Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam DavidV's Pond Project; Guy with a Water Bottle

3.5 acres is big enough to have a nice bass lake; you could grow three or four real trophies, and good numbers of three- to six-pound fish, based on where you live and stocking mostly F-1s or Floridas or a mixture of the two. I would load up the new pond now with forage including GSH, TS, FHM, and tilapia, and crayfish if you can get them. Zetts hatchery in WV sells crayfish and they ship all over the U.S.:

http://zettsfishhatchery.com/id53.html

I've never bought crayfish from them, but I have gotten fish from them a few different times and had great luck with them, never had so much as a single dead fish though they shipped them to TN.

It looks like you already have some decent-sized bluegill in the existing pond, so it wouldn't be too difficult to make it into a first-rate trophy bluegill pond. I would start by not keeping or allowing anyone to keep any bass so that they overpopulate; an overcrowded bass population keeps the bluegill well-thinned such that the ones that survive the bass gauntlet grow several times faster and larger than in a pond in which the bluegill were more crowded. If you don't have a lot of bass in the pond currently, it wouldn't be a bad idea to stock a few or several in the 8-10" size. Install one or two automatic feeders and begin feeding twice a day, or three times if they eat the food really well; you'll probably have to cut back to once a day during the winter, but you should be able to feed all through the winter unless you're at a high elevation and get harsh winters. Start a monthly regimen of fertilization beginning next March (you'll probably have to apply twice in March to get a bloom, but after that once a month should do it) and fertilize March through October every year. I would recommend stocking some CNBG just because they grow faster and larger than common northern-strain bluegill, especially at southern latitudes like you are; Overton has some beautiful CNBG that get really big. But you would need to stock the largest ones they can get you, as fingerlings would get munched by the bass and bluegill already in the pond. Lastly, a few of us on here have stocked grass shrimp as an additional forage for bluegill, and especially if you have some weedgrowth or even just decent cover of any type in the pond, stocking them could make a difference, especially if they successfully establish. More than one pondmeister on here has had them establish in his pond this year.

Thanks for your advice Walt. I am geting more confused by the minute due to too many choices and decisions that i will have to live with for a long time. Oh well, I got married once and still am.

My pond is about 15 miles north of Lake Fork, TX. I know TS survive very well in that reservoir. Hopefully they will do well in my new pond.

The Zetts site was interesting. They sell nearly anything that swims, crawls or leaves welts on your body (fleas). Snails sound interesting as they reportedly multiply extremely fast and are good forage for all. Do you have any experience with snails? will they overpopulate to a dangerous level? I have also thught about water salamanders or as some people refer to them as "mud dogs". Any ideas on these creatures in a new pond?

Much to ponder no pun intended. Thanks for all your help as well as other pondmeisters that have interjected their feelings on the issue.

I welcome any more suggestions.

The thing about snails is they're one of the primary carriers of certain parasites that infect fish. Shellcrackers love them; the part of Santee-Cooper lake in SC that produced the world-record shellcracker had had a recent influx of Zebra mussels shortly before the record. They could possibly be okay if you had a good number of shellcracker in the pond; oftentimes they'll find their way to a pond without help, much in the way frogs do.

Salamanders, on the other hand, I think are a great idea. I've pondered more than once myself stocking them as additional bass forage; it's been proven bass love them, and I'm not aware of any drawbacks they pose (though that doesn't mean there aren't any).

TS I'm sure would be fine in your pond. Bass definitely love them.

Walt, help me out on your fertilization program recommendation for DavidV’s pond?
I don’t understand your recommendation.

This is a disaster waiting to happen in our area – our ponds are only a few miles north of DavidV’s and we have to cope with high nutrient water problems from natural occurring events.
Maybe a one time jump-start with fertilizer or a bucket or so of muck from his other pond will produce fast occurring plankton bloom in our area.

I could be wrong but I believe the species of bivalve that invaded the Santee Cooper that assisted the shellcracker along was the Asiatic clam. http://www.dnr.sc.gov/water/envaff/aquatic/zebra.html It too is quite invasive but in a different way. I recently introduced them into a pond as a test to see how they do in a small pond environment.

See http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=158752 for further info on the Asiatic clam.

Santee Cooper is notoriously turbid, right? Have the bivalves improved water clarity?

