Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Fertilization Stop Fertilizing due to FA?

"Mark I've got a couple pellet guns if you need to borrow one..."

Never fired and only dropped once?

Yes, exactly... I've never shot anything with them.

I had a limnology professor in college that taught us that 1 goose produces as much Nitrogenous waste in a day as a family of 4 people. Whether or not that all ends up in your pond depends where the goose poops.

I don't know how much Phosphorus is in goose droppings (which would be nice to know as P is the limiting nutrient in most freshwater systems). Sounds like the kind of thing Theo would happen to know?

Lord give me strength....

Mark, someone told me that Geese do not like to be disturbed once they have begun to bed down for the evening. Last year at one point, geese began to plague our pond. Each evening I fired up our Polaruis Ranger and drove through the area that they were inhabitating and scared them off. I only had to do this three or four nights in a row before they got the message and stopped coming back. Might give it a try if you can access the area that they are taking over.

Oh and by the way, make sure you're wearing a hat and don't look up if you try this.

"Mus musculus, (pause) approximately 8 cm, (pause) male, with a (pause) calcium deficiency."

CJ, I was referring to Full Metal Jacket.

Yes, my second favorite movie. I just removed some toe jam and ate a jelly donut.

Watch it Sunil or I'll tell them about your George of the Jungle togs and the pesky trees.

It is amazing how much waste 13 geese can have. I was at first happy they bred there. I like to waterfowl hunt and thought they might bond to the pond and provide me with some waterfowl hunting. Like I said I have a nice little shallow pond they could have all themselves. The geese have definitely worn out their welcome though. 5 weeks til opening day-I hope they make it that long:-).

My luck is they will feast on the sorghum I am going to cut the last week of August I planted for doves and high tail it out of my place to the neighbors when the season opens.

If it's not geese then it's deer eating everything-or bears tearing stuff up. Plant crops and build a pond and the place gets overun with uninvited guests. Next i will probably find locals catching and keeping the LMB.

Don't give him any ideas. I don't want to see that loincloth again at the Conference this year.

The Trophy grower Max and secchi dish i ordered from Greg Grimes on Thursday was here waiting for me when i got home Monday. Great service! Thanks Greg. The clarity was over 36" and I fertilized this afternoon. It dissolved easily.

The FA has continued to grow after my inept attempt with the Cutrine. I hope fertilizing doesn't exacerbate the FA problem. There were a lot of LMB hanging around the FA. I also found a dead one in the 16" range laying exposed against the bank at the area of the most concentrated FA in the shallow end. This is the first dead fish I have seen in my pond. It wasn't more than 12 hours dead I think. The eyes were still bright and it only had a few peck marks from birds, Very strange.

I wonder if I should try the Cutrine again this weekend or just wait? Also, the 2nd application of fertilizer should be August 12 according to the directions. Should I see evidence of a bloom before then? How critical is the schedule for that 2nd application? Is the 15th or 10th OK?

That's awesome that you got some water-soluble fertilizer! And the secchi disk will be a big help.

I would wait on the Cutrine. And it may not have been your application of it; I've known more than one pond owner who used it and got anything but a great result with the FA

Ideally you'll get a bloom within a week or less; if it's going to happen with this application you will probably have it within two or three days. If the bloom doesn't materialize with this application, the 12th would be a good time for the next one, but the 15th or the 10th could also work. The 10th is enough time to know whether or not this application is going to work or it's going to require another one in a short time period.

Probably the bass bit the dust because that's the area where the most Cutrine was applied; most likely you did manage to kill some of it, and he just didn't have enough sense to swim to a part of the pond with better DO. It sucks to lose a nice-sized bass, to be sure. But you'll have more.

If you get a bloom from this application, you definitely would not need to, or want to, fertilize again in two weeks unless the bloom is already significantly dissipating by then. Normally the second application comes two weeks after the first because the first one is done in early spring and there will have been at least one cold snap that knocks down any bloom, within two weeks of that first app; that doesn't apply here, so the only reason to do it again in two weeks would be if this one doesn't take.

Hit the wrong key, sorry...

I fish a pond regularly that has always had FA, and badly enough in the summer that it's almost unfishable, at least 60% coverage if not more. The owner has told me in the past that he regularly applies copper sulfate to kill the FA; as far as I can tell, it's had little effect. It's not a pond I work with, though I have been thinking recently of offering to fertilize it for him next spring before the FA can get started. Obviously there are pond owners who have had good luck with it, or it wouldn't be so widely recommended on here, but I haven't seen great results in my limited experience with it.

I wish i would have hit with the recommended dose first time but I get too busy trying to cram too much and messed up. I hope the fertilizer works because next year I will start out with that and maintain the pond that way.

On another note, it is really getting hot here and the pond is dropping fast. Pretty soon it will be down 3 feet and ugly with geese trashing the place to boot.

The water is really clear and warm so I may stop the feeder. I could not chase the geese off tonight but they are down to 7 from 13. Maybe time for my .22-.250 pellet gun after all.

Just kidding :-)

What .22-.250 pellet gun? We know nothing of any .22-.250 pellet gun, and would also know nothing if a few geese suddenly mysteriously vanished.

Stopping the feeder is not a bad idea if they still haven't started eating the food (the fish, that is, not the flying rats), as you're either just feeding said rats, or if they don't eat it all it could lessen the water quality if the bluegill don't eat it. If on the other hand the bluegill have figured it out, I would keep feeding. Cecil fed recently in water temps over ninety degrees with no problem - with fish in a cage, which is a more stressful environment than when they're free to roam the entire pond. You could scale back to once a day, though I'm feeding three times a day right now on two different ponds (actually one pond and one lake) and the bluegill are absolutely killing it. I watched a feeding cycle this afternoon and the bluegill at one feeder went through a ten-second cycle of food from a thirty-gallon feeder, in three minutes. I really think if I had been dumb enough to stick a finger in the water they would have attacked it.

Definitely been hot here and the extended forecast looks no better...

mark been working in fla. Quickly glad you got it. Here is the link to a data sheet. click on fertilizer log. Use this to track oyou fertilizer success. http://lakework.com/site/datasheets.php
Critical to monitor and adjust. Back off in this heat to 4 lbs/acre even if clear. If it has been 2 weeks i suggest using cutrine again on the FA.

Greg,

I put about 15-16 lbs in yesterday. The water was clear to 4 feet. Hope I didn't mess up. It has only been 8 days since I put in 4oz. per gal of Cutrine. It had no effect at all.

SInce you put in 8 lbs/acre rate I suggest treating FA again today. USe 8 lunces/gallon and give the FA a good mist.

I can do it Saturday morning is the soonest. Will that be OK?

sure go for it.

Ok. Sprayed Cutrine with surfactant again. 8 oz. per gal, 2.5 gal. over 2 acres. Will check it Monday evening and post results. Water clarity was still 48" plus but the water did look greeneer to me. I will fertilize again in 10 days-or should I do it Monday? I fertilized 4 days ago.

How do I check the alkilinity? I now have 3 fertilizer applications and from what I read here I should have a bloom by now.

I would wait a couple weeks to fertilize again. Not sure how to check the alkalinity...Have you ever limed the pond?

Never limed it. Limed the pastures around it when it was being built in '06 so some could have washed or blown in.