Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Rainbow Trout in and old pond newly excavated

Have a 1/3rd acre (70' x 220') pond that has the following parameters:
1.) 45 year old yet newly excavated
2.) 1/3rd pond is 3-5 foot depth, 2/3rds is 12-15' depth.
3.) artesian well flowing 10-12 gallons/minute
4.) sandy soil
5.) aeration system, 2 units in shallow end
6.) will stock with Rainbow trout about 200 10-12" in late April.
7.) Will feed with pellets.
8.) some shade on south side of pond (tree lined with river birch trees. others isdes somewhat open.

Question, what is the best way to learn about the care and feeding of the fish? What type of aquatic palnts are best for trout? Anybody see anything wrong with the setup so far.

pebaugh, I can comment based on what I've read here at the forum for a couple of points, and I'm sure others will fill in the gaps.

For the well water, are you running it over rocks or spraying it in order to get some oxygen into it? If not, you may want to explore that.

As far as trout, you may want to comment on what part of MI your pond is in. Trout are a little more of a cold water fish. This is just from memory, but I think they could hold over through the summer if your water temps didn't get to the high 70s.

A lot of pond owners view trout at "put and take" fish. If you stock some in April, and feed them heavily, they can get a lot bigger through the summer.

If you get them hold over the summer, then they may make it through the winter also, however, the chance of getting a spawn is probably minimal unless you create the perfect situation (to which I'm not sure what is).

Someone else should comment on what Rainbow trout like to eat, for instance, are the piscovorous (sp). I believe they are, so adding a few pounds of minnows early on could be good.

EDIT: Forgot to add....Cecil Baird is Sensei Grand Master when it comes to trout raising (not to mention other species). I'm sure he'll comment.

No need for plants if you feed them pellets. In fact no plants is best if you feed! Plants can really get out of hand with all the nutrients from fish feed and subsequent excrement.

As long as your D.O. doesn't get below 6 ppm you shoud be O.K. Water temps of 55 to 65 F. in summer are optimum. Even if you have deep cold water be sure it has enough oxygen. Many times D.O. gets too low in ponds in this deep water at some point in the summer unless you have cold water coming in as in a well, spring, or stream.

If surface temps stay optimum you can really grow some tackle busters feeding them. If it's only optimun well below the surface, don't count on much carrying capacity on natural feed or rapid growth. In otherwords, if the surface water is to warm for them to come up don't count on feeding them and getting all the benefits of feeding them.

If you are running in aerated ground water carrying capacity is earthen ponds is about 12 pounds per gpm. I.E. I run in 38 gpms so I try to keep my total poundage below 500 lbs.

You can have the rainbows. I like big browns and brooks instead. Where are in Michigan?

Cecil is one of our small trout pond experts. See the photo in this link as testimony of his ability. http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=002293;p=1#000005

I also question the benefit of introducing submerged vegetation into your trout pond. There are pros and cons to doing this. What do you think the benefits of these weeds would be? We can discuss your ideas.

Paul is my brother and we are jointly working on this trout pond mentioned in this thread. . . Let me join the discussion and fill in the blanks. . .

The 1/3 pond in Michigan is in West Branch, MI, about an hour north of Bay City / Saginaw area or 130 miles north of the Detroit area - little more than half way up the lower peninsula.

Temps in West Branch do reach the high 80's and occasionally the low 90's, though nights tend to drop 20-25 degrees in the summer.

The question about plants had more to do with created more O2 / D.O. We both recall my Grandfather possibly planting some kind of "weed bed" back in the 60's when this was first built (though at only 6-8 ft. deep. Also, the artesian well (actually delivers 15+ gpm) and drops about 2+ ft. out the end of a 2" pvc pipe hanging about 4 ft. over the pond.

One more thought. . .My Grandfather built that pond int he early 60's and stocked it with 3000 3" fingerlings (or so I always heard when I was young) and hand fed them for several years. We did easily pull 16-18" rainbows out of there in the summer. He had no electricity at the time (we do) and the pond was only 6-8 ft. deep. So, in hsort, we know it is possible in that specific pond that is still fed by the same artesian well that it was 45-50 yrs. ago.

