Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pond in Tucson, AZ?

Cecil
If just chlorine your right about aeration but most water around here has things in it that won't evaporate out as quick or at all


Pat W

Pre, I once, a lifetime ago, spent about 4 years enjoying the Phoenix area as a ward of Uncle Sam. I remember, even back then, a lot of laws regarding water usage. You might want to check on them to see if you can drill a well for other that home and lawn usage.

Thanks for the precaution Dave. I spoke to the Tucson department for that today over the phone, and my understanding was that a well can be drilled and used to irrigate land (crops, pond) as long as the area receiving non-household use is less than 1.99 square acres and you don't use more than 10 acre-feet of water from the well in a year. There's no additional red tape other than the simple notice needed for the well in the first place.

Just curious because I haven't been to AZ for anything over hunting since the 60's. In the areas out side of town there were a lot of government built canals for farming use. Are any of those close to you?

I had inlaws who lived outside of Buckeye. What passed for a river went through their land and they had water rights from the river. That river was generally about 6 inches deep and 8 ft wide. However, when heavy rains and snow melt from up North came, the river was 1/2 mile wide. They once lost a pretty good sized dozer that was never found and wound up somewhere under the sand.

So if you do the math on a 1/10 acre pond and assume 1 inch a day water loss, that's about 113 GPH. So your well would need at least that capacity. The big IF is whether 1 inch a day loss is a reasonable assumption for Tucson.

My thought is maybe you want to find out much water is going to realistically be available, a realistic water loss number and then work backwards through the equation to see how big a pond that can support.

I'm surprised there aren't any water restrictions out there for nonessential uses. Both well and municipal.

PR,
Maybe a call to one of your local swimming pool design/construction companies might provide useful info on evaportion rates, etc.

Seems like an opportunity for one of those natural pools.

I would think shade over the water would be a requirement to keep evaporation down and prevent roasting the fish. Shade could be accomplished through plantings, sun-screen covers, timber, etc. Also floating islands would reduce temperature swings of the water and lower evaporation as well as many other benefits to the pond/swimming area.

One problem is evaporation cooling can be quite significant in a dry climate. I am not sure if that make fish management difficult or not.

My guess is to be reasonable is to keep it 1/10 acre, it can be better managed in your climate.

Preponderous,

First, welcome to Pondboss.

For raising fish in a small Arizona pond, start with this thread: Mind-Blowing Fish from Pond Boss Member

And this one is old enough that the photos have been lost. But the text and comments will give you some ideas of what can be done in the desert. Spring time with a couple of bluegill.

Maybe one of the other oldtimers can find more links about what our old friend AaronM was doing in Phoenix. As I recall, there was a long article about Aaron's Phoenix fish raising in Pond Boss Magazine a few years back. I think it was probably written by Bruce Condello and/or Bob Lusk. As I recall it had a lot of info about how he did it, and it had lots of pictures from Aaron's back yard and his fish. If we can find the issue, it would be worth your effort to get a copy of that magzine from the Pond Boss office.

Regards,
Ken

I think that is a GREAT idea! Especially for the evaporation rates.

ARIZONA MONTHLY AVERAGE PAN EVAPORATION (INCHES)

| PERIOD OF RECORD |

JAN FEB MAR APR MAY JUN JUL AUG SEP OCT NOV DEC

TUCSON UNIV OF ARIZONA | 1894-2005 |
3.25 4.57 6.95 9.88 12.87 14.91 13.17 11.65 10.35 7.81 4.73 3.37
ANNUAL 103.51

TUCSON U OF ARIZ # 1 | 1982-2005 |
3.94 4.68 7.53 10.57 14.14 16.51 14.61 12.17 10.71 8.05 4.93 3.23
ANNUAL
111.07

from http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/htmlfiles/westevap.final.html

Excellent! Based on that data you biggest evaportion occurs in June at around 1/2 inch per day so I would size for that with a little padding, assuming pan evaporation and BOW evaporation rates are comparable. I don't know if they are or are not. Factors like wind make a difference? Do you guys even have much wind?

BOW evap is usually more than pan evap unless it's a rubber lined pond.

"A more technical definition for desert is an area where potential evapotranspiration (the potential combined evaporation from plants and soil) is much greater than precipitation (rain, etc.). Potential evapotranspiration (PET) can be estimated by measuring how much water evaporates from a wide pan and multiplying by 60%. A pan in Tucson will evaporate 100" of water, yet Tucson only receives 12" of rain on average (see Tucson climate statistics)! Thus Tucson's PET would be 60". Scientists use an aridity index (PET/Precipitation) to compare the aridity of different places. Tucson's aridity index is 5 (60"/12"), Yuma's is 30, and other deserts may reach 600! Aridity indices above about 3 are sufficient to produce deserts."

from http://wc.pima.edu/Bfiero/tucsonecology/climate/climate_home.htm

Looks like you are doing that all important "homework" my friend. So based on the info you have so far, what are your thoughts?

Well, first we have to get the land, with the consideration that we do want to put a pond on there (however modest) and that it seems possible still.

Right now we are working with an agent and looking over a 5 acre parcel in Marana outside of Tucson. Everything looks good so far, it's not in a flood zone or wash area (so the pond won't get blown out), the zoning is right, no deed restrictions preventing us from doing what we want on it, etc. It's a little farther from town than I wanted (about 35-40 minutes instead of a half hour - those pesky 10 minutes DO make a difference) but that aside it looks like a good candidate to support our goals and the price is right. Waiting on some more paperwork and due diligence, then closing, hopefully.

This property is raw land, so the first thing to do will be to setup shop and see how the land works. Once we get a good sense of our land, it will be time to plan the location of the well and get it drilled. Then comes the pond, garden, chicken coop, etc. Lots of planning, lots of steps, lots of work to do. I like stuff like this. Looking forward to it!

I once heard that when you live in the country you don't have to go anywhere. You're already there.