I need some help figuring out what this vegetation is that is in my pond? We usually get it every year during the summer and it will cover anywhere from 30% to 80% of the pond. My question is will grass carp eat this? and if not what can I use to treat it? I also don't know if they are two different types of vegetation. Any help would be greatly appreciated
Thanks for the reply and I looked up some pictures online that's what it looks like to me. I read on here somewhere that american pondweed is somewhat beneficial as long as it's controlled is this right? What about the coontail? My goals are to grow some nice bass and bluegill nothing trophy size just fun fishing. I also want to be able to swim in it. the pond is between 1/8 and 1/4 acre in size
I think you could have 'floating pondweed' in the first picture and one of the species of milfoil probably Eurasian milfoil; there are several species. Second picture does have leaves similar to American pondweed. Some ponds/lakes can have two or more species of pondweed. Better pictures will help identify the plants. Kelly Duffie will be most familiar with pond weeds from TX.
If you can, take a single strand of that 2nd plant and take a close up picture of it in a shallow glass pan, with a white piece of paper under the pan. The water will allow the leaves to spread out a bit to give us more detail.
Also, see if you can take another stem and cut the stem above and below the "leaves". Float that in the pan so we can get a good look at it. Something like this:
Without a clearer picture I can't tell if your 2nd plant is coontail or milfoil, although I'm leaning towards coontail.
Picture 1 & 3jpg is of the seed head. It could be American Pondweed or Floating pondweed. Practically all the pondweeds are controlled by the same proper herbicide based on label recommendations. Individual seeds need to be examined for a specie identification. For pictures 4 & 5 it is definitely coontail not milfoil.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/01/1410:37 AM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
here is another picture I took earlier. So an update I got bored last night and since the vegetation I have only takes up 40% percent I got a rake and started dragging it in and cleaning it up. I clean it up a lot but I still left a little maybe 10 or 15%. Then we got a 1.25" rain last night and it looked a 100 times better when I went out there. Also before today the last time I had even see fish was about a year ago I would see frogs but no fish to my surprise today I walked down there and there were maybe 50 or 60 small bluegill everywhere and probably 3 or 4 bass. I even got the pleasure to see a bass eat a really small bluegill.
I agree on Bill's ID of Coontail, and Bill's comment of "Practically all the pondweeds are controlled by the same proper herbicide based on label recommendations."