Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? New pond when should i start aeration and type

I have a 6 acre pond in South Alabama. It is roughly 1 1/2 years old now. The pond is built on the basis of Ray Scots video. The first year i put little over 5000 shad in it and 10,000 bream. I also put 15,000 FHM in it. I just put in 300 Tiger Bass or F1,s as they call them from American Sportfish Hatchery. They went in on may 27th. I have a feed program. They get fed 4 times a day for about 60 seconds each time by a Texas Hunter feeder. Which i would recomend. I fertilize with perfect pond plus. The pond does have a great green coluor to it now and looks very nicely. See a ton of fish in it every time you walk by it. Which is everyday as it is in my front yard.

My question is when should i start areation and what type of aration system would be best ?

It is 20ft at the damn but drops off allot from there. It is roughly 10ft on the average. My gole is to raise just big bass and that is it.

That is a good stocking rate to raise monster bass, much like I suggest but rarely followed. You are doing it right and you are well on your way to growing some monster bass.

Manchester Bass I suggest a properly designed bottom diffused aeration system. If undersized it can lead to lots of problems. If you like get us your address and we can google it and layout the exact number of diffusers you need and tubing length to go with it.

Welcome to PB are you new or just now posting. IF new look around and you will find lots of aeration info so I did not go into all the explanation as to “why” I feel this is the best system but what I recommend to clients maximizing bass growth. Couple of other things real quick, if TX Hunter is working right, you are feeding about 50 lbs of feed a day. based on 4 x 60 secs. with it feeding about 2 lbs per 10 secs, so something is up. No way should you be feeding this much with your fish in one feeder location. Clarify please how much food going out per day? You should feed so food is gone in about 5 minutes, gone quicker can feed more any longer to clean it up probably going to waste. What is your visibility level currently, you check with secchi disc when fertilizing? There are couple of other forage fish you can consider not that you will not have great growth if you keep it up, but crayfish and golden shiners will assist growth and help meet your goals. Good luck.

First of all thanks for the info. I am new to the pond boss. I have read just about all of the forum stuff that pertains to me over the past couple of weeks. A lot of very very useful information. I am in the middle east at the presant time. Dad was suppose to be going and check the water clarity. So i should know something later on today or tomorow. Well i am not sure if the TH is working properly because i am not going through 50lbs a day by any means. The feed that is throwed out is consumbed in about 7 mins. The fish are feeding really well. I was at home when the bass went in on the 27th of May. I watched the fish feed everyday. While i was home i was there for 2 weeks. I have thought alot about adding crawfish to the pond. When should they go in though is the question and at what rate. I would assume like the tilapia they would have to go in every year. Golden shinners i am affraid f by reading so much about them. I do not want them to over take. I am thinking about a vertex system. When should i try to install it. I think i am safe for about 2 years or am i wrong. I want them to have the best habbitat possible. Again i do really appreciate your information. Corodinates at the pond is 34,31,09.4445 north and 87,57,16.25 west. It ha snot been updated in forever you can not really see it at all. It looks diffrent now than when the google image was taken. Unless yall can see it better than me somehow. I am very glad to hear that you like my stocking rate and what i am doing. I will be working closely with American Sportfish Hatchery on my management process on the amount and size and sex of bass to be taken out per year. I also had them come down and lime th pond also. I belive they put 4 tons of lime in if i am not misstaken. I have all of this documented on a xl spreadsheet at home. Any information is greatly appreciated. Hail to the MONSTER BASS.

I suggest crayfish just once and at this point that would be next spring. Might try about 200-300 lbs for the 6 acre pond. It is just a onetime cost. Seed them out if the environment is right they will do fine if not no reason to restock. Hope you got some good cover in there as well for them to hide. The lime will help. You probably mean you put in 4 tons/acre of lime that is the norm is pond has poor alkalinity to start with.
I do not want to step on any toes at American Sportfish. Don and Barry are good guys. I will go ahead and try to find the pond and see if we can spec out a Vertex system for you since that is what I sell for the most part. I remember talking Don into carrying Vertex a few years ago.
I hear you about golden shiners, we just started adding them two years ago. However with goals of monster bass so what if GSH reduce bass reproduction or recruitment that is our biggest problem we see with too many bass with goals of growing monster bass.

