Hi, I am new to this site but am really learning and enjoying reading the posts. Here is what is
going on with my pond in upstate NY.

The facts
I have a 3 year old bottom spring feed pond 165' x 45' and 8' deep3-1 slope . It is close to a creek
but no creek water enters the pond. My drain pipe overflows into the creek. I also have my well
overflow drain into the pond. This overflow causes some aeration. I hooked it up to plastic pipe
and placed it in the pond about 2 feet from shore about 1' deep and it sometimes (often) has air
bubbling out of it. It actually keeps a hole open so the pond does not freeze over in the winter
except for maybe a week or so. It was stocked with 8" Rainbow trout (only 6, 18" left now) in
2003, plus hundreds of minnows and 12channel catfish (haven’t seen them since). This spring I
stocked 2 lbs of golden shiners, 10crappie, 10bluegill, 8LMB and a few koi..
I use the pond for swimming (seldom) and mostly to watch and feed the fish from the house
(about 75' up the hill).

The problem
#1 This April I had 9 18" trout die in three days. Probably my error because I did not ice skate
this year and did not remove the snow. I needed to cut 13 trees down over the pond and drag
them off while it was frozen. The snow helped .
In April I noticed the trout swimming by the hole in the ice often. I thought they were beginning
to get their energy again with the thaw. When the ice melted they started to die. I then started to
get books from the library and research why. Since their mouths and gills were open I concluded
it was an aeration problem. Now after reading many posts about aeration I’m not sure.
#2 Did I mention the Blue heron and the King fishers ?

TheTests
I bought a test kit and here are the numbers. Water taken from shore.
Date Nitrite No2 NitrateNo3 Ammonia PH Oxygen KHardnes
s Time Clarity
Should be >.2mg >12.5mg close to 0 6.5 to 8.5 < 6mg 3 to 10
5/25/05 .3mg 0mg 0mg 7 8mg 4 01:30 PM 2'

Water is cloudy but I can see the bottom from my house in the shallow end.

Solutions wanted
1. Clearer water.
2. Happy healthy fish.

Any suggestions ?
Thanks

1/6 acre pond upstate NY