Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Mucky Bottom

Ok so I am walking around my pond today in chest waders and I hit some spots i was worried I wasn't going to get out of. My water is quite clear but my pond bottom has years of muck on it. Other then aeration or digging is their some sort of chemical you can use on muddy pond bottoms? Does anyone have anything they used that worked? I would like to do something and start this spring if I could find something that works!

Thanks,

How fast are you expecting to see results, and what results are you expecting to see (i.e. how much muck gone in how long of a timeframe)?

I am not in no big hurry? An inch or so a year? Is that asking to much?

RC, if it is organic in nature, the tilapia you want to add along with adequate aeration and possibly some bacteria should get you as much as 12 inches removed next summer. Id it is soil from runoff, mechanical removal is the only option.

Hey RM,

I think a lot of it is organic between the leaves and all the weeds I have. 12 inches in a year? Wow! I won't have aeration out there for another year I guess. I didn't know the tilapia ate stuff off the bottom as well? I know they make a chemical I can add that has bacteria in it but I am not sure how well it works? If I could get a few inches a year I would be happy!

I don't think the bacteria works very well without aeration because the muck is low in oxygen and the bacteria can't grow.

I've noticed other members have had results by raking the muck. Maybe you can rake some of the shallows and the tilapia can make a dent in the deeper water?

So if all I have is the recommended tilapia for my size pond how much muck would I then loose in a season? A couple of inches a year maybe? Or more?

The tilapia will "flash on the bottom of the pond and consume the rotting leaves incidentally to eating the bacteria growing on the decaying matter. This causes an aeration effect, bringing oxygen for the more beneficial and faster digesting aerobic bacterias, plus the disturbances provide fresh new surface areas for the bacteria to grow on, again speeding the process but more importantly, moving the nutrients up the food chain. Raking will assuredly speed decay, but the nutrients released will be available to all other plant life and can shift the nutrient load in the pond into another potential problem.

Stocking tilapia at a rate of 100 pounds+ per acre the first year will normally remove about 12 or more inches of organic muck, along with probably every other plant in the pond. After the first year, stocking rates can be drastically cut back to find the maintenance rate you desire.

RC, I can't really answer your question. It all depends on what preferred tilapia foods are available. Bacteria is high on the favorites list, but it takes a sustained foraging effort by the tilapia to put a big dent in muck---usually an over-stocking rate. Regardless of the stocking rate, tilapia will "flash" the bottom and aerate the muck to a degree which will speed the overall process, but it may not be faster than the incoming debris. In other words you may gain some depth OR you may lose LESS depth each year with a standard stocking rate.

"Flash" is when the tilapia slap the bottom of the pond with the side of their body to knock small bits of detritus and bacteria into the water column where they both filter out and eat the bacteria and detritus.

Thanks for clarifying that. I had visions of them swimming around with trench coats on......

One would expect JHAP to guffaw at that one.

And I did.

I was going to post a comment but I was afraid that if I was in any way associated with Rex's post above then another cartoon depiction of me would surface.

Oh, Pshaw!

BTW, you looked marvelous lurking around in your trench coat with JWHAP at PBConIII.

Thanks RM for that informative post. To the rest of you??? I am not sure what to say...

P.S. So are you also telling me that muck can be removed by just walking around in the pond? Or taking a garden rake and raking it? Where does it go? Does it just disolve or something? Sorry for the stupid questions but my mother always told me no question is a stupid question if your not sure!

RC, All organic matter will decay and biodegrade back to an elemental form. Bacteria is one of the primary digesters that cause decay (rot). There are many types of bacteria, but in a pond we pretty much have either aerobic or anaerobic. Anaerobic bacterias live and do their thing in the absense of oxygen and are slow to consume organic matter, if at all. Aerobic bacterias require oxygen and can consumes organics very rapidly.

By adding an aeration system, you supply oxygenated water to the lowest parts of a pond to allow the faster working aerobic bacterias to thrive.

