Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Natural Swimming Pool within a fish pond

Hi Everyone,

New to the forum and I did search. I found a post by Robert Carter and some pics of his pond with a swimming pool on one end, which is close but not exactly what I have in mind.

My property is 3.6 acres, 400 x 300 feet, fairly level, heavily treed. Trying to get the lot next door to increase my land size to 6-7 acres but that's still only 500 x 700 feet. Lakefront is very expensive so I want to build my own pond and stock LMB and trout but the max pond size would be 200 x 200 feet (around 1 acre), maybe even less depending on whether I can get the other lot or not. The pond is just at the planning stage but I figure if the equipment is here digging the foundation, they might as well dig my pool/pond at the same time.

I'm absolutely fascinated by "natural swimming pools". Invented in Austria 25 years ago these pools have a marsh area either on the sides of the pool or are located at the end of the pool. Water gets sucked in from under this marsh area and pumped up into the pool. No chlorine and clear water if the pond is aerated properly and the marsh is done right. Lots of info from England, South Africa and Australia but these natural swimming pools are not too common here in Canada.

The natural swimming pool would be one part of the pond, with a marsh area at the end and then a big pond for the fish. Think of a figure 8 with the middle area being the marsh area and one circle being the pool and the other one a fish pond. That's kind of my idea for now. The fish pond would have to have liner and be aerated and pretty deep if I wanted trout but since this is cutting edge stuff, I wanted to post to this forum to see if anyone has any ideas on how to integrate a natural swimming pool with a fish pond.

Thanking you all for your help in advance.

Kind Regards,

Robert B.

As a starting point, swimming ponds are all about water quality and lower nutrient budgets which are the purpose or function of the wetlands-marsh. Expect a liner to accumulate organic sediments due to life processes in the pond and in your case maybe lots of tree leaf inputs. Tree leaf inputs will be the big weak link in your pond ecosystem. Depenidng of the species of trees the leaves will decompose at different rates due to temperature of the water and amount of DO present. Bottom aeration will help. Ambient summer air temps will a big determining factor if trout will survive in your pond. Consider smallmouth bass instead of LMB. They will likely thrive better in your cooler water than LMB.

Hi Bill,

Thank you for taking the time to respond to me and give me some great ideas. After you mentioned SMB, I looked on our Department of Natural Resources (DNR) webpage and contacted some local bass fishing clubs. They said that the DNR considers SMB an invasive species even though they are everywhere and that LMB would be outlawed for sure (we don't have any at all in Nova Scotia). They suggested trout for my pond/natural swimming pool. I never thought about the trees being a problem so thank you for pointing that out.

Then I started questioning whether to pond or not. I love a lake and have always wanted to retire and spend my whole day fishing on the lake catching something to eat. My own lake would even allow me to bring beers with me while fishing. Ahh, now that's heaven... beer battered fish tastes great.

So, to get anything that looks like a lake, I need at least 2 or 3 acres of pond, which means I may have to buy the property down the street (6 acres for sale less than a mile away). Then I started looking at the food productivity of a pond and am pretty shocked how little food a pond can actually produce. I mean a 1 acre piece of land will easily produce 1,000 lbs of vegetables per year. Using that same 1 acre piece of land to raise geese, will allow 30-40 geese at 25 lbs each. That's 750 lbs of geese or probably 400 lbs of meat a year. However, a 1 acre pond will only produce 100 lbs of SMB a year unless you can eat some of the forage fish, which for SMB would be YP or fat minnows from what I'm reading. I also thought about adding crawfish and stocking trout and SMB together but even if you could somehow turn a 1 acre pond into a serious aqua food producer, I doubt that you could get more than 300 lbs of fish out of that acre per year. That seems low to me and then there's the cost of building a 2 acre pond. Might just be better to buy a lakefront property but then I have to leave my beer at home.

Am I missing something or is a pond not that productive?

Thanks again for your help.

Kind Regards,

Robert B.

Robert, I think you have pretty well nailed down the economics. Ponds are not serious food producers and none of us really try to justify them from an economic standpoint. It's about like having kids, dogs and vehicles that are more than just a ride.

