Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam The Baird Method

I'd like to propose something called the "Baird Method". It's a result of my continuing obsession with Cecil's giant trout and perch that he's raised. Of course, Cecil, if you want to edit or rewrite anything that I've written please let me know.

Here's my definition, both long form and short form.

Long form definition: The Baird Method of raising big fish involves a combination of well water, vegetation management, high flow through and general aquaculture concepts to raise the biggest fish possible.

Short form definition: Smaller pond = Bigger fish

The more I've studied what Cecil Baird does, the more I've come to realize that if you're raising fish on 20 gpm of well water, you can manage water quality much more effectively in a smaller pond than a bigger pond. The more time that a drop of water spends in a pond, the more time it has to lose quality, i.e. gain ammonia, or single celled algae. Another way to put this is to think about how many fish can be raised in a hatchery raceway. The number of fish per gallon of water is stupendous compared to, say, a one acre pond. Cecil's "ponds" are essentially well managed raceways.

I've found that I can easily raise and grow 100 pounds of fish in a 400 gallon tank if I flow through 1.5 gpm. That same 1.5 gpm flowed into a 250,000 gallon pond will only support about 250 pounds of fish. I believe that the secret is the turnover or flowthrough rate. High turnover means that the water essentially doesn't have enough time to become fouled.

Cecil's ponds are big enough to fish and have fun at, but small enough that they resemble giant raceways. This is evidenced by the fact that Cecil can support a year-round trout fishery in his climate.

Anyway, here is my idea.

I'd like to take my Dad's pond, which I budget 10-15 gpm in the summer, and use that water to cycle through a micro-pond that is only about 216 square feet, and an average of 3.5 feet deep. That's 756 cubic feet, right? And about 5,600 gallons? I think this micro-pond can be used to raise easily 100-150 pounds of fish. It can also be readily cleaned, emptied, or filled at a whim. I would also like to place several of the Floating Island International islands in it for cover, and waste management.

Now comes this initial question to all of you pondmeisters.

My Dad and I measured out the intended dimensions of the pond this morning and here are the pictures.





My Dad is standing inside the "dam" if you will.

The question is this. What is the best way to tie in the pond liner to the edges of the embankment? My initial idea is to create a flat "edge" all the way around the pond that I can place what are commonly referred to as pavers to hold the liner down, then bury the liner just outside of the stones.

Is there a more elegant way to do this? I just really want it to look as good as possible.

I think that this sort of project might have some value to lots of other pondmeisters who have a well, or even a heat pump discharge near their pond. It could serve as a holding area for bait, or it could be used for a mini fishing experience for kids, or you could raise big brown trout. Almost anything is possible.

Bruce, I get 5657 gallons of water in 216 sq.ft. 3.5 ft deep.

Refreshing at 10 gpm gives 14,400 gallons per day (flush it 2.54 times a day); 15 gpm gives 21,600 gallons per day (flush it 3.82 times a day).

Congratulations, you have invented the outdoor PBR. (Only fitting, since you first invented the indoor PBR).

With those flush rates, I think you can take everything you've learned inside the Morton building and apply it on a larger scale - fish carrying capacity should be quite similar.

You might want to think about possible sunscreens for shade, maybe even to cut maximum insolation in the hottest months, depending on what kind of fish you stock. Maybe a treated wooden framework that you could tie tarps up on when needed.

P.S. Somebody check my math - engineers can be off by a factor of ten and we still don't call it wrong.

I actually have enough floating islands to cover over half of the surface area of the pond. That would do the trick, right? That brings me to another question, in addition to the liner question posed above. If I make the slopes steep enough, will I have to worry about herons? And also, will great blue herons feed off of a floating island? That could be a potential problem. I'd hate to have to buy an individual MJ for each island.

what about a narrow trench around the perimeter?...bring the liner up and over (out of pond), and fold edges back down into perimeter trench....backfill, and place decorative stones wherever.

i've seen herons and egrets stand in water up to their bodies (~1.5-2') and plunge at fish in deeper water.

If you are worried about GBH - fence off the area around and over the pond.

Some floating islands would give shade without reducing most solar heating. Probably best unless you go with cold water species.

This thread certainly opens up some ideas I hadn't thought about.