We want to add more water to add more O2 AND more so to help keep the temps down as the well water is a constant 48 degrees almost year round. since the pond was excavated this past august(now 12-14 ft. in 1/3 of the pond, it has filled up to the top, but just barely reached the output pipe (which we extended upward 8" with an "S" curve pvc pipe extender) to fill the pond to maximum. Since the ground is mostly sand, we know it is leaking, probably inthe top 6 ft or so into the ground water as 20,000 gallons a day doesn't evaporate this time of year. My thoughts at first that minimal leaking is bad, now I'm thinking maybe it's ok, because it is exchanging (read exiting) the pond, just in a different way and it may be better to do it from alower depth, than at the surface. But my knowledge base is purely a guess on this point?? Any advice on this point??

Yep I know where you're at. Graduated farther north from Alpena Community College with a fisheries degree way back in '78' Have a friend that lives in Gladwin.

My air temps can get even higher down here in Indiana, but the 38 gpms of 51.6 F. aerated well water keeps surface temps from rising higher than the mid 60's all summer long.

Plants can create D.O. but they also use D.O. at night, and if they get thick they can also create shallow water that can raise your water temps which you don't want with trout.

15 gpms does not sound like enough cold water to me. Sorry. If you can't get the flow to jump via the artesian with the help of a welldriller, chances are your flow is so close to the surface, so you may be able to put in a well and pump it cheaply as you don't have to raise it very far. Stoney Creek in Grant, Michigan sells some pumps that will do that for you.

Past history sounds good but I would bet there was more flow in the past unless you have flow you're not aware of. Sometimes flow in artesian wells backs off over time due to factors that could be a natural change, or depletion of the aquifer over time by water users.

If you think the trout will be O.K. why not plant some and see what happens through the summer? They're really not that expensive and worse case scenario is they float up and you have to go to plan B which would be to put in a well.

Yes, there is an advantage to bottom seepage in a trout pond that is being fed water. Normally the overflow has to go somewhere, and if you can at least maintain equilibrium by ground seepage, you could be recharging your aquifer, which is a good thing. I overflow into another pond which overflows into a roadside ditch 7 + months of the year. (Don't need to run the well from November to part of March). I've had the highway department down there scratching their heads trying to figure out why my pond is overflowing during a drought! In Indiana I am not aware of any laws not allowing this but my friend in Gladwin says in Michigan you are not allowed to overflow into ditches. Whether this is true or just a local ordinance I don't know. An alternative is to overflow into a wetland which is benefical to a wetland especially during dry conditions.

If you two have your hearts set on trout, and they don't survive the summer, I would at least consult with a local well driller that is familiar with your local potential. If you're lucky you will hit a good artesian flow with your only cost the well and no pumping necessary! It's easy to constrict the flow to what you need if Michigan's DEQ has a limt.

BTW, no offense to Michigan, but I'm a member of Michigan's Aquaculture Association and you sure have a lot of bureaucracy and government prying into people's business up there when it comes to raising fish and having ponds!

If you're interested in attending I can send you the info. Next meeting is in early Feb. and there are people there that can answer your questions. It will be in the Lansing area.

Cecil,

Could you please elaborate a little on why you prefer browns and brookies over rainbows?
customer demand?
thanks,

Ed

Cecil and others, thanks for the response. Based upon the input we probably will not introduce any new vegetation. Yes, I would like the artesian well flow to be better and we are attempting to add another well. I saw one of your posted pictures of a brown that was huge. How many pounds was it (The picture of Dan holding it). The reason we opt for Rainbows at this point is that there are relatively inexpensive and great game fish. While they will not grow near the size of the browns or brooks, we want a lot of fish and a lot of action for the 6-20 year olds who will be doing alot of fishing. ( we have 28 nieces and nephews).

Cecil, you have a guide of carrying 12 pounds of fish per gpm of water flow. Is that a rough rule of thumb based on the dissolved oxygen only or the flow rate of the water entering the pond. I do not understand what the primary factors are. In our 1/3rd acre pond, we calculate we have 900,000 gallons of water. We also run an aerator. Two years ago when we first installed the aerator (2 heads and a 1/4HP pump) we consistetly measured 9-11 ppm DO throughout the fall and into mid summer when our last batch of fish went bely up due to the warm water. This was when our depth was only 4-7 feet. It is now 12-15 feet on roughly 1/2 or more of the pond due to recent excavation.

Cecil, do you run a water pump for your well?

Ed,

That's part of it. It's pretty easy for taxidermists to buy rainbows just about anywhere in the country from a hatchery, but browns and brooks are harder to find. I only have so much flow and room and want to capitalize on something that is harder to find so I can name my price.

I also find brooks and browns more striking in appearance. Just a personal opinion there.

