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Joined: May 2014
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Newbie here, first post. Thank you in advance for any help provided. We have an old farm pond about 3/4 acre in size. having talked with some of the old timers from the area our best guesstimate on age would be 90 plus years. Many of the old timers can remember swimming in it as kids. I don't believe the pond itself has had any maintenance or dredging. We get the runoff from several neighbors yards but no fields or anything. I believe the depths may be 7-8 feet in the middle. Most the banks have just a slight grade. The last couple years we have had problems with some sort of algae that I have tried to control with copper sulfate and raking. We had a large fish kill about 5 years ago and during that we lost some of the grass carp. Also 3 years ago many of the ponds in central Illinois got duckweed, ours included. I used Sonar to get rid of it. I have attached a couple pictures of the algae we are getting. I have also attached a picture of a rake I made. It is a pretty crude looking think. I used two sections of 1 1/2" PVC, a 5' and 7' sections. I attached the two sections with a "T" then drilled holes every 6-7" in the 5' section. I then used 1/4" carriage bolts 8" long as the tines. I also used several strands of wire twisted together to stabilize each end of the "rake to the handle. Since most the algae I was trying to collect was floating I also taped foam pipe insulation to the 5' section. I then used a 20-25' rope to toss out and retrieve. This seemed to work pretty good along the edges but still left the center. Which as we speak I am making a different type rake I can pull across the pond. I will post pictures after I have tried it to see if it is successful. I am also thinking of ordering a rake online and wondered what one is best. With the algae I didn't know if I may need the razor rake to clean the bottom. Sorry if this seems scrambled just trying to give as much info as possible. We are located on the west side of Lake Shelbyville south of Findlay for anyone that may know the area. Thank you for any info or help provided. Take care, Shooter


[img:center][img]http://s131.photobucket.com/user/shooter1951/media/Pond/DSCN8383.jpg.html?sort=3&o=8[/img][/img] [img]http://s131.photobucket.com/user/shooter1951/media/Pond/DSCN8387.jpg.html?sort=3&o=4[/img] [img]http://s131.photobucket.com/user/shooter1951/media/Pond/DSCN8388.jpg.html?sort=3&o=3[/img] [img]http://s131.photobucket.com/user/shooter1951/media/Pond/DSCN8383.jpg.html?sort=3&o=8[/img] [img]http://s131.photobucket.com/user/shooter1951/media/Pond/DSCN8391.jpg.html?sort=3&o=0[/img]

Last edited by shooter1951; 07/03/14 05:05 PM.
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From your pictures, and the age of the pond, IMO you should start thinking of draining and rebuilding the pond in the future. Ponds without proper maintenance prematurely age and accumulate thick mucky sediments resulting in a hypereutrophic pond that constantly has weed problems. From there the aging process keeps progressing toward the swamp wetlands stage. Long term budget should include pond rebuilding, deepening, steepen the banks, and starting over. Rebuilt pond can be downsized to reduce cost. I rebuilt mine when it was 40 yrs old and not as bad on condition as what your pond looks.


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Bill thank you for your response. You are right in that it definitely needs rebuilt. I am kind of in the same situation as a previous post in that I hate to drain completely and end up killing everything. Thinking of doing the draining down to a certain level and digging out. Along the subject of algae I did build a rake I am experimenting with this week-end to pull with the garden tractor. So far I have not injured myself or others so I kind of consider it a success. I am able to collect quite a large amount of algae with each pull and can see some improvement. We are thinking of downsizing and moving in the next year or so but as you said it does need drained. Thanks again Bill.

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Often draining and killing everything is the very best way to quickly renovate a pond and get back toward the best path or goal. Often when a pond is drained there are not nearly as many good big fish as one thought there would be. Proper restocking and providing ample food for the now balanced fish community can result if very fast growing fish. Plus the weed algae plant mass problems are less and annual heavy or frequent additions of herbicides are not needed which is a cost savings.


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Thanks Bill. It may be best to just start over. About 4 years ago we had a big fish kill. Not sure what caused it if it was the heat or whatever. There were several other ponds in the area that had the same thing happen. I pulled out several gunny sacks full of fish. We lost quite a bit of bass in the 14-18" range. Also some nice looking bluegill. Along with 4 grass carp in the 24" range. We have tons of turtles. We live close to a couple campgrounds around Lake Shelbyville so we get alot of golf cart traffic. Besides the turtles we also have a bunch of bullfrogs. At night we get people stopping all the time to listen to them, their sound can put you to sleep. Anyway may be time to seriously think about draining it this fall.

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Not to be putting words into Bills mouth here but, what I gather from his statements is.... That there is so much nutrients in the pond that if you were to just kill off the living plants it will start over again next year.

The nutrient mass should be removed from the pond to give you years of nutrient build up again with clear water.

Cheers Don.


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If you are going to be moving within a couple years then I would use weed algae treatments. Note the next owner may want a property price discount if they have to renovate the pond at their expense.


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