Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Buying a Pond & Have Questions - Please Help!!!

I am looking to make an offer on a piece of property that has a 3 acre pond that has been there for 50+ years. It is spring fed, but has some issues....

- Algae Issues: I have included 2 photos below where you can see the algae issue. The first picture shows the whole lake and how the entire surface is not covered. The 2nd photo shows a tight shot of the algae in the shallow corner. There is no aeration. The top layer algae does not cover the entire pond on a windy day, but it does on a calm day. Is this just cause for concern & how would I be able to fix this problem?

- Water Depth: I was able to take a paddle boat out on the pond and realized that the pond is only 4 to 5 feet deep. Not only in the shallow end, but also down by where the dam is. Could this be part of the reason for all the algae? Can large mouth bass grow big in a pond this shallow? what type of cost would I be looking at if I drained the pond and had it dug out deeper?

I know this is a lot to ask, but since the pond issues are having an effect on whether I purchase this property, I would appreciate as many responses as I can get :-)

Thanks,
Drue

Hi Drue welcome to Pond Boss. I'm sure the experts will be along shortly to answer your questions. You did the right thing by coming here and asking questions first - before you make an offer.

Drue, 4-5 ft at the deepest even with a slight slope of 4 or 5 to 1 ratio means you have some water that is even shallower. I would do a muck depth check and see what it takes to get to hard bottom.This would at least tell you how deep it was originally and that it held water at that depth. I would contact a local excavator and see what it would cost to cut the dam, drain and remove the muck. If you have a place on the property to dump the muck it should cost somewhat less. With the maturity of this pond and the depth and probable nutrient load I think you will battle FA and other assorted plants as it currently is. Aeration in this pond may only at best take a very bad algae problem and make it just a "bad" algae problem if the nutrient level is as I would expect.50 plus years means this pond has a great head start on filling itself in and creating a very high fertility level for FA and bottom rooted plants,Even though it is spring fed see what else makes up the watershed.Keep us posted> Good Luck Ted

You are probably going get a barrage of questions from the experts so be prepared. Here are a likely few:

1. What are your goals for the pond? (type of fish that you desire, etc).

2. Does the pond get run off from surrounding areas?

3. If yes what is on the surrounding properties (example is it natural land or a pig farm)?

4. What is currently in the pond? (fish and vegetation)

The good news is that algae can be treated by chemicals.

A 50 year old pond (my pond is over 60 years old) can be a minus in that it could have years and years of sediment (muck) on the bottom. But I think the plus side is that the pond is still alive and kicking.

Spring can be a plus or a minus. Mine pond is also spring fed, it's what probably keep my unmaintained pond alive so long. The down side is that a spring can reverse and suck a pond dry.

Your place is a lot like mine (other than depth, I'm at 17 feet in the deep end).

Stayed tuned you will get much better responses but than my rambling thoughts. We have the best of the best in ponding here at PB and it's all free!

edit note: See what I mean - one of the experts has already weighted in!

Thanks for the feedback - I look forward to getting more. Here's a reply to some of the questions...

1. What are your goals for the pond? (type of fish that you desire, etc).
Answer: A nice private fishing pond with large mouth bass and panfish (brim, bluegill, etc). The current owners told us they caught a 10 pound large mouth bass out of the pond a few years ago. They also told us that the pond is currently 3 feet low due to us having a very dry summer, with the creek that also feeds the pond being virtually dry right now.

2. Does the pond get run off from surrounding areas?
Answer: Half of the pond is surrounded by 8 acres of pasture where 2 horses roam and have access to one small corner of the pond. The other half of the pond has the house I'd be buying, along with 2 other houses that have their back yards end about 50 feet from the waterfront. any run off would be from backyards and would be basic rain water run off.

3. If yes what is on the surrounding properties (example is it natural land or a pig farm)?
Answer: Explained above.

4. What is currently in the pond? (fish and vegetation)
Answer: I've been told large mouth bass, brim, panfish, bluegill, etc. - They also put in 10 sterile grass carp years ago. We have seen these floating at the top and they are giant. I don't expect them to live many more years. Not much vegetation that we can see. There is the surface algae, but that keeps us from being able to see down into the water.

The bottom is very mucky. When I was doing my depth test out in the paddle boat I had a 5 pound weight on the end of a rope and everytime i picked up the weight from the bottom there was plenty of muck on the weight. There was also visible muck/dirt disturbance below the surface of the water that I could see everytime I pulled the weight from the bottom. I did a small stick test in the pond and it seemed to have 4 to 6 inches of muck before it hit a hard surface.

With 8 acres of pasture space I would have plenty of room to dump the muck if i chose to drain the pond, so I guess that would be a positive. I just have no clue what it would cost to have something like that done.

Thanks for all feedback and insight,
Drue

Drue, its probably apples to oranges here, but it cost me ~20k to renovate a 1 acre pond here in CA. The cost for equipment and contractors is wildy variable across the country. it is very expensive here, and probably less in SC. I would expect a 3-acre renovation to take at least 3 weeks.

the best thing you could do is educate yerself in pond construction (through literary material available thru pondboss......and no, nobody here recieves kickbacks for plugging PB books).

after some self-education you could then manage the renovation and direct yer contractor efficiently which would save you some money over just hiring it out blind and opening yerself up to making mistakes or being overcharged. you could also hire a pond consultant if yer budget allows it.

some mistakes might include breaching the clay layer that keeps water in yer pond or not rebuilding the broken dam properly. some value added items you might get from some self-education may inlude upgrades to spillway or drain pipe performance, upgrades on hard structure for fish, re-sloped banks to inhibit weed growth.....etc....

good luck.

bump

To dig the pond out you're looking at Track Hoe time mostly (Dozers don't do a great job renovating and you have to haul it off (even if it is just to a nearby pasture).

I'm gonna try to help you get your bearings here....let me start by saying that all projects are very fact specific and these SWAG numbers I throw out could be way off...All that said, I would not embark on renovating a true 3 acre pond without planning to spend $30-$50K (I say "true" because people often miss on the high side when guessing surface acreage - esp if they are a seller or real estate agent).

You're gonna need to find a contractor you can trust to give you an accurate count of hours on their equipment or else you're in a spot to get hosed with a renovation project because it is not a slam dunk like building a dam where you can see if their are playing games with the machine hours.

I am down in Columbia...I'm happy to tell you going rates for track hoe time, dozers, dump trucks etc...just private message me.

It's a real pretty pond. If it's three feet low, then your depth will be fine when it fills up again. They said they cought a big fish in it already, so it sounds like it's already in ideal condition for fishing.

I'd be very, very careful about making any changes to it. You very well might have the perfect fishing hole already. Draining it and digging it up sounds like a good way to spend tens of thousands of dollars just to set you back ten years in what the pond is already producing.

I wouldn't even think about having any dirt work done to it. If you absolutely feel that sometime down the road you need more depth, then look into building up the dam. Draining and cleaning up the silt is very time consuming and EXTREMLY expensive. That wet silt takes a year to dry and even then, it's still gonna have pockets of muck that will swollow a tractor.

Killing the alge might also kill off a very good source of nutrients for your feeder fish. It's ugly, but some alge is very good to have.

I think you should consider a very mild and controled attack on lowering the amount of alge to a point you can live with it and then start fishing it to see what's in there.

Don't do anything else for at least a few years.

You really need to know for sure what you have there and what you might be destroying if you start working on it.

Contrats and good luck,
Eddie