Most of us enjoy the challenge of managing our own body of water and the ability of making out own rules(beer) regarding the enjoyment of the resource.

BTW, retirement is over rated.

Hi Robert, and welcome to pond boss.

I too have been reading alot about and preparing my pond to be of similar mind as yours as far as food production. I was very suprised also that it is hard to get it to produce more. I am still getting all my thoughts in order, so with the help of everyone here, I am going to give it a shot and come up with my own plan soon. I will probably compromise somewhere between a food source and some plain old fun.

I believe Ewest,Esshup or someone had refered me to a few older posts that stated the best fish for food production were CC and HSB. Leave everything else out. There might have been a third one in that mix. These were fish that take to feeding easily, so you could push more pounds through the pond system.

Edit: I remember now. The third fish was Tilapia. You are in a colder area, so you may not benefit as much for a food source because of the shorter season for them. My post with some discusion towards a food source is Sotcking Options

Cecil Baird1 may have some input for this topic. If your pond will have the correct temperatures - raise trout. You can easily raise as many trout per acre as vegetables per year and definately more than geese. Grazers can easily overgraze the pasture. All you have to do is feed them as you would vegetables (fertilizer), pigs, or geese. The more pounds that you raise the more waste/manure that is produced same as with other animals. You have to be prepared for that and the associated lower water quality issues in high production ecosystems - i.e. feed lots. With the pond you can feed less and get less with significantly better water quality. Well water flows into a small pond helps tremendously to maintain higher water quality and cooler temps for trout. With flow through systems one can easily grow 2000 lbs of trout/ac. Cecil may share some info of what he has done with trout in a 0.1ac pond.

Trout would be the way to go for maximum pounds. You can get a conversion of at least two pounds of dry feed per pound of trout if you don't overfeed, maybe even better.

Your carrying capacity depends on the volume of your pond, and if you use ground water flow, the gallons per minute. Although raceways can produce 50 lbs of trout per gpm and beyond -- from my experience no more than 12 lbs. per gpm is advised in an earthen pond.

In an earthen pond that's stays cool enough in the summer but has no flow through -- and is fed pellets -- you will be limited on your carrying capacity. More capacity with flow through.

I have no knowledge of the concept you speak of when you refer to "natural swimming pools." If you could provide link(s) I would be interested in reading up on them.

If you have access to ground water flow for at least part of the summer, and your pond is small enough You can enjoy harvesting 500 lbs. per year as I do. You will need an overflow too.


My pond is 1/10th acre; 59 by 88 feet; max depth 9 feet, almost circular and steep sided, and has an overflow which either goes to another much bigger pond that overflows into a highway ditch, or directly via an alternate route directly to the highway ditch.

My flow from a well is 45 gpm from April to October. You might be able to shorten that time frame quite a bit at your latitude, but be aware that it's not just about cooling the water, but also diluting suspended solids and ammonia and nitrites.

500 lbs. of trout per year is a lot of trout to eat. You could go less and still have a trout for the pan every now and them.

BTW pellet fed trout do grow fast. Up to 1.5 inches per month with optimum water temp and quality.

Cecil Baird1 is our trout expert. Heed his advice he has quite a bit of experience and great success with trout in a small flow through pond.

I stocked RBT that averaged 2# each in my pond last October, fed them pellets all winter long, and some were 7# by the end of June. 50 trout stocked (100#), 50# of pellets fed per month. Other fish in the pond too, so not sure if only the trout were eating the pellets.

Hello All,

Thank you all for the many responses. I've since done more research and as long as I stock only speckled trout, then I can build away and don't need any permits. Any kind of bass or crayfish is illegal and not importable into Nova Scotia. RBT also require a permit and pond inspection.

Does anyone know if YP and trout can be raised in the same pond? YP taste great and I was thinking of fishing some locally and just putting them in the pond. I will look for YP that are not diseased at all.