That brown was just under 12 lbs. Hit a kastmaster spoon. Yes, rainbows are a great gamefish (very acrobatic on the line), and not as difficult to catch as the browns. Although brooks have got to be the easiest to catch unless it's breeding season. But the browns get lock jaw then too at that time.

However, as far as cheaper for rainbows I think Crystal Springs in Muskegon only charges a dime a pound more for browns and brooks. They also have golden rainbows.

Actually I think you can get rainbow males easily to 12 pounds or even more if you feed them well and keep them long enough. Brooks typically don't get as big as either species.

I think rainbows are a good choice for what you want although it's possible the browns can handle slightly warmer water. Not a fast action fish for kids though as they are really wary.

Keep in mind you should keep all the trout you catch as catch and release usually kills at least some of the trout even if it's delayed mortality. This is especially true in elevated temps. That's why trout fish out ponds don't allow catch and release.

28 nieces and nephews! Long winter nights in Michigan?

pebaugh,

I think the 12 lbs per gpm is based on full saturation of D.O. as it refers to an aquaculture setting, and typically in an aquaculture setting they are growing out trout at high densites. So it's imperative your inflow is as close to saturation as possible. I got this from a British text as in many parts of Europe they raise trout in earthen ponds. Here in the U.S. we are partial to concrete raceways with higher flow and higher densities. Carrying capacites are much higher in raceways but of course so is the flow.

What kind of aeration were you using? Aeration with trout can be a Catch 22 if not done correctly. You can atually warm your water up too much with aeration. I used a bottom diffuser in my trout pond to mix the water column, but I only run it after air temps cool down at night during warm weather. Since my pond was small enough, the amount of inflow is generous enough to keep the pond cool, but at the same time my diffuser keeps me from having an anoxic layer on the bottom. Running it at night is ample time to mix the water column. If you were using surface aeration without mixing the water column, you could have an an anoxic layer on the bottom in deeper than 6 or 7 feet of water. Your trout would have no choice but to come up to the surface in less favorable temps. Additonally my pond developed an algae bloom from all the nutrients, and does have plants (couldn't keep them out) so oxygen is being produced during the day.

Your increased depth after dipping should help keep the warming down but depth is not everything.

Yes, I run a submerged well pump about half way down in my 88 foot well.Rated for 45 gpms although I think I'm only getting 38 gpms.

I have attached a photo of the three backyard ponds. The one in the foreground is the one I have been using for trout but the one on the left will be the trout pond from now on. The one on the right is my bluegill pond. I also have pics of my aeration set up for the well water when it first comes out of the ground if you're interested. The well and aeration is enclosed in the fencing in the back and center of the two side by side ponds. The pond in the foregroudn is the former trout pond at 88 by 59 feet. 9 foot deep max and very steep sides as in all my ponds. Pond on left that will be the new trout pond and is 90 by 40 on one end and only 22 on the other (due to property line). It's max depth is 8 feet. One on the right (bluegills) is similar in size to the one on the left but only about 7 feet max depth. Both rear ponds slope on the bottom for draining and seining if necessary.

New trout pond will run into the former trout pond (putting yellow perch into the former trout pond this spring), and then that pond will run into my much larger 200 by 150 foot bass pond at the lowest part of the property in the front as it has in the past. All flow is undergroud via 4 or 6 inch piping and I have gatevalves in ground to direct the flow if necessary.

Cecil:
Thanks for all the feedback- helpful info. I think we will be measuring both temp and DO alot more this spring and summer. WE painfully learned 3 years ago that we fried the rainbows in late June early July by continuing to run the fairly powerful 1/3 hp dual diffuser system right at the bottom of the pond (at about 8 ft. depth) thereby creating a "convection oven" which raised temps to 72 degrees and our rainbows starting jumping out, swimming like sharks - all the telltale low DO and temp shock symptoms. Of course by the time I turned it off, guessing what was happening, it was too late. That won't happen again!

I had a bet with my 12 yr. old to guess the temp last week, when we were at our West Branch 1/3 acre pond and I guessed 43 and he guessed 39,the darn bottom of the pond (12-14 ft. depth was exactly at 39 degrees!

After some learning int he past 6 months, our plan is to re- install the aeration diffusers on teh shallow side (ot excavated recently) at about 5 ft. depth) and away from the severe drop off. and then possibly aerate during the fall / winter / spring and only at night when temps drop in the summer (we're working on obtaining a combo timer / temp switch).

Questions- Is this a reasonably good strategy for aeration??? And, are there any low cost, timer, temp actuator electrical switches made for this purpose???