George, it's a pretty standard practice in pond management. The one significant reason for not doing it is if one lives far enough north that a pond ices over; most pondmeisters and biologists on here advise against fertilizing in such circumstances due to the increased risk of winter kill, though as I have noted in past posts, there are numerous state agencies and one regional wildlife agency in northern climes that definitely have ice-over every winter, that still recommend the practice for pond owners. I think you've confused the caution exercised by northern pond managers fearing winter kill, with a general caution against fertility. Plankton is the foundation of the food chain in any pond, northern or southern, eastern or western; less plankton equals less food for the fish, from the bottom of the food chain to the top, and less food equals less growth. As noted above, it makes sense to thoroughly evaluate one's BOW and proceed cautiously when contemplating fertilization in a northern pond, but there's no reason not to fertilize a southern pond unless the pond maintains a great plankton bloom year-round without help, which very few ponds do (many ponds experience brief, unsustained blooms at sporadic intervals, but in my experience I can't ever remember seeing one that maintained an ideal bloom from spring through fall such as one would typically get in a pond that's regularly fertilized, without fertilization).

If by "disaster" you mean three to ten times the carrying capacity of what the pond had prior to fertilization, along with fish growth that's exponentially faster than before fertilization, I think most pond owners would welcome that sort of disaster. I've worked with over twenty different ponds and small lakes that were former phosphate pits, which means they're about as naturally fertile as a body of water can possibly be; many of these bodies of water did at times have good plankton blooms prior to fertilization, but the blooms were sporadic; when I began managing the ponds the blooms no longer were sporadic because I fertilized them. And I had no disasters. But the fish did begin growing drastically faster than they had before fertilization.

CJ, you might be right, very possibly are; I just remember that some species of invasive bi-valve entered the lake in high numbers in the canal area, and within a couple years the world record was caught.

Walt, this isn’t my first rodeo ...

“Start a monthly regimen of fertilization beginning next March (you'll probably have to apply twice in March to get a bloom, but after that once a month should do it) and fertilize March through October every year.”

IMHO, that’s scary advise for a N.E. Texas pond.

We have been through this before. The archive is a good place to start.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96127#Post96127

Many ponds don't need to be fertilized even in the south.

Every major pond management company I know of in the South advises fertilization, as do most state agencies, on a regular basis to maintain a visibility of 18" or less, which generally entails roughly once a month. I'm not clear on what the disaster might be either. And, as I already noted, it's unlikely that David's pond is more fertile than an old phosphate pit, so any notion that it's at an exceptional level of fertility that I have no familiarity with, seems not sound.

Here's a link to a page on a pond management company in OH's website on which they recommend fertilizing and quote Texas A&M as obviously recommending it as the single most important element of pond management, based on the quote:

http://www.atac.cc/pages/fertilizing_your_pond.asp

The quote from TAMU is, "If you do nothing else, fertilize." That's coming from one of the top, if not the top, universities in Texas when it comes to fisheries science.

Here's a full publication from TAMU, written by a fisheries specialist who works with the university's extension program, recommending fertilization as the cornerstone of pond management in TX, and which specifically states fertilization should be done monthly, or "more frequently if needed, to maintain the bloom":

http://urbanrancher.tamu.edu/retiredsite/aquatic/0904a.pdf

Here are publications from several other Southern states (both universities and DNRs) recommending a monthly program of fertilization as the cornerstone of pond management:

http://www.wildlifemanagement.info/files/fish_ponds_31.pdf

http://www.dcnr.state.al.us/fishing/freshwater/where/ponds/m/f/fertilizing.cfm

http://warnell.forestry.uga.edu/service/library/index.php3?docID=44

http://msucares.com/pubs/infosheets/is0229.htm

http://www.uaex.edu/aquaculture/FSA/FSA9005.htm

http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/FA003

http://www.seagrantfish.lsu.edu/resources/factsheets/pond_mgmt.htm

I'm more than happy to admit when I'm wrong; but I don't think a strong case could be made that in this case I made a bad recommendation to David, or even one that is anything less than very sound and helpful.

Walt it is not uncommon for people to take that type advice and fertilize without first testing (not knowing the limiting factor) resulting in a dense plankton bloom and a resulting DO crash. This kills many of their fish and sets back there program and costs them money needlessly. There are unfortunately a number of people on this forum who have done exactly that and suffered. I know none of us want to be responsible for that happening to someone.

Without knowing the specifics of the pond a blanket recommendation to fertilize is not good advice. That is what George was pointing out. That is what the archive provides. It quotes from the SRAC publications (TX A&M is a host). The second link in the archive to the MS Pond Manual is common. If you look at the chart in it you will see that an entire region of MS (the Delta - about 25% of the state) does not need fertilizer.

Walt, what you are missing is that some waters are naturally fertile. Both I and neighbors have killed fish by fertilization and that additional carrying capacity sounds good until a DO crash occurs. Fertilizing in DavidV's area may be a guarantee of disaster. He is just about equadistant between George and I.

When the summer comes and evaporation starts in our area, having 150% of the natural carrying capacity can easily become 300% or more. Thus, it's not whether we will get a fish kill but when. It's about like fertilizing a lawn and not watering it in.

