Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site How big pond for raising trout

Hi all, I am a newbie here and thing to buy some land to build a pond. What is the decent size of pond for this purpose. Maybe like 2 acres will do the job or I need something bigger.
Thanks

"It all depends." (A vary famous quote from a vary famous pondmeister that frequents this site by the name of Bill Cody)

Will your pond naturally not exceed 68 F. in the summer with sufficient oxygen? Doesn't matter how cool your water is below the surface due to stratification, as that water may very well be too low in oxygen.

However depending on what elevation you are at in Colorado perhaps that is not an issue? Perhaps the pond will stay cool naturally all summer?

For me a 1/10th acre pond is perfect because I have to run well water into it 24/7 in the summer to keep the water cool enough and metabolites flushed. If my pond was larger it would take more flow. So smaller is better for me.

Size of the pond has no bearing on the growth rates and ultimate size of the fish if you are feeding them. If you are not feeding a larger size can allow a larger carrying capacity.

Thank you for the quick response. The elevation is going to be something around 7000-7500 feet and there is some trout in the surrounding areas with the similar low and high temps/climate.
I will make a pump/bubbler for circulation and for adding oxygen and I am planning to supply it from well to avoid a damage from flood.
What is the standard or the most common size to make efficient pond with low cost and low maintenance for this purpose.
Do I need 5 or 10 acres land for 2-4 acres pond?
Is there any ratio between the land and the pond. I mean to be not so close from the neightbours

Good questions but typically watershed ponds get too warm for trout at lower elevations so I can't answer your question on how it would effect you at your altitude.

Keep in mind there is less oxygen saturation at higher elevations. It may not be an issue though.

Are the trout that are local also in ponds?

Also keep in mind that a bubbler/circulator can work against you if the water temps are marginal in the hottest part of the summer.

OTOH i used to shut my diffuser off during the day in my trout pond due to the fear it would warm the water too much. Turns out those fears were unfounded. This only brought up temps a couple of degrees and even then temps in the entire column stayed at a uniform 62 F. max in the hottest part of the summer.

However my pond is small, has, steep banks, and a small surface area in ratio with the depth. One could have issues with a pond with a larger surface area and less slope as too warm of water.

Make sure your banks as steep as possible to reduce warming. It will also reduce nuisance aquatic plants.

Here is the pond. It presently has about 100 brook trout in the 4 to 5 lb. range. Plenty big enough for and and reel fun.

Pic taken just after ice out a few years ago. You don't need a huge pond!

Cecil, tell him why, how much and how often you put water into your pond and what would happen if you didn't.

Scott,

Now that I have up to about 500 lbs. of trout in the pond I run the well pump 24/7 up until harvest to avoid any possible ammonia issues. However last fall I shut the well down when the fish load was half of what it is now and never did detect any ammonia or nitrite readings even with continuous feeding.

My last group of fish I had some morts and fish with problems after I shut down the well in the fall and came to the conclusion that it was water quality related or parasites increasing. I didn't have any experience testing for ammonia and nitrites at the time. Something I picked up after setting up the RAS tanks.

If the trout are just planted at 6 to 8 inches I crank up the well later in the spring and shut it down earlier in the fall to conserve electrical costs.

There is a possibility if I shut the well down and the water clears in the fall (due to the iron settling) there is a higher likelihood of males fighting, which I don't want. They are more likely to be more terretorial if they can see each other better.

I had issues like this with some of the last group of brook trout after I shut the well down. Looks like some kind of protozoan parasite irritating the skin to me. A salt dip seemed to have made the fish much better. One trout farmer I showed the picture to thought it might be from fighting. And it was to much a PITA to get a live fish to Purdue.

I did some math and along with your advises concluded to around 2 acres pond with a round shape and deep as possible to avoid the heat and to minimize the evaporation. It need to be in area w/o or almost zero wind and the water never to exceeds 68F.
Thank you folks and I will upload pictures some day hopefully my dream will come true.

Cecil, Im sure youve post this somewhere before, but could you tell me how much water per minute your pumping into your trout pond in order to keep the temps that low year round?

The well pump is rated at 45 gpm. However I put a meter on the external pipe and it said 41 gpm. Not sure how accurate it was though as it wasn't anything too sophisticated.

I've estimated pond volume is about 100,000 gallons. 41 gpm X 60 is 2460 gph and times 24 hrs. comes out to 59,040 gpd. So approximately a 59 percent influx of fresh water per day. I could say 59 percent water exchange per day but according to one source that's not really true as that would mean that exactly the same amount of old water leaves as new water comes in instead of mixing. Of course we know that doesn't happen.

Trout culture in the U.S. is mostly stuck on concrete raceways at cc of about 50 lbs. per gpm of flow. However I found an earthen pond publication from England that say capacity
for earthen ponds is about 12 lbs. per gpm of flow. So if I go with that I shouldn't exceed about 500 lbs. of trout upon final harvest.

If you're interested in doing this for yourself or a client let me know. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Been doing this for at least 10 years!

If you have the ground water a small trout pond overflowing into a larger pond would be a great way to keep the big pond topped off in the summer and have another specie or species of fish to catch.

