Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Low water

Hi guys, once again I'm looking for advice. I have a 4 year old very small pond, 1/4 acre. I have an aerator, but no well. I have catfish and HBG in it, a small number of LMB, and some darn bullhead snuck in also. North Texas heat and no rain has taken me down to ~2-3' of water. I lost a 3# LMB, 10 4#Catfish, and 36 HBG this week and I've mentally put myself into a total kill. It sucks to put fish in at 2", feed them for 3 years, and then net them out dead at 2'. That said, I've always thought that I can't put "city water" out of my tap into it or the chlorine and other chemicals will immediately kill them. A neighbor said that if I can set up a holding container and let the city water get exposed to the sunlight, the chemicals will evaporate off and I can then add it to my pond. I don't have a lot of options....no access to a well and triple temps in the foreseeable future. I've stopped feeding and I'm running the aerator full time. thx for any advice......

I’m also going to lose one. I see no rain but only excessive heat in the foreseeable future.

I'm guessing everyone will tell you not to add tap water straight from the hose...but as long as you're not adding more than about 10% of the water volume, you shouldn't experience a fish kill. I currently have a small 1' kiddie swimming pool on my back patio filled with water plants I'm waiting to plant in my pond...I've been topping off the water daily with the 107 degree temps here and the plants look great...didn't think about the tap water issue until I read this post.

Sorry to hear about your bad luck too Dave...hang in there.

OK, thanks for that suggestion. We're also on an aerobic septic system, the people who put them in always say that after the three tank treatment, you could drink that water, but I've never seen the salesman take a cup out with him. Anyway, that might be an experiment also, it would certain be cheaper to not pay for the water twice.

I have used "city water" in my pond "fish tanks" with no obvious ill effects.

Assuming normal chlorination levels, much of the chlorine should have evaporated out of the city water within the first 24 hours of holding it in a container or pit open to atmosphere and sunlight. If you could leave it 4-5 days, then essentially 100% of the chlorine would be gone from the water.

Also, if you could aerate the water in the container to continually move the bottom water up to the atmosphere interface, then the chlorine would be cleared much more rapidly.

Sorry to hear about your fish!

P.S. Make sure you can determine how much they are going to charge you for that "city water".

Many systems have gone to tiered pricing schemes. Normal volumes of water for household usage are very cheap. However, if you use 10 times that amount of water, your bill might go up 30x.

If you used a 1,000 times your normal amount, it might be WAY more expensive than 1,000 times your normal monthly water bill.

Great point FishinRod, I think ~10,000 gallons was $100, but I need to look back further and see if this was summer or winter usage. Luckily, I have two kids now off to college, so my overall usage should go down. Since I'm in somewhat of a crisis mode now, I ran water directly into the pond for 4 hours. Probably about 1000 gallons from my timed 5 gallon bucket timed test. It raised the water line ~1-1.5", so I'm probably not adding more than 1%. So if I can do this now to stop the bleeding and get through triage, I think I can find a 1000 or 2000 gallon tank to put near the pond to use in the future as a containment to store before releasing to the pond in case I need to do this again. During triage, if I can offset evaporation and maintain, I might be able to save the rest of them. Thx again for the suggestions and comments.

I'd imagine city water would be preferable to no water.

If my math is right,
1/4 acre pond should take approximately 6,800 gallons to fill 1 inch
So at your rate you would have to fill it for 27 hours to gain an inch assuming no evaporation or seepage

I agree with your math. At full capacity, I'm at ~.2 acres and currently I'm down to ~1/3 of that, so ~2500-3000 square feet, so ~1500-1800 gallons to get 1". Last year it got down below this and I didn't lose any fish, but this year the water temp is probably 3-5 degrees higher and the fish are all one year bigger. Assuming no major fish kill tonight when I get home, I'll try the 1" every other day and see if we can get through it. Thanks everyone for the comments. Wish I had a bigger pond like ya'all!

I had the same low water, fish starting to stress problem about 6 years ago. In crisis mode, I set up a 2 inch trash pump to draw surface water and blow it out over the surface. That saved almost all my fish,

Then, the following winter, otters came in and killed almost everything. They ate a few, but mostly took one bite, and killed.

I cannot win on ponds for losing. I hope your luck is better.

So far, I’ve lost 2 small ponds and the spring fed creek has quit running. Super high temps and no clouds in the forecast. I’ll lose a 1/4 acre one within a couple of weeks. Average high temps are 105+.

I’ve heard that droughts are broken by a flood. Bring it on.

Maybe you should start building an ark out at your property?

Update - No dead fish last night. So I added ~1200 gallons and ran the diffuser full time. ~4PM the diffuser (Blue Diamond ET80) quit, it was super hot. I took it off and put it under a fan for an hour, it started back up. Spoke to Blue Diamond and as I suspected, they have a thermal cut off at 140F. ( got more info from them if anyone is interested, they aren't happy with my diffuser choice either, but they were very professional and helpful) So, I'm not running the diffuser from 11am till 5pm to avoid the hottest part and we'll keep our fingers crossed. I plan on adding ~1" a day to maintain the current level. Fingers crossed.

Dave Davidson, sorry to hear that. This heat is brutal, but the longevity of it isn't giving anything a break. I have two other equipment failures and yup, both on the west side of the house. I'm hearing 10 more days of it, then maybe a break. Thanks folks.

I have a 2 acre pond behind my house. I feed it with my well water at around 30 gallons per minute - it is amazing how much evaporates each day -

An Update - Thanks to all of you for your comments. I thought I'd post a follow up in case it's useful for others down the road. So I'll do a quick recap so folks don't have to read each post. North Texas, micro-pond, 1/4 acre, HBG, LMB, CC, severe drought with 105F days and found ~50 floaters mid August. So without a lot of options, I was able to run a 1/2" irrigation line ~500' from an outside garden hose. I ran it 1-2 hours per day for 2 months. It looks like the city water cost was ~$500. I was maintaining the depth at 2.5'. I also stopped feeding and turned the bubbler on except for the heat of the day (like 10am-5pm). This week we got 1" on ~Monday, 3" on Wednesday, and then another 2". With the first 3-4" of rain, the pond came up 4' and continued to rise to 8.5-9' now. I started feeding again last night and they were HUNGRY! So I've seen HBG and CC so far, but don't expect to see any LMB. I'm hoping to fatten them up now. Thanks again to everyone for the posts.