Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help keeping a pond cool for trout

hey guys quite a few people on this site have said that they think my pond will get to warm for trout to live in though i think it is un likely i have thought of a way to keep the pond cool and i would like some advice on wether it will work or not. the water is well aerated coming into the pond and is 55 degeres so i was thinking of using the stratification of my pond to work to my advantage there is an old spring house submerged in the pond where the water comes in at. i could build it up above the water level with cement blocks and put a liner in it then poke holes in the botom of the liner whitch is almost level with the bottom of the pond then i could run the spring water into the old foundation where it would come out at the bottom of the pond keeping the bottom suplied with cold well aerated water making a survivaable layer of cold water at the bottom of the pond. what do you guys think will this work. thanks

It's not only water temp that kill the trout, it's the amount of dissolved Oxygen in the water too - warmer water can't carry the amount of DO that cool water can. I'd let the spring water trickle and splash into the pond to add Dissolved Oxygen to it.

Good thinking! It might work. There are some other ways, but none of those come anywhere close to fitting into your budget.

thanks esshup its good to hear that from an expert. the water would still be splashing into the pond the spring house used to have the spring water flow directly into it but about 20 years ago for some reason the spring moved about 5ft up hill and flows through a series of small caves so it is not going to make a difference on the amount of disolved oxoygen coming into the pond. It still will be splashing around.

Smpond,I always wanted to build a spring house but probably never will.Was that one built out of quarried limestone?

The spring house was built out of sandstone dug up right beside the spring when the town was first built in the 1800s and was used till the early 1950s. My neighbor used to hate walking for water now he complains about going to the kitchen.

Small Pond,

Any possibility you can increase your flow or tap into some nearby flow?

cecil i have allready dug out the spring to get more water flow and the river next to our house is a sulver creek in other words it flows orange you can see from google earth. but the lucky people halph a mile up river have a bueatful trout stream.

My brother owns a sandstone root cellar. I thought your rocks looked more like limestone. I have built maybe 45 stone fireplaces so I love looking at different rock formations.

i wish it was lime stone but the only thing we have around here is coal and sandstone hence the low ph also im sure your brothers celler is level every thing around here was built with a beer bottle in one hand and a level in the other. ha ha. you must be very talented at what you do building 45 fire places wow.

We lived in Scotish-Irish country so it was a moonshine jug. I have worked on several older homes. I don't think they had levels or tape measures. People that talk about how good older homes are built have either not worked on them or don't know squat about building.

your preaching to the quire aperently last summer the hot place froze over some people bought a draby old shack that only needed a match we thought it would never sell. took them two years to finish for that reason.

If it's iron you may be able to settle it out before it gets to your pond.

cecil did a test the ph of the river is 2.5 definantly not iron also this is an old coal mining town when water goes through coal it does the oposit of lime and makes the water acidic eventualy the rocks and every thing get a slipery orange scum on it.

So nothing can be done to remedy this? Don't you have a state agency that would be interested?

nope likeley nothing can be done except puting the cold water at the botom of the pond. maby i should have mentioned this first the river is 100 ft lower than my pond and 100 yards away so even if the river was clean it would be expenesive to pump that far. they have been working on the river in 2012 the stony creek was pa's number 1 improved river it also has the bigest rapids on the east coast people come from all over the country to white water raft. but the fish will always have one spot where the water comes in at to stay cool they'll survive im sure of but wether ill be able to feed or not in july and august is another ill allways be able to feed a little right.

I thought of another option that I have been told some people with small trout ponds do to keep warming down in the hottest part of the summer. They float that pink or blue 4 X 8 or 5 X8 foam board that you can get at building supply stores around the edges of the pond. Don't use the less dense white foam as it will just saturate or fall apart. You may have to figure out a way to keep it from blowing out though.

I may have to do this myself this summer if we get a repeat of the 100 plus degree days of last summer.

Actually, they make a foam board with an aluminum foil facing. You could fasten boards to the underside of the foam with screws and fender washers to keep the foam from blowing away.

Good idea. However, how sturdy is the foam with the foil facing? I use the pink and blue foam when I build my rbc's and it lasts indefinitely.However other foams disintegrate in the water.

I have never used any foam boards but have seen a ton of it on houses. The most durable types would be for the insulation of basement walls. The silver is made to put on wood walls. If you are in a place that sells it, ask them if they have a small scrap piece.They will as it breaks easily, take it home,then put it in water and see what happens. Wish I knew more but that is the story of my life.

No problem Ken. Thanks for the ideas. I just know just because you can put it on a house doesn't mean it can last in the water. It has to be a high density foam. But I'll check it out. It may work.

I do know you can buy reflective mylar pretty cheap and if there was a way to attach it that would work too.

I can just see it now, "Indiana man jailed for blinding airline pilots over northeastern Indiana."

MYlar is easy to attach with the glue that is used on sheet goods(kitchen floors). They make a bottle with a roller that is much easier then ye ole trowel. I have used it on plastic no hunting signs and it last about 3 years.

Great idea cecil if my pond starts to get to hot ill have to try using the blue sheets of foam to keep the temp down. thanks. tomorow we go to the hatchery to get some big fish ill probably put on some pics.

Don't overstock your pond. You'll regret it. The ammonia and nitrites will kill your fish. Trout are extremely sensitive to ammonia and nitrites and and don't like suspended solids much either from too much fish poop.

I haven't had much coffe this morning, but I have pondered a possibility for seperating "hot and cool air" in aerated systems to only pump the cool air in the water. This would be done with the use of a "Vortex" tube after the pump. We use them at work in high heat locations for our control equipment. Without getting into a long post on how they work, I will send a link, http://www.vortexair.biz/Cooling/VortexCooler/vortexcooler.html
The biggest down fall I can think of is that the compressor would need to be bigger to make up for the lost "hotter" air.

I am not sure what the net temp effect would be, but I will go measure the difference between the hot and cool air discharge so we will know what the difference of air that would be given to fish in the summer. It would be nice if the water was 77 degrees, the air temp was 85, and we could put 70 degree air in, this may give aerated systems a cooling advantage in the summer, but........I need to do some measuring.

Data from Vortex cooler:

Ambient Air Temp: 91.3
"Hot Air" temp dissipated from Vortex : 93.8 (measured @ 1")
"Cool Air" temp discharge from Vortex : 68.3 (measured @ 1")

I haven't measured air volume loss, but from observation, it appears that 1/2 of the air volume is lost in the cooling effect. But the upside is, on hot days you are cooling your air 23 degrees while providing aeration. I think these things cost about $200-250. I could use the hot air discharge and run some coiled air line (50 feet?)coiled in the ground, bring it back up into my compressor cabinet to supply cool air after it has a "geothermal effect"?