in the pond.
I have limited financial resources at this time. I know it would be best to rotenone and restock with an aerator in place. From listening to all of the Pond Boss facebook feeds I feel I need a below surface aerator, but am unsure if I need one or two.
For a 3.6 acre pond (6'(80%)-9'(20%) deep)how many aerators do I need and where would I place it? (the silty end to break down more muck? or the deeper end? or just the middle of the pond?)
If I were to be able to get 100 12" LMB and continue to try and trap out fish to the point that the GSF and the Yellow BH were in check how should I go about introducing RESF and BG without having them be food for the LMB that helped clean out the small GSF and YBH? Would it do any good to by small BG and RESF or would I just be feeding the LMB? How should I manage this situation? Thanks
About 5 years ago we had a flood that wiped out the beaver damns and a local got permission to trap the beavers the winter before so they have not reestablished themselves. The State is also spraying to keep down invasive weeds that plugged the river up as well. Ultimately the river level and our lake level dropped 4' and has not recovered. The lake had become infested with green sunfish, yellow bullhead and carp despite the fact that the river cannot flood into it. I had not caught a LMB or true BG or Crappie in 4-5 years. Neighbor claims catching channel Catfish. Water clarity was about 3 ". It looked like a mud hole. When the ice came off this past winter I counted about 1000 18-22" common carp that were very uniform in size that were floating. I only saw a few floating small catfish and sunfish, No LMB or BG.
When O2 Levels are low what fish die first? the carp or the LMB and BG, or crappie, or Catfish?
So now I have a 3.6 surface acre pond with much improved clarity. In the early spring it was about 4' visibility. Now it has about 2' visibility. It is 9' deep on the South end and 6' deep on the North end after the water table dropped due to no beavers in the river. No significant vegetation growing. It has concrete chunks on the east and north for erosion control along roadways. One small tree that died and fell into the lake. I recently added some unique man made PVC habitat for shade, shelter and spawning. The north end of the lake does have about 8-12" of silt in it.
I thought I had a complete kill as I did not see any small minnows or fish of any size. A biologist from the game and parks was unable to electroshock it due to no access to put in the boat. He visually assessed the pond and felt that there was a near complete kill as he said it is very rare to have a total 100% kill. Then in June I saw schools of baby bullhead and green sunfish. Now the bullhead I'm catching in minnow traps are 3.5" long and the green sunfish are 2" long. The green sunfish have a lot of little black specks on them which I am guessing is a parasite from all the snails that are now in the pond.
I have limited financial resources at this time. I know it would be best to rotenone and restock with an aerator in place. From listening to all of the Pond Boss facebook feeds I feel I need a below surface aerator, but am unsure if I need one or two.
For a 3.6 acre pond (6'(80%)-9'(20%) deep)how many aerators do I need and where would I place it? (the silty end to break down more muck? or the deeper end? or just the middle of the pond?)
If I were to be able to get 100 12" LMB and continue to try and trap out fish to the point that the GSF and the Yellow BH were in check how should I go about introducing RESF and BG without having them be food for the LMB that helped clean out the small GSF and YBH? Would it do any good to by small BG and RESF or would I just be feeding the LMB? How should I manage this situation? Thanks