Yes I agree the TX Hunter is not working right and that is good I was worried you were going thru to much food. What size pellets? If aquamax 600 it throws much less and might have to tweak. Most of our TX Hunters throw about 2 lbs in 6 secs but I use small food. They are great feeders though. Again if you wish I can get you price on another feeder because for your goals if budget allows you could use another feeder or tow to promote more bluegill growth.

Did you notice the bass feeding on tiny fatheads when you stocked the bass. Pretty cool seeing a 2 inch bass eat a ½ inch minnow. I wish you well. Good luck in the Middle East that is not for me. Others feel free to chime in know others have an opinion as well.

Greg you're the man when to comes to growing monster bass... Not much else needs to be added.

What species of shad did you stock Manchester? Threadfin or Gizzard? I am guessing threadin... If so, I'm sure in a couple more years when you have some large bass in the pond, Greg will recommend adding some gizzard shad to give the large bass a true mouthful to eat.

I honestly wouldn't be concerned about GSH taking over... In the first couple of years the GSH may outgrow the mouth size of the bass and you'll get some overgrown 8"+ GSH too big for your bass to eat. But in a few years, your bass will grow large enough to eat even them and before long you'll be lucky to have any GSH in your pond at all!

Greg Thanks again for the information. to answer your question about the amount of food that is fed. It is about 50 pounds every 7 days. Which equals roughly 1.7 pounds per day i think. So something must not be right. The feeder is only about 3 months old maybe a little more but not much. Have been feeding a BioLogic game chow mixed with catfish feed. I am currently checking to see if my local purena dealer can get me the aquamax 500. I think that would be the best. The PH Level in the pound as of yesterday is 8.4. Still waiting on the secchi disk reading. You are correct it was 4 tons per acre.

Hail to the MONSTER BASS

MB, check your Texas Hunter spin plate for clearance.
It sounds exacly like a similar problem I had that caused jams.

The factory won't tell you, but there is a allen screw adjustment on the motor shaft the will allow lowering spin plate.
Todd Overton of Overton Fisheries advised me and then factory rep sent me a long handle allen wrench.
The jam was caused by a large chunk of feed that was ejected as soon as adjustment was made.
No problem since and easily handles AQMX 600.

Very good feeders but poor customer service.

George thanks for the info. Do you think that will allow the feeder to throw the proper amount of food. I belive it should be 2 lbs every 10 seconds. Will that curr the problem you think. I have no problem with it jamming.

Thanks again

MB, I sure would give it a shot - it corrected my problem.
I found it to be jammed but still feeding small aamounts at high feed settings.
Dealers or TH should correct this problem - maybe just occurs on early models - it's a good feeder.
Good luck.

Yes changing spin plate height should help. Is it a 200 lb feeder by chance? I think the extra weight also makes the nesccisty for larger opening above spin plate.

Ok here is Sue's response to sizing your system MB. "Hi Greg ~
I've looked on a couple of aerial sites and his pond is too new. There are no satellite images available. I would need to know size, shape and depth to make a recommendation, but I can't do a design or calculation sheet with out a map..."

Do you wish to draw and fax a picutre and provide depth info? If so we can get you some more info just have to guess on tubing length a bit.

Thanks for the info. I will get Dad to go down and try to adjust the spin plate. I will also see if i can get a drawing made up and some pictures. So that i can get some recomendations from yall on this.

Thanks again any information is reatly appreciated

Greg last year at the pond boss convention I bought a vertex system that had two of the double diffusers but have not installed it yet because I just now got electricity to the pond. You said in your first response that installing too small of a system would cause problems what did you mean by that?

James Pm sent, Gotten crazy busy here again. Call me if you wish. How big is your pond? I think you need more than that unless the pond is smaller than I remember or another pond.

Hi James ~ The AIR 1 PLUS definately isn't big enough for your 6 acre pond. I sent you a PM ~ the calculations I did for you back in 2007 show a turn over of close to 1 time per day with one of our larger systems. I will revisit the project and be in touch.

James,

I answered your PM you sent me. Look forward to hearing what the results will be.