Also- it make alot of sense that we need more in-flow to keep the temps cooler. At a calucation of 15 gpm (or 21,600 gallons per day) into a 900,000 gallon pond, it takes 41 days for the water to completely turnover (seems too long doesn't it? Outflow by the way is via a 5 inch pipe built into the pond in the 1950's that is about one ft. from the top (we put an extender for max. depth)and runs about 3ft. away into a cattail wetlands area.

correction - the outflow pipe runs THIRTY feet away (not 3 ft.- whoops!

Mike, we can control the aerator whether it be time, temp or combinations. I have the equipment and know-how to control yet finding a strategy on when to control is what we are missing. Cecil has a good point in that if we do not peridically stir a column in the deep areas we will get an oxygen depleted zone down low and even though the temps are cool there, the trout will not want to stay there if little or no oxygen.

We may want to reconsider placing both back in the deep areas and judiciously running them at night and/or when the air temp or surface temps drop below some value say 65 degrees. That way we oxygenate all the water and take care not to mix it up too much when the air temp is too warm. We could also have an additional aerator head in the 4-5 foot section and run it all the time. In the winter, all three could run to keep the ice from forming.

I can add electronic and electrical controls to turn the pump on/off as a function of time, time of day, air temp, water surface temp, deep temp, month etc and in any algorithmic form. I can also selectively turn on the deep head, the shallow head or both based on any measured parameter. Too bad we don't have an extra $600 to buy a quality electronic O2 meter to give us direct feedback on oxygen levels. will have to stick to the chemical tests for now.

If I have this reqally cool control system, any thoughts out there on what the control methodology should be.

Brothers, there's been a lot of discussion about running the aerators during the winter. I think the consensus is to only run one in a shallow end of the pond if necessary to run one at all.

This is just from memory. A search will bring up a lot of info.

Out.

I agree. You want to keep one or both of them deep but only run them judiciously. I wouldn't run the surface aerator in shallow water myself unless you densities are really high.

Sunil's right. At most all you need is to run a small diffuser in shallow water in winter. I've actually let my trout pond freeze over without aeration as long as I keep the snow off or in strips. In cold water not much oxygen comsumption is taking place.

If you end up not getting a surface aerator why not spring for a D.O. meter? BTW there is a good one now in the $200.00 range if you're interested.

Cecil, please send info or link on the $200 O2 meter.

Look for the word "supercooling"

http://www.pondboss.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=20;t=001274#000000

LINK!

Actually gentlemen I don't believe trout are suceptible to super cooling much if at all. Case in point, I used to feed trout in the diffuser areas of my pond when I first planted trout. Didn't seem to bother them.

Thanks Sunil, Theo and Bruce,

I agree and understand the logic of placing an aerator in the shallows for the winter. Fortunately we have on the back side of the pond an area that is 4-5 feet deep that was not able to be excavated this past summer where we can place an aerator. The other areas of the pond are 12-15 feet.

In the summer though, from what I have gleaned from Cecil's posts and others in this forum, placing an aerator in the deep end is necessary yet should be run sparingly ie at night when cool and during the day if the air temp is say cooler than 65 degrees. We had a learning experience 2 years ago when we ran two aerators 24/7 during June and it mixed and warmed the water enough where the water temp reached 70 F and it killed ALL the trout (200). Ouch.

Let me summarize what our action plan will be this spring and summer given all of the valued info received:

1.) Make the pond deeper (complete, summer of 2005) was 4-7 feet deep before now 1/2 is roughly 4-7 feet and the other 1/2 is 12-15 feet.

2.) Do not run the aerators 24x7 in the summer

3.) In the summer run the aerators in the deep end when cool at night and during the day only when the air temp is cool.

4.) Do not overfeed. We have a Sweeney auto pellet feeder.

5.) In the winter, only turn on the shallow side aerator in 4-5' of water. Is there a benefit of running an aerator in the deep end for brief periods to get some oxygen in the deep depleted areas? I can do this with a control system.

5.) Practice primarily "catch and take" with careful limited catch and release yet monitor the kill population and use barbless hooks.

6.) Do not introduce additional plants. They will eventually migrate from the existing side areas that were not dredged.

7.) we will stock the pond with 200 10-12" Rainbows in late April (The date the nearby trout farms suggested and will be ready to deliver. Two suppliers quoted the same price of $190/100 in the 10-12" size along with transportation costs.

Any other key areas we may have missed?

Another key learning is that while we have a 47 degree artesian well running at 15 gpm, if we can get some additional flow say to 30-40 GPM this would help quite a lot.