Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose FYI-I think I kilt em' all-makes me want to bawl!

Found this excellant forum and magazine in January. I am in East Central Ia. with a 1 acre pond I 1st stocked in the summer of 03-normal upper midwest stocking-RES,HBG,8" channels. Went thru the fairly open winter with no problems with winterkill, but was worried non-the less. In 04 I added, in two seperate stockings, LMB, more catfish,HBG and grass carp. I decided that I wasn't gonna worry about winterkill anymore and installed 800' of 1/2" black pipe powered with a 1/4 horse Gast motor connected to a stainless steel homemade bottom diffuser. It was beautiful, rivaled the fountain at Buckingham Palace. We froze early this winter, went to 12" of clear ice in late November. My aereator was chugging along handsomely leaving me a nice 20' diameter circle in all that ice. I did notice as I walked the ice that I was seeing dozens of fingerling bluegill dead at the bottom of the ice. Well we got snow and rains and my cleaar ice disappeared and I thought no more of the problem. Tried fishing multiple times with my brother this winter and caught nothing-strange we that thought, must have been fishing with a full moon. THEN I began reading this forum, esp on winter aeration. I had to swallow my stomach contents quickly. Being the stubborn Bohemie I am I refused to shut the aerator off-finally did it the end of Febuary. Now the ice goes off and comes back, but when it's off I am finding dead Redears to 6" and yesterday some larger Hybreds. Time will tell what I may have left this spring. At least I now know thanks to this forum-oh well,live and learn-but if ya gotta learn this is the place to do it. Thanks-Postbeetle

Postbeetle,

Been there done that in my first winter of having a pond. Sad part is I still have so called experts in this field (not on this site) tell me there is nothing wrong with aerating in the middle of the pond in winter! Wrong!

I didn't really have dead fish right away but I had severely stressed fish come spring.

Take heart though. You may not have lost as many fish as you think. Many may have found refuge in another part of the pond.

Totally agree with Cecil on this one Postbeetle as usually "stress" not a kill occurs with a pond your size and 1 diffuser.(even though that is a lot of air for most diffusers)Lots of great posts on winter aeration and when in doubt for us northerners shut it off.Wait until mid April to start it back up if it warms up by then and since you may have more stressed fish consider a slow startup like 15 minutes the first day then double that each day and on day 8 you are back running 24/7 This is a conservative formula but may be a safe one for you too.I use it on startups in warm mid season installs or very mature ponds or where I might have stressed fish for any reason. Good Luck Ted

Ted, I'd like your opinion about what I've been doing. Essentially, what I have been doing is using two different diffusers for each pump. In the summer, I use the deep water diffuser and in the winter, I use the shallow water diffuser. Seems to be working. What do you thinK?

Norm,

I'm not Ted but I think that's a winner. I do something similar. I run 4 diffusers off a a 1/3 hp compressor in the summer and then hook up an different single diffuser in shallow water to a much smaller compressor. Sure beats moving diffusers around the pond every year!

BTW thanks for the great article. I also read the Science Digests from cover to cover. Can't get enough science!

Thanks for your input fellas-apppreciate the comments. I have thrown a breadbaited minnow trap in, in several places I can get it through the ice for one week now. So far nothing has entered it. Don't know if this means trouble or not.

Your aeration may indeed have killed them all but I'm more concerned with your initial stocking plan. You stocked redears and hybrid bluegills. Redears spawn once annually and the Hybrids rarely. You have no forage base for the bass and catfish. When you start over, try 750 bluegills and 250 redears and a different aeration plan.

Like Cecil says, most of us have screwed up the first time and I have done it subsequent times. I have started calling my screw ups experiments and character builders. I still have more of them coming.

Post, since you have approx 3.6-3.8 CFM available at 10 psi if you have the Gast pump I think you do, Try putting a shallow diffuser ($15.00 airstone) off to the side in 2-3 feet of water just incase you do want to winter aerate at some point. Then put 2-3 PSI to it and let the remainder exhaust to the air. Winter aeration is VERY over rated if you arent able to monitor your temp and DO throughout the entire pond and most of us dont.The rule of thumb I use and it is just that is for northern ponds that are ice covered and clear or not snow covered and that is to leave them alone you have plenty of DO and a nice warm pond bottom. If you have a mature pond and are on a muck reduction program (1-3 turns per day) you may want to open an ice covered SNOW covered pond once a month just long enough to refreeze an area of clear.(This is strictly a guess) This may only be a 2 ft hole with water that melts 10 ft of snow.If the air temp is below 30-35 F wait until it warms some. Perhaps the snow will melt off on its own and circulating the pond will not be needed.Keep in mind that while you are circulating the water on an ice covered pond that the warmer bottom is being pushed up to the 33F water below the ice and this is why if you are going to do this doing it off to an extreme side is less riskier. I only started my winter aerator in one pond once this winter, Mother nature did a good job. Too many Aeration Companies tout the benefits of winter aeration that know nothing about your pond and situation but have a system you cant do without.The expelling of "harmful gasses" is also more of a scare tactic I feel. .Cecil understands his ponds and what to do when. Follow some of the leads on this site and your fish will be healthier for it. I wish more folks would question the claims and benefits of aeration systems and especially winter aeration. This site should make us all more informed.That way we can have a few less of Daves(experiments) I also want to REPEAT the consideration on starting up your aeration in the spring. As Bill C has pointed out many times, winter is a very tough time on our fish. You may not want to just pick a day in the spring to flip the aeration back on but perhaps "ease" back into it.Many aeration systems today are very powerful and can turn a pond over several times per day. Sorry for the long post and repeating what has been stated many times and most know already. Ted