Greetings Pondmeisters!

Here is my situation: I am a newbie that has read a fair amount of the material on Pond Boss AND I subscribe. I have much yet to learn! My pond is approximately one acre that is about two years old. I had the shallow end dug out last fall (again). This combined with the incredible drought of the past two years had me with a lot of bare red ground (weathered shale I'm told) and thus some pretty turbid water. I have a two diffuser Vertex system in place running twenty four/ seven.

I fertilized the first year and had really nice water. last year I didn't and had some FA issues. This year we have had double the annual rainfall so far and very turbid water. I now have a very good stand of Bermuda most everywhere but still some runoff but its much better. I didn't have too much of an FA problem when the water was extremely turbid. On July 13 I added some polymer logs in an attempt to remedy the turbidity and the water color has changed from a red curry to a brown tea color. My water is very hard and quite alkaline (9). This is why I avoided the Alum.


As fast as the water cleared I had an explosion of FA and have floating mats on perhaps twenty percent of the pond (I know it got ahead of me!). I have acquired some Cutrine plus liquid and plan to spray the FA this week after the rain chances have passed. I am also raking out as much of the stuff as I can reach. I applied one application of the Cutrine Plus couple of weeks ago and it seemed to work. We had another big rain and the FA returned. I tried to fertilize in there and I am fearful I am now making all of this worse.

By happenstance I discovered a local company offering pond management services and called them out to just check them out since I am a complete neophyte. I am unsure what to make of what I heard from them. First, they have no formal training in aquatics or biology (not necessarily a death blow). And they tell me that they manage over five hundred ponds and consider themselves the foremost expert in Oklahoma. Clearly they have some experience and like to share that as a sales pitch.
Here are the red flags: they don't believe fertilizing is necessary. FA isn't bad as long as it sinks and cover the bottom to help with underwater vegetation. Big bully bluegill are bad. Cull these guys out they say.

I didn't ask them to manage my fish just consult with me to balance fertilization and FA control. Even with my limited knowledge and understanding these seem to be incongruent with my reading. Furthermore, I think their pond management scheme is really more about eye appeal to the pond owner than ideal fish environment. I conclude this from their sales strategy (selling tranquility). Their plan is essentially to use Aquashade and Copper Sulphate products. I'm sure they are great guys and not meaning to appear to say anything negative about them. It's just that at the price tag and from what I am hearing this has me thinking that in the end I'm better of doing this myself even though I don't know what I am doing. What's the experienced opinion?

By the way, I have stocked pellet trained HSB, CBG, Northern LMB and a feeder. My fish appear robust and full of vigor at feeding time.