I have several "holes" that I dug to keep debris and leaves out of my pond. Here is an ice covered hole that is about 10 x 25 feet. It sounds a lot like the one that Bruce is contemplating. The hole is about 6.5 feet deep, although it probably now has at least 18-24 inches of oak leaves on the bottom.



In the photo above, you can see my main pond to the right. This little hole sits about 150 feet from the main pond, and it's top level is probably about seven to nine feet above the main pond top level.

I've dug two more smaller holes between this hole and my main pond. This is the hole I dug just where this particular water vein enters my main pond through about a 10-inch by 15-foot long pipe.







It is about a 3-foot deep hole that gathered at least 12 inches of leaves last fall and over the winter. I figure I'll dig out the leaves during the dry time in August or September.

I never got to finish the first hole because it started raining. It filled with water shortly after I started digging. The edges are much steeper than I planned. Three sides are almost 1:1. I hope to expand it once it starts to dry out. As small as it is, I had planned to core the dam, but . . .

I dug the hole late last March with the front-end loader and backhoe on my tiny tractor. Even during the driest parts of last summer's drought, it had at least 3 feet of water.

It is heavily shaded by trees. I would guess that it won't get a lot of sunshine induced oxygen during the summer. So, I hadn't really thought much about trying to keep anything in it except maybe some fatheads or rosy reds.

I don't easily have a way to get well water to this little hole. But, I'm now thinking I could use something like a small windmill to pump several GPM of water uphill from my main pond to this hole.

I may just try pumping this spring and summer. I'd probably try it with about 25 8-10 inch catfish. If that works, I may try single-sexed BG during the summer after next.

Thanks for the ideas. Let's try to keep this idea alive.

Ken

I'm going to have the sides slope almost immediately to the maximum depth of 4.5 feet. Do you think a GBH would consider hunting from atop a floating island? How about totally from shore? It seems to me that IIRC GBH like to be at least a little bit in the water.

Cat, I think you're really on to something. If you pump from the main pond I've always heard that the best quality water comes from the middle third of the water column. Too far down to have tons of algae, and too far up to have tons of organic waste. Take my word for it--ponds like this can be fish producing machines if you can bring in all fresh water a couple of times each day. It also seems like your little ponds are about the right size.

Judging from the calling cards they leave, GBH are totalry in to standing on my upside-down canoe, scoping out seafood. They would at least use the islands for observation posts.

Bruce,

I've closely watched the GBHs that visit my pond. They always seem to land on the shore:


and, then they wade near the shore before they steal my fish:


I can't prove a double negative. But, based on posts by Cecil, late last summer I strung 50 lb. test mono filament line on tent stakes about six inches high around the shallow areas of my pond edges. After doing so, I never saw geese or GBHs on my pond. I don't know if it was coincidence or if it really worked. I plan to try it again this coming summer.

Ken

Is this what you're suggesting? Sorry about the cruddy drawing.

Heck yes you can't.

Bruce, Can you make the Outdoor PBR larger to result in 1 turnover a day? Increasing the size and reducing the flow rate should allow you to raise just about as many fish and maybe more fish. Is space the limiting factor for the design?. Hopefully Cecil can respond to provide turnover rate per day of his original trout pond adjacent to his house.

To keep herons off the islands you could pound short stakes around the perimeter of the islands then lace string or monofilment 10"-20" high around the stakes.

Bruce I think DIED means to bring the liner out of the pond and place it in a shallow trench that surrounds the shoreline of the pond. Backfill the trench with dirt and then if desired you could place pavers or stones on top of backfill to help hold backfill in place. This would be especially imortant if trench is shallow.

Space is a limiting factor, to a certain extent, but I do have the capability of adding a second similarly sized pond if this one works. That way I could put 8 gpm in each pond and be able to grow more fish. The reason I can't make the current one much bigger is because the width is confined by the width of the draw, and the length is confined by the downward slope towards my Dad's pond. If it's too long then I have to move literally tons more dirt to get the even perimeter.

Yes, hopefully Cecil jumps in here with some numbers on what he thinks is a good turnover rate.

Does anybody want to draw a cruddy picture for me so I can visualize this? Remember that whatever I do I need to be able to try and prevent dirt from washing into the pond during a rain event.

From your photos and vistiting the site last spring, I figured space was limited. Knowing you, I figured you would make it as big as practical.
Larger pond designs may be available to others with the same idea. The main things to figure out how much flow and turnover is needed for a certain poundage of fish. Cecil should be able to provide lots of info about this equation.