I get that some waters are naturally fertile; as I noted twice previously, I work with several phosphate pits, and ponds don't get more naturally fertile than that. But I will grant that a big difference between Texas and Tennessee is the amount of rainfall, and thus the degree of surface-acreage loss due to evaporation during the summer; I've never had a pond lose seven feet in one year (though it has happened here years ago during a bad drought, but I wasn't managing ponds then).

So I completely understand that that's an important consideration in Texas, and one not to be taken lightly. I also recognize the truth of what Eric notes in saying that some ponds don't need fertilization; but even on the chart for that one region of MS for which MSU doesn't recommend fertilization, it says, "usually not needed," which is a long way from, "never needed." And, that's one out of five regions; they recommend it as a blanket rule for the other four regions of the state.

So I recognize that it's not always, 100% of the time, the right approach. I just don't see how that, or careless methods of application, translates to not recommending it anywhere there's fertile soil when it could make a huge difference in the quality of fishing for a lot of pond owners who live in such places. I live in an area that used to be one of the biggest sources of phosphate in the country, and there's a lot of extremely fertile soil here; and fertilization has made an enormous difference for me. Perhaps I should have included in my recommendation that David read up in the archives on potential dangers of fertilization. Probably the obvious question at this point for David would be, what does your water look like? If it gets a good bloom naturally, there's no need or reason to fertilize; if it doesn't, his fish will not grow as large or as fast without it. Just my $.02 from phosphate country.

Walt et al, I appreciate your dissertations and recommendations on the topic of fertilization. I will make a secchi disk and closely monitor the water clarity and conditions. As George pointed out, the ponds in our area seem to fertilize naturally. It may have something to do with the dairy farming and associated run-off that is prevalent in the area.

I remember when I was an avid fisherman, 150 times per year on Lake Fork, TX that bioligists and other people in the know attributed the fertility of that reservoir to the dairy run-off. I have no idea of the validity of such a claim but it is one that may merit consideration.

My particular piece of land is 100% wooded with post oak with the exception of the two ponds. I have dead trees on the ground throughout the property. Does the organics associated with rotting wood, fungi and mushrooms (a lot lately) contribute to the natural fertilization via run-off?

I am just a learner here. Willing to do what is necessary to make my new pond fruitful and enjoyable for my children and those to come.

Thanks for all your advice.

In the mid Atlantic, the "natural" fertility comes from chickens not cows but hey, poop is poop... I think chicken poop is perty nasty though! All the chicken poop washing into the Chesapeake Bay is what is causing the huge dead zones in the Bay and killing crabs, stripers and menhaden.

A few pics from today after 3.5" of rain in two days. I went out Sunday and stacked bricks for minnow motels at a depth of 4'. They are now under water. The rain in these parts is crazy. I would have never expected this pond to fill in three months starting July1!!

Small motel.


Larger motel


Pond from dam


This is how the new pond fills from the overflow of the existing


Today's rain


From the new berm

The minnow motels are gone


Made an appt. with Todd w/Overton for friday this week. Bringing CNBG/RES/FHM for my initial forage stocking. I wonder if that will be enough for that 80lb cat that I need to buy??

Trying to figure out the fertilization thing here. I agree that some lands are naturally fertile (or unaturally, depending on how you look at it) and that fertilizing said waters could cause big problems.

IF the water clarity is monitored, and only fertilized when clarity exceeds "X" inches, could that be a rule of thumb? (someone needs to fill in the "X" blank tho.)

Or are there other criteria that need to be figured into the equasion?

If you are stocking 80 pound cats, IMO there is only one fish out there big enough and able to reproduce fast enough to feed them... The slimy, stinky gizzard shad.

Rotting wood and mushrooms would lower the fertility by upping the acidity of the pond, which could be counteracted by liming if the alkalinity got below 20 ppm. What does your water look like when it hasn't just had 3.5 inches of rain? Right now it looks turbid, which is to be expected. If it doesn't get a nice green color to it during the warm months when it's not raining, then your pond may not be as fertile as another pond twenty or a hundred miles away. As Esshup noted, it's a pretty simple matter to measure visibility with a secchi disk, as you're aware of; if you have a plankton bloom that limits visibility to 18" or less, you don't need to fertilize. If your water typically stays clear enough to see more than 18" down, then your fish are not growing as fast as they could be with a plankton bloom, which could be achieved by fertilizing. Hope you grow some huge fish.

Walt, when my existing pond hasn't had 3.5" of rain it has an oily film on top. Probably from the products of plant life decay. When and what would you recommend for fertilization for my new pond. I have forage coming in this Friday from Todd/Overton Fisheries.

