Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat One year old pond.....

New to the site, just recently found it, ton of information available, wish I had found it a year ago.

Long story short, I have a 150 foot by 70 foot pond in the middle of my property, deepest point is 25 feet in the spring, 20 feet in the dead of summer, the general shape is oval but the contractor used four distinct deeper areas with some really nice edges between them,the bottom is clay, not really sure about the amount of water gallons wise, but, I have been told it should be good for my plans, which are to basically have a blue gill and large mouth bass fishery.

I did not stock any fish last year,I had hoped by letting it settle it would be better in the long run, this spring I had lots of tadpoles, I mean lots, so I decided to thin out another pond near me, it has beautiful gills in it, we transfered about 75 to 100 to mine, as of last week, the beds were everywhere, but, after reading everything this past week here, I think I may have jumped the gun, is it possible, that they may be able to make the winter without all of the vegetation for oxygen?

BTW, I am in middle Michigan, and I truly appreciate your help........

Welcome to Pond Boss Cuda. One of the experts will be along shortly to answer your questions so hang on till then.

Welcome,

I don't foresee any problems. I've encountered this scenario many times, and you'll have vegetation in the form of single celled algae almost immediately after the pond is filled.

I've never seen a problem because the macrophytic or rooted vegetation needed an extra year to mature.

In the winter, in Michigan, your water will hold maximum amount of oxygen because of it's temperature, and the fish will need minimum amounts of oxygen because of their slow winter metabolism.

Also, you don't have a lot of organisms needing oxygen, because the overall biomass of fish is less because you just stocked, so I doubt very much if you'll have problems.

I'll go out on a limb and predict that your fish will have more oxygen in the winter than if you'd have left them in the original pond.

Are you planning on aerating?

36 minutes after his post he got an expert opinion. Is this forum great or what!

Thanks guys.

Yep, Jeff, this is pretty cool, as I sad, wish I had found it sooner.

Bruce,

Thank you for your time, I appreciate your help.
I was thinking similar to you early on, but, after many days of non stop reading about aeration and stocking capacities, I thought my mind had begun to slip a bit.

As for the aeration, this pond is in the middle of my 40, not a single power source around for about 1/2 mile, would it be beneficial long term?
Alos, how would one do this while incorporating it into wildlife management goal? The pond was actualy built with the fishing in mind, but, the overall ideas involve a btter habitat for all the critters, my deer herd has gotten pretty good use out of it this past year, and the ducks that I had there this past fall where many...

One other thing while I have your attention, I have seen lots here about creating cover, I really had not thought about pvc as structure, but seems like a pretty cool idea, since reading from this site, I have changed my ideas about the edge and the cover aspect, I think a variety of both tress and pvc with shoreline rock work would work well long term, but since I am not really sure what size this pond would be considered, I really have no tools to gauge how much of what to use........

Thanks again..

Do you like waterfowl? There are some of us "northerners" who use winter aeration to improve conditions for ducks. I greatly respect people who manage without electricity, but you could circulate your pond in the winter and get a three-fold benefit.

1. More oxygen for fish.
2. More ducks (If, of course, you like ducks)
3. Deer and other wildlife can water more effectively.

Again, you very well may not need aeration to support a long term fishery, but it does have it's benefits.

Unfortunately, you may need to go through a winter or two before you find out how well your pond and fish survive ice cover.

Yes, I like the ducks, the woodys are my favorite.

I see you points about the aeration, how would I go about this, windmill possibly? Again, as you can tell, I am pretty new to this stuff, I have had many years of aquarium fish, fresh and saltwater, I thought I had a pretty good understanding of some of this, but as mentioned, I doubting myself a bit.

One last thing for now, I added some flatheads from the local baitshop prior to the gills, but I am sure not nearly enough, with 100 large gills in there now, would it be wise to add more if I can find them locally? The bait store idea gets expensive and I hve new worries about adding anything due to the new viral disease warnings that have been listed up here as of late.....

Do you mean "fathead minnows"?

Flatheads are quite a different animal.

Yes, sorry, got about a 10 things running through my mind, just happy to be able to talk to you.....

Fatheads won't be the bluegill's primary forage anyway. Typically the availability of forage fish won't be a limiting factor in your bluegills growth. Many biologists feel that fatheads will compete with your bluegill for available invertebrates. So I wouldn't add any more for now.

Talking about types of aeration, such as windmills is not my area of expertise, but I believe that in general, windmills work when you least need them. Most good aeration systems require electricity.

Thank you sir, it has been a pleasure......

Howdy, Cuda.

I have a windmill aerator and I love it - runs for free, aesthetically terrific, made up to look like a P-47 (well not really, but I can dream, can't I?).

However, for serious, long-term pond management while pushing any one of several envelopes, the ability to aerate on demand that electricity gives is an enormous advantage. I have 170 yards of MY 1/2 half mile left to bury the electric service to the pond (it's taken 20 years, but the pond wasn't there for the first 14), and the wire goes in later this year.

Electrical aeration (added to my beloved windmill) is in my future. Being able to have lights, heat, refridgeration, etc. at the pond will be nice, too.

Howdy to you sir,

I will be diligently reading and reading to help with my inexperience, and I am sure in time, electricity may be an option, at that point aeration if necessary will be a reality.My main goal is to be able to stop mid day fly rod in hand and have a little fishing fun on my own place, if that means catching some really nice gills or a few lmb's than that would be fine.

One thing I will need to find out for sure is exactly how to figure out if I can add more of the gills fromm the other pond without creating havoc, the gills are just beauties, 1 to 1 1/2 +'s , with all the beds I have this year so far, I am just waiting to see what the near future will bring for hatching success.