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I was planning on digging a tiny pond and was wondering if anybody had any pics of any ponds less than a 1/4 acre in size. Id like to get some ideas. Can you stock fish in a pond this small?

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Welcome to mini-pondville, Bobby. You can absolutely have a pond smaller than 1/4 acre and put fish into a pond this size as well. We are having fun with ours - landscaping, feeding our fish every day, walking around it, swimming hole for neices and nephews, watching frogs, and on and on. I see you have been registered since 2010 so you probably know much of this, but if not here are a couple of things:

Subscribe to PondBoss. It is full of great information and helps to fund this forum, where you will find great advice and even better friends.

Figure out your goals first, and then many of the answers and advice will filter in. Do you want to swim in it, fish it, both or neither. Post your goals here along with an idea of what you have done so far. I am told that a small pond will struggle to grow monster fish, but I may try to challenge that theory once I get more of the fun landscaping done. What type of soil do you have? What does the terrain look like? Pictures and topos are good.

Here is our puddle - a little bigger than 80' x 60'. I am not sure I would call it neat, but it is ours.




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Pond Boss in every issue has an article about the Mini-pond. Small pond owners should subscribe. Fishes in a mini-pond can grow to larger sizes. One of the "tricks" is to use individuals that feed on fish pellets, and the second trick is choose species that do not spawn. Non-spawning reprductively active fish would be stocking all male or all females. Some fish will not spawn (HSB) or those that produce few offspring RES or HBG. A third "trick" is to keep the numbers low by heavy harvest of offspring or preventing spawning. Too many individuals results in less food and slower growth.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/21/12 08:43 PM.

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Here's a friend of mines that is about 1/8 acre. You can see the water fall in the first picture on the left. He has a neoprene liner in it. The picture doesn't do it justice.





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bobby 5,
I was exactly where you were a little over a year ago. I spent weeks, hour after hour pouring over every resource I could find on small ponds. Again and again I found that the real world experience of the folks on this forum were the ones with the answers.

With no past experience I rented the equipment and started in with test holes. A month later we officially broke ground. Two months later the lining was compacted in place and the filling began. Ours is almost exactly 1/10th. acre in surface area.

Now 14 months later we have put our first summer of playing in the water in the reveiw mirror. Once the saturated the pond filled, held and continues to out perform many neighboring ponds that are much older and larger.

Around two months ago we added RBT (no other fish other than FH were ever added). The trout are already growing many times faster than I had expected and to my knowledge only one has gone belly up. Feeding time has become my favorite time of the day. I will post pics later but been up for hours working our smoked bird for the family.

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Oh my, yes you can do a lot with what Bob Lusk calls a 'mini-pond.' For as far back as I know, Bob has had an article in every Pond Boss Magazine called "Managing the Mini-Pond.' Over the years we've had some incredible successes reported here on the forum and in the magazine regarding mini-ponds.

I'm glad Victor posted. I'm not sure what size pond that 'Adirondack Pond' has, but even if it isn't a mini-pond, the features would be beautiful for one. Maybe if he sees this, he could post links to photos of what he has done. And, people like our good friend Cecil Baird grows monster trophy fish in mini-ponds. Maybe he could post a link to photos of his back yard, also showing his beautiful home.


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I'll be going the "Mini Specific" pond rout also. Largest one will be 30' x 80' x 8' deep. EPDM liners will be required.

It was a bummer to find out the water table receded to about 17' after many years of "don't poke a stick in the ground or it might just squirt you in the eye". I have an idea of what caused the change.

Plans for the front pond of about 1.5 acres are not looking realistic at all frown

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I have one 1/10th acre trout pond, and two similar size ponds to produce fish fry -- either smallmouth bass, yellow perch, or bluegill.

For a trout pond the 1/10 acre steep sided pond is the perfect size to keep water temps low enough to grow trophy size trout year around while running in 45 gpm of well water, but also have enough area to play them on a rod and reel when it's time to take them out.

I'd post pics but photobucket is giving me fits with their new beta format, and although I was able to go to the old default format briefly they have blocked me out again. mad It's probably my old computer that can't handle it. I hope to get a newer hand me down from the wife soon.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 11/22/12 07:38 PM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: JKB


It was a bummer to find out the water table receded to about 17' after many years of "don't poke a stick in the ground or it might just squirt you in the eye". I have an idea of what caused the change.



Someone using a lot of water in your area in conjunction with the drought?

John Nelski said his aquifer is actually higher by a foot or two due to the Great Lakes being up.

Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 11/22/12 07:40 PM.

If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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Originally Posted By: Cecil Baird1
Originally Posted By: JKB


It was a bummer to find out the water table receded to about 17' after many years of "don't poke a stick in the ground or it might just squirt you in the eye". I have an idea of what caused the change.



Someone using a lot of water in your area in conjunction with the drought?

John Nelski said his aquifer is actually higher by a foot or two due to the Great Lakes being up.


If you cross the street and go about 500 feet or so south. It slopes down, maybe 150-200 feet to the Muskegon River.

Just over two years ago there was some excavation on this slope to terrace it off for building. You could see a stream of ground water flowing. It washed out the road they built pretty bad. They quit digging after that. Never built anything and made a big mess.

What I was able to find out is that our ground water natural drain is where they were digging.

It's been dry as a bone since then. Only a couple feet of ground water about 17' then it's 175 or so feet of clay till you hit water again.

People with full basements are really happy!!! My dad's sump pumps haven't run since then.

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What a shame!


If pigs could fly bacon would be harder to come by and there would be a lot of damaged trees.






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bobby5 Offline OP
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my pond would be close to the woods. There probably would be alot of leaves get in it during the fall. Would this cause a problem or is there anyway to prevent the leaves producing muck in the bottom?


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