Let's take the aeration step a little further and apply it to leaf debris--- Leaves fall into the water and get tightly packed over time. Aeration will provide oxygenated water to the surface of that but not into the leaf depth very far. When something like a rake or fish or even walking disturbs and mixes the leaves, it not only brings oxygen to deprived areas, but allows a fresh, unpopulated (by aerobic bacteria) substrate for more aerobic bacteria to colonize and consume the leaves----further speeding the process.

As to where the debis goes, well eventually back into the water column as a nutrient or as a base/trace element to be available to other plants and animals to grow.


I'm no expert on this by any means. I have tried to simplify an extremely complex process to make it a little easier to understand and digest.

I had to turn off the aeration in my pond last year. I get roughly 15-20 tons of hardwood tree leaves going into my inflow areas. With aeration from day one of building my pond, the clay lining was exposed in every area. After only six months without aeration, packed leaf debris was already in excess of 6 inches thick everywhere.

Yeah I am going to do some reading up on this! Thanks for all your help RM. Keeping it simple is good too!!

I don't think those are stupid questions, I think they are very good ones!

aS FAR AS A SYSTEM FOR aeration, how well would it work if i layed pvc pipe with many small holes which ran the entire lenth of the pond and hooked it up to an air compressor?
The hope would be to provide a constant stream of tiny bubbles from the bottom up... I have power at the lake site and a currently empty pond bed...

It's not the stream of bubbles that aerates. Most aeration systems are used to lift water to the surface and at the surface is where aeration occurs. Or some such scientific nonsense along those lines. But I'm no expert, one of the experts can give you a better explanation. BTW until reading this site I thought the same thing that aeration was "forcing" air into the water. Sheesh all the years at looking at the air stone in an aquarium assuming I was jamming the water chock full of good air.

well,
I understand the science.. It is a matter of difusion across a give surface area. Each bubble interacts with a give area of water and allow for gasses to dissolve. Also bubbles displace water and thus create currents... in hope.. lifting water.. and mixing..

Thanks Esshup I apprecaite it. I just don't want to become annoying with dumb questions! I apprecaite everyones help big time!!! I think I learn something on this site new every day and that is awesome!!!!

STU, you're right on the air water interface. But, as I was corrected by Bill Cody long ago, the actual uplifting of the water by the tiny bubbles.\and exposing new water to the surface continuously gives much more air-water interface than just the contact of the water with the bubbles. Waves do similar in larger bodies of water, therefore larger ponds dont need aeration normally. The air diffusers have been specifically designed with many VERY tiny holes or slits to produce more and smaller bubbles which expand under less pressure and uplift vast amounts of water. One well designed and well placed bottom diffuser in 12-15 ft. water can turn over an acre pond several times a day.

STU801, Your thought of laying the pipe makes one think that by covering large areas with rising bubbles would be better. In theory it even might be but the reality is that it won't do very well. The holes drilled into the pipe will be far larger than those in a membrane disc diffuser and require an impractical amout of air volume. Also, only a tiny fraction of gasses are exchanged as the bubbles lift. The bubbles reaching the surface and then popping, breaks the water tension barrier and allows the gas exchange.

Using a Vertex membrane diffuser with .5 mm laser cut slits will produce a far greater amount of water lifted than an equal amount of air flow though pipes. Even the inexpensive Flexair membrane with 1 mm holes will vastly outperform the pipes.

In driving thru the countryside the past few weeks, I've noticed a nunber of ponds that have some type of aeration system. It's probably evenly divided between windmill and electric. What I don't know is the type of aerator that is being used, airstone or membrane, and what size the unit is.

What I do know is that I have a single Vertex membrane diffuser, suspended at a constant 5' below the pond surface. The open water area in my pond is greater than any other ponds' open water area that I've seen. The electric pump that I have was purchased from someone in Ohio off of e-bay 5 or 6 years ago as part of the pond aeration kit. It also came with 100' of non-weighted 1/2" (most likely 5/8" i.d.) air line, a double black membrane diffuser attached to a 2' square white 3/16" or 1/4" thick plastic base. The single Vertex diffuser is keeping the open water area the same size as the 2 diffusers that came with the unit. I know what I'm going to go with if I ever need another system.