I've had the best luck with liquid fertilizer - it seems to produce better blooms for me, and seems to last longer in the pond than powder form. There are a few if not several different brands of liquid out there; probably any brand that's 10-46-0 or 10-52-0 would be fine. I'm sure Overton probably sells it so you might check with him; I get it from my local co-op and that's usually an option as well. Greg Grimes sells it on his website. The best time to start a program of fertilization is in the early spring when the water reaches around sixty or sixty-five degrees depending on who you ask; I just start in mid-March or the beginning of April.

The biggest key to avoiding a fish kill is just to not overdo it: if you have 18" or less visibility, don't fertilize again until the visibility goes above 18". In the spring you might have to fertilize four times in two months just to keep a bloom, especially the first year you implement it; but in the summer you might be able to go six weeks or more without fertilizing if you indeed have very fertile soil. And, if you were to install an aerator, that would be extra insurance against a kill. I fertilized for ten years on multiple ponds without a kill, though I did come close once on a four-acre pond that I probably over-fertilized that year (fertilized at least once when visibility was not beyond 18") when we had several days in a row of cloudy weather and a plankton die-off evidently occurred. I happened along just as the fish were piping at the surface and ran home and got my grandfather's V-bottom with 40-horse Johnson and rode around the lake for a couple hours, and no fish beyond the handful that had already died when I discovered the problem were lost. I never had an aerator but they are definitely extra insurance against a kill and one would be a great idea if it's feasible for you.

Since you live in Texas, you would probably want to tailor the program to the rainfall or lack thereof that's occurring at any given time: in wet seasons you could keep it at 18" or even a little under that (more water flushing through the pond makes the fertilizer last less time anyway), and then in a drought you might want to keep it at a little beyond 18"; one of the best hatcheries in the South recommends doing this in the summer to avoid situations like the one I once encountered.

The forage should do great in that new pond - that's where you're stocking them I take it? They'll have some time to orient without predation, and then next spring hopefully they'll get off a good spawn before you stock the bass.

David

How is the dam holding up?

It looks good from the pictures.

David, we had some 4 inches of rain a couple of days before yesterday and looked on radar as if rained all day yesterday.
Son Jeff said both our ponds are full and flowing through syphon spillways so should flush nutient buildup and good shape going into fall and winter.

We enjoy your pictures - keep them coming.
Great job on your pond.

Lime, fertilizer, and forage are all tools utilized to reach goals. Generally speaking, without proper alkilinity in the soil, a pond can benefit from the addition of fertilizers to increase the planktonic base. However, some areas, the one I generally think of as pine tree country, need liming to allow the fertilizer to "take" for both crops and water holes. If the soil contains sufficient alkilinity to create a planktonic base on it's own, no fertilizer is needed and it's addition could have a negative effect on the environment being utilized. In other words, it can kill plant and animal life.

I particularly recall some land that I cleared in front of my house. It had been loaded with post oaks for many years; I guess forever. There had been the resulting leaf droppings and rotting during all of that time. I planted it in wheat and decided to fertilize. The wheat came up, looked beautiful and then died. I had burnt it up with the additional fertilizer. I have never fertilized since that time and my wheat has always looked as good as my neighbors who do fertilize. The difference is that they now have to fertilize to make a crop and I don't. The fertilizer has ruined their soil and now it won't grow anything without fertilizer. The history of farming is replete with worn out land due to artificial fertilization to increase yields. Admittedly, their protein levels are higher than mine but not by much.

OK, what does that have to do with water holes? I once bought into the fertilization mantra. I did it and my carrying capacity took a huge leap. Neighbors came by, took a look, and followed suit. Then we had a couple of still, cloudy days and every one of us had huge fish kills. It only takes 15 minutes. Those that didn't fertilize had no problem. I wasn't all that popular anymore and had to go back to buying my own beer. Mama Nature can be a cruel bitch and isn't to be messed with.

Walt, we can't count on flushing rains here and we do get still, cloudy days. Most of the Southern experts you may read recommendations from live in the Southeast and their experience just doesn't cut it here. I know quite a few pond professionals in this area and all are extremely cautious about recommending artificial water quality manipulation. Sometimes my visibility does go above 18 inches but, other than heavier forage predation which will rebound, the ponds seem to stay pretty well in balance and fertile from runoff(when it occurs). Last year, my visibility got too high and I added cottonseed meal a couple of times. It is all natural, small fish eat it and it very gently, over successive applications, increased the fertility base.

Natural fertility comes from the soil and there are variables in soil in any given area. It is possible that Davids soils could benefit from fertilization. If true, then the fertilizer won't take without first liming.

David, let the water settle for a couple of weeks until the rain effects of runoff and suspended soils have settled. Check the visibility. If it is between 18 and 24(or so) inches, you don't have a problem. Also, go to the TAMU website and look at the pond area. You will find instructions on getting them to do a water quality test. They will come back with recommendations for your specific pond. I might do that in the Spring after your new pond has lots of time to figure out it's balance.