I have a pond in lower Michigan which is about 110 x 70 ft so by this forum's standard, small. We bought the home a year ago and I have been reading a lot sbout pond management. There is no form of aeration or pump nor is there any sign there ever was. Previous owner says depth is 12ft when very full so I think 8-9 is a good number. There are plenty of LMB and BG and a couple small CC were added last spring. Also added fathead feeders in spring and fall.
My worry is that without adding oxygen the pond is a ticking time bomb for a fish kill. I have resd up on stratification and it concerns me. Everyone who comes over comments about the large number of fish we have. After researching I feel this perception is helped greatly by the fact that they are stsying up in the oxygen-rich water. The deep middle of the pond appearx to be a "dead zone" when the family fishes the pond.
Is the only true way of clarifying the water and ensuring the heslth of its inhabitants the addition of an aeration system? From my understanding simply moving water with a surface feature will not change things a great deal?
I added 8 small LMB last spring because as far as I could tell there were only a few present. I estimate there are 12-15 LMB and hundreds of BG. Is this pushing the capacity?
In year one (for me - pond is about 15 years old) I did not add beneficial bacteria for suspended junk and bottom muck but plan on it this spring when water temps are appropriate. The pond is mostly unshaded so I was using dye in year one also.
Welcome from another Michigan pond owner. What general vicinity in Michigan are you? Yupper or Troll? Near Lake Mi?
A picture is really helpful to get a feel for what you are describing.
I'm not an aeration expert. My pond is also small, probably as deep as yours, slightly longer and wider but not much. With my depth, I probably don't stratify the cold from the warm water much, but I figure the aeration at least stirs up the water column, helps with oxygen mixing and maybe will help with keeping down muck.
What is your bottom made of? What about your sides, shallow to deep gradual or sudden or not sure?
Are you in the open or in the woods where you have lots of leaves falling in every fall?
Is your goal to catch mostly bluegill or bass or not so fussy?
Aeration can be done on a budget, but with a small pond, you are going to make sure you have lots of 'bubbles' so a good quality membrane on your diffuser is important.
I am in SE MI . The pond is in my backyard about 125 feet from the house. Not sure of the entire bottom but where I've walked it seems like it was just excavated when the house was built in the 90s with no other materials brought in. It gets deep fairly quickly. It seems like a big bowl.
The BG range of course from tiny up to 8-9 (more rare). Biggest bass caught was 19 inches (using a BG).
The pond is surrounded on one half by brush (starting after 15ft of grass) with pines at one end and other trees at opposite end. One end gets a moderate amount of leaves. I rake out as much as I can. It lost its last ice today so spring raking is soon! The fish are likely ecstatic that the weekend hockey games are over.
I had the BG very well trained on pellets last year. It was mostly for entertainment. The bass would line up I think mostly waiting for BG ambush.
My goal is to have the pond look nice (appease the wife) and continue to be fun to fish. Not fussy about monster sized fish per se. They are eating very well (fat bass thanks to crazy tadpole and frog numbers along with good BG amount.
Thank you for taking the time to read and respond! I will try to figure out how to add a pic!
Is it true that you basically cannot put too many FHM in? I have easy access to a fish farm so last year a couple times I put 4 pounds in there. From what I have seen and read the LMB can eat a ton of those things in one day. It seems as though perhaps I should not have added e8 more bass last year, because going forward I may have a ton of 10 to 12 inch fish. I guess on the plus side, more fish to catch rather than a couple huge ones that get hook shy. About 75 yards from my pond the neighbors have a two or 3 acre pond, which my pond was originally stocked from by fishing I am told. So I suppose it's possible my big, 16 or more inch bass which there are a couple of, didn't simply grow that big in my pond.
Last spring the pond was quite a bit larger due to record snowfall and a lot of spring rain. Here in SE Michigan we had very average snowfall, a fairly dry fall and then extremely dry spring so far. The pond is more unsightly when it is lower because there is basically a ring of mud around the water. Large rocks may be a good solution there.
Looking forward to year two because there may be more possibilities, especially in the budget compared to year one.
I would not call myself overly handy and also I am visually impaired so for an aeration system for a pond my size, which products are the most basic and easy to install and maintain?
VAsteras Your pond looks great! Very much like mine in depth and size. If your water level is down this spring after our average winter and dry spring then you must have some ground water exposure at the base of your pond. You say your level fluctuates up with heavy rain and snow but then how quickly does it return to baseline? If it is following ground water then the fluctuations are more noticeable. My pond clearly does this fluctuation.
I've watched my pond for only 3 springs now and this spring I'm about 4-5 feet down from my usual spring levels and I have lots of exposed bank. I'm sure a couple of good rains and I'll be back up, but I'm also seeing the exposed mud and wanting to rake out the leaves and FA mats that settled to the bottom last fall. Now would be the time to put in stone but for me with big swings in where the water line is I'm hesitant to pick a spot to put in large rocks or they may be exposed and make the shore hard to mow or kids to play around during summer low 'tide'. I thought about a rim of pea gravel but others on the forum suggest it will cover itself up with debris, leaves and mud very quickly without a permeable barrier like landscape cloth under it.