Go back to your drawing, under the 2 pavers closest to the water under each of thse pavers make a trench (dip in the dirt). Have liner go down into the trench. Fill trench with dirt. Outside edge of liner can be completely buried or come back out the trench and on top the ground. But with this method you do have bare dirt close the pond. From exposed dirt, you will get silt runoff into the pond especially on the up hill side of the pond. Can you make a shallow diversion ditch on the updhill side that directs runoff around the pond?.

To post your drawing did you, photograph it, then post the photo?

Yes, diversion ditch is a great idea. I'll incorporate that. I think I'm starting to get the picture.

There was a period of time last fall that I had a 10' diameter metal stock tank, that holds 1100 gallons, and it had 125 bluegill that totalled probably 50 pounds. The fish were actively feeding and growing for about a seven week period. This was very exciting for me. I kept feeding the living daylights out of those fish and the water stayed crystal clear. No aeration, just a 3 gpm sweeper nozzle. The only issue I had is that I grew lots of filamentous algae (ironically the only FA on my entire farm), but this was really easy to clean out by hand. That turnover rate was about 5 times daily. This is approximately the equivalent turnover as a 15 gpm nozzle in the new pond. If you extrapolate these numbers I would think that 150 pounds of fish would be easily achievable.

Yes, I drew it, took a digital photo and uploaded to photobucket. The whole process from beginning of drawing to image showing up on forum was less than four minutes.

If you make a drawing and email it to me I could pop it up on the thread.

What is the goal for this pond? What do you plan to grow in it and how big?

I'd like it to be an observation pond for some especially big bluegill, and to raise a few jalopy yellow perch since I think they would summer over really well. I have some 13 inchers in my big pond that I could easily move over.

Bruce,

Over the years, I've filtered the input to a number of ponds. Mostly, it has been multiple sets of holes in each major source of water to the pond.

The photo from above shows one of several holes above my pond:



In this case, I used a small water hole (5x5, about 2-foot deep) above a small rock wall. The water passes through the rock wall into a slightly larger pond, about 10x10, and 3-foot deep. This lower pond flows through another rock wall, a screen, and a culvert, before it empties into my main pond.

I've never tested the water in these ponds, but it is crystal clear as it moves to the next lowest level.

I make use of rock walls to trap debris throughout my watershed. I clean out debris from these holes during the summer dry months.

Ken

Cat, how can you make the water levels reliable? Are there periods of time that they are just dry?

Bruce,
D-ski's sister built a very elaborate, 2 level Koi/Goldfish pond in her backyard in surburbia Chicago. Believe it or not, GBH are a problem here, also. We're talking 75' wide city-type lots in a major suburb. The GBH have actually been spotted landing on house roofs.
Nancy built this stunning pond with a waterfall in her backyard. I've seen it; it's worthy of a magazine shoot. It's about 8' wide and 25' long in 2 separate pools. She was losing fish to the GBH. She wound up using fine black mesh (kinda like deer netting...maybe it was...?) that was about 3' tall and put in narrow rods to hold it up around the pond perimeter. She also started out with a cover of the same, but it became a PIMA, so she eliminated it. She concluded that the GBH was unable to make the pin-point landing, or was afraid. Instead, it would land in the yard and saunter to the buffet. She would occassionally come home to find the netting and poles kinda pushed over, but not collapsed. She lost no more fish.

Bruce,
My $.02 on how I would build this.
I would shape the tank out of dirt, with edges on the sides poking up like an old style bathtub, about a foot higher than water level.
I would shape a long flat inlet that comes into the tank about 8" below the sides.
I would shape a long flat discharge that leaves the tank at about 10" below the sides, this would be water level.
I would grade the inlet and outlet out from the tank whatever extra length one roll of liner would give me.
Then on the inlet and outlets I would put little berms about the size of concrete blocks on each side, but not as wide as the tank.
Unroll the roll of liner from one end to the other.
Put dirt or crushed rock on top of the liner outside of all the side berms. (on the outside of the bathtub).
Could be made to look like a mountain stream coming in and leaving with just some rock. My thinking on making a long inlet was that the area covered with liner inside the side berms can have water flow over it right into the tank.