Cecil, I saw pictures of your pond in another post, saw the 5 gallon buckets you used to aerate the water and read that whole post. I'm amazed at how big the trout get and how small your pond is. You have a well but my land is at the top of a big, flat hill and all around are small lakes so no spring is available to fill my pond. That's why I need to make it big and deep. Oh, I could fish locally but then I'd get too much mercury and so pond fish should be safer to eat.

My idea still revolves around making a kind of do-all wonder pond so that I can do it all: relax, fish, swim and grow a healthy food source. Most ponds are dug with steep sides to keep the grasses and predators out but then the bottom of the pond slowly fills up with mud. A natural swimming pool uses a shallow marsh area, flat bottom with sand or nothing at all and sucks water in from the gravel under the marsh area and pumps that water into the main pool area. They can also use UV lights, skimmers and other elements of a swimming pool to keep the water very clean, which is what trout need anyway. Trout need cold water but that would be too cold to swim in so then I thought of using a marsh area to have 2 separate ponds, with the swimming pool part heated with solar heating. There is a pretty good overview of NSP in wikipedia, including pics here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_pool

The other issue I have that my land is longer east-west than north-south, which is the way the wind tends to blow, but the pond is supposed to be dug in the direction of the wind to help with aeration and stratification.

I will send pics of my pond when I'm done but it looks like I will need to hire a pond expert and natural pool designer to get my pond to do what I want.

Best Regards,

Robert B.

Robert:

I'll let Cecil expound on the answer, but yes, YP and trout can be in the same pond.

As for aeration, it sounds like you will have electricity near the pond, so a bottom diffuser aeration system could be used in your pond for aeration.

The steepness of the pond sides don't have anything to do with the amount of muck build-up. All natural ponds start to slowly fill in as soon as they are built. Organic material filters down to the bottom (leaves, grass, etc.) and the bacteria starts to break the organics down. The only way to keep muck from building up on the bottom over the years is to dig or pump it out. No pond will keep it's bottom as clean as the day that it was dug without mechanical removal of the build-up.

Are you allowed to stock yellow perch? In Maine it's considered an invasive species. That's not the case in your province?



Number one, my well is at the highest point of my property with no problems. In fact I did it that way so I could run well water via gravity to any pond I wish.

Number two, the mercury thing is purposely overstated to be on the safe side according to the unbiased articles I have seen. It's also a natural element in the environment. I posted an article here somewhere to that effect. Basically the jest of the article is you'd have to consume fish on a daily basis three times a day for a long period of time to have concerns. The guidelines for pregnant women is overinflated drastically to be on the safe side too. I'll see if i can find the article I posted and post it in this thread.




Are you sure your prevailing wind is not west/east? I was under the impression it was that way for most of North American. I do know our weather systems tend to move from west to east.



Good luck and keep us posted!

Here's the link to the article and discussion on mercury. To me it's non issue unless you eat nothing but fish three times a day for an extend period of time. God would that get old!

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...=true#Post64150

I am wondering where those land produce numbers come in for various things to raise on once acre.

How much food needs to be brought in to produce that weight for example? How much does it cost per pound on harvest type? Fencing, pest control, gathering ability vs. time (example Fall harvest vs. all year).

A pond can produce fresh food all year, as long as you can get through the ice. So can other critters such as livestock, but require a lot more support equipment.

What's really cool is the massive increase in production by using water rich in nitrates vs. just bare ground as in Aquaponics. As a general rule you can grow 7 times the surface area of plants as your fish water surface area if you use raft culture (plants enbedded in floating foam board).

So if you had a square meter tank of fish you can grow 7 square meters of vegtebles along with the fish. A greenhouse for year around production would be the way to go.

Surf and Turf!

However you won't get the significant nitrates and nutrients needed in a normal pond as there are many other plants and natural processes that are already utilizing it and breaking it down.

I'm totally agree with you.You'r 100% good here that however you won't get the significant nitrates and nutrients needed in a normal pond as there are many other plants and natural processes that are already utilizing it and breaking it down.

Well natural pools are great choice to shift them to ponds because they look beautiful in the garden. Could you please share some photos of your natural pool.