How to balance LMB and Bluegill is beyond my expertise, but the threads here about recording your catch and learning from the weight and length ratios over time may be your answer.
I don't think you can have too many minnows. But it can be expensive too. I have forage only at this point so am just watching how many minnows I can get just by successive spawns.
I'm not sure about aeration. It can be pricey and smaller ponds to not stratify temperature from top to bottom as much as deeper ponds. However aeration is wonderful for moving water, recirculating, helping control muck, help break down leaves etc. Aeration experts on this site can make their recommendation.
Like you I'm not incredibly handy so I purchased a vertex system from Sue (monitors this forum) She helped me with sizing and tubing etc. I have mine on a 'water heater' timer switch inside the house so I can time it for daytime use (in fall when I want to keep day time sun warmth circulating in the pond to try to keep the tilapia going a little longer) and nighttime use in the summer when I try to keep the pond from getting too hot.
All neat things to think about. I'm happy to hear that your pond got heavy use for skating this year like ours did. We just couldn't believe how the size of the pond shrunk so much in the last month due to falling water levels. The ground water table must have really went down this winter compared to other winters. I'm not sure why as we had record Feb cold and adequate snow cover to prevent evaporation/surface loss of water.
Your budget priority may be for sprucing up the edges, putting in some natural or plastic structure. But for stocking, you may experiment with other forage base ideas, maybe crayfish?
If you could remove the LMB you could try to switch over to SMB as a apex predator and experiment with some pellet trained perch?
Since we moved in a year ago I am trying to determine What my water level will be. Obviously the terrain should be s good indicator.
It is my belief that last year was at overflow levels given how much grass was underwater. Hoping for more rain like today with frozen ground as a higher pct of the rain will run in. The whole back property grades toward the pond. I am careful about what products I put on the lawn. Feel like I would end up fertilizing pond weeds.
I may in fact focus on asthetics this year. The pond is a prominent feature visible out our windows. I thinking the same about rocks and limiting water access. The kids love catching frogs. I was thinking perhaps rocks on the back side (visible from the house). We do like the sound of water so something on the surface would be a two birds with one stone scenario, look and sound nice and move some water.
The water table here is fairly high I imagine as we are surrounded by lakes and such here in the Oakland/Gennessee border area. So hoping it can only go so low.
Now is probably the time to rske with levels low. My guess is I will discover a hockey puck or two!
There is lively discussion on the forum about surface aeration vs bottom aeration. There is a time and place for both. I note that my bottom aerator is probably right at the cutoff for its best effect due to most of the summer water levels being about the 6' mark. When water is 6' or less, I get less bubbles, less plume and less motion of water. When spring rains come and it is 9' I get a wonderful 'boil' at the top. For my shallow pond it may have been better to have 2 diffusers, spaced say 1/3 and 2/3 down the length of the pond.
however as George1 said in his post today, in shallow ponds there is some clear benefit to mixing the top with some type of top apparatus.
The fountains would give aesthetics and noise and help a bit on the top. It might be all you need if depth stays around 6-8' and if you keep the leaves out of the pond.
Do people here find that products on the market for muck control really work? They can be expensive so I am curious to hear what type of results people have had. I seem to have a healthy ecosystem so any proactive measures I can take I will, especially if it cuts down on chemical usage for weeds/algae.
VERY hard to prove if they work. Search on google using the word muck and pondboss and you will find the forums. Some in Michigan have had good success. Many products have 'beneficial bacteria' but they won't tell you what it is they put in there. Some advertise for cooler water and one company just advertised a winter muck reducer with enzymes or bacteria that work in cold water (they really don't say why, how, when, how long, etc)
I imagine it is like putting bacteria in your septic tank monthly. Do you pump your tanks less with bacteria supplements or without? What is the control group? Septic pumpers tell us that some tanks have been in place years and years and never need pumping, others need it all the time. Is it the bacteria makeup of the stool? Diet of the homeowners?
if someone had 2 similar sized ponds and could do a control group and an actively treated group then you would know.
I know some local lakes with big time muck problems have tried chemicals but eventually installed big aeration systems.
Maybe you could aerate, find a way to stir up the bottom to help mix the bacteria through the 'compost pile' that is at the bottom and see just as good results?
I'm thinking of borrowing my brother's jet ski or get a small outboard and see if I can direct a water jet at the bottom of my pond this spring to stir up the leaves and the developing detritus layer to help in breaking it down.
The jet ski tied off to a tree or vehicle can do some serious power washing of the pond bottom
I sort of want to put a jet ski in my pond now just for the reactions from the neighbors!
I know it's not scientifically accurate to compare a pond to itself from the previous year but I may use a muck product just to see if the pond looks better thsn last year. This is my first experience with septic at this house as well and wondered if the bacteria I flush does a single thing.
Jet ski and boat motors are very good for regularly (2-4wks) stirring the shallow water sediments and it's very healthy for the pond sediments to receive this surface water wave shoreline mixing.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 03/25/1501:32 PM.
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