Using the overflow for the big pond is what I'm pondering, along with the benefits of the trout pond as a bonus. I have a well that is estimated at 112 gal/min, but only pump 32 gal/min as I am limited to a 1" water line at this time. The pump more than keeps up with evaporation on my 3 acre pond. Any idea if 32 gal/min would be suffient in a similiar size pond as yours? Im just trying to get an idea of how much money I may be looking at to make this happen.

I think it would be neat to have a small rock stream flowing from the small pond into the larger one. Obviously Id have to figure out a way to stop the fish from moving between ponds.

It might be sufficient. My water doesn't get above 62 in the entire water column in the hottest part of the summer even wirh the diffuser running 24/7. One could probably get up to 65 with no issues with rainbows or browns. The thing to keep in mind is once the sun goes down the water ceases to warm.

You could make your pond a little bit smaller if you wanted to play it safe. I could cut my pond size down a third and still have plenty of room to fish.

Do you have iron in your water? If so how much?

I have about 2.5 mg/l and it does no harm to the fish but does discolor the water to a smokey brown/green when the well is running. The pond is just big enough to settle out a lot of the iron to 0.4 mg/l. If it was much smaller or the iron was much higher the water would be a brown color. I ran well water into a 25 by 25 pit once. The water was ugly brown from the precipitated iron.

You're welcome to come up anytime to take a look.

Did you hear that Scott? I know you have seepage issues but 3 acres!

Not difficult. My overflow(s) from the trout pond have a screen that slips over the pipe made out of the same plastic mesh cages are made of. I have extra here you could have.

Where the water flows in from the trout pond to my big pond I pull the flexible irrigation pipe up above the water and stake it back. Since it's lower than the exit point of the trout pond it flows up and out into the big pond. Fish would have to junp up three feet to get in and even then You could put a screen over that pipe.

Since you're a landscaper can you elevate the trout pond and builf a waterfall for the exit?

One of the outlets of the trout pond with the tubular screen.

One of my outlets goes to to the biggest pond at a lower elevation. Another on the other side of the pond goes under ground to the highway ditch. Which one I use depends on whether I want to top off the big pond or bypass it.

Other end at discharge into the big pond:

Yep! With my pond a foot higher than what it is now, I estimated leakage loss to be 18 gpm, and at least double (maybe triple) that at full pool if the groundwater level was still low. Reason for that is the bottom of the pond would increase by approx. 3x the amount that it is now, plus there would be approx 2 psi more pressure on the leaks.

Cecil, I think that people could get by with higher water temps than 65°F if they could keep their O2 levels at or near saturation. I fyke netted Golden Rainbows from a clients pond with water temps in the mid 70's and the pond at saturation level with regards to O2. Pond is only 7' deep max. 3 diffuser stations, each with 2 Vertex diffuser discs, and a Kasco surface agitator were running 24/7. No well water was being pumped into the pond. As far as I know, the last trout was caught with water temps approaching 80°F. Pond is slightly larger thean 3/4 ac.

No doubt but that seems like a lot trouble and at some point once that water remains well above optimum you will run into problems from stress and bacterial infections. The immune system of a trout has not evolved to work optimally at those temps. * If it was as easy as cranking up the air, trout farms would be doing it to save on water use.

My first year when I had planted trout into the big pond where there was no incoming well water, by May they had stationed themselves next to the diffuser bubbles but at some point that just wasn't enough and they croaked.

*I did read about a strain of rainbow in Nevada that has evolved to handle 80 degree water.

You must be reading my mind on the water fall Cecil... We actually had one planned initially, but the pond turned out to be a big enough project in itself. You've really got my wheels turning on this trout pond .

The trout pond has been a lot of fun and even a money maker as I hope to gross 5 to 8 grand from the big brook trout sales to taxidermists this fall. It may be the last year for raising them outdoors though as I want to build a pole building and bring them indoors to a partial recirculating system to conserve water, reduce power consumption, and increase the quantity and species. If I do that I will hatch my own eggs to get complete control. I've found a place in Utah that ships eggs of several species including tiger trout and triploids of several species.

I'll probably use the pond to hold male yellow perch and female bluegill broodstock.

Cecil, thats a pretty good gross on a 1/10 of an acre! Sounds like quite the indoor setup and the type of control you could have would be well worth your efforts it sounds like. How big of a pole building are you looking to build?

Not exactly sure yet as I am still working on tank sizes and placement.

My systems will be run entirely on air (airlifts) and I'll use Intex pools for tanks to save money. We have shrimp producers in Indiana that have been using them indoors with no issues.

I will have to have most of the vertical riser tubes under ground level to eliminate lift to each tank and maximize flow. And each tank will have a center drain also under ground. If I do it right I should be able to run the system on very low wattage. The Belgians are moving 66 gpm of water in their koi ponds on 10 watts of electricity using air lifts and air only. They use 20 lpm air pumps that are rated at 10 watts. If I can get by on 10 watts for each 15 foot diameter tank that will be an incredible savings vs. water pumps.

I've already had some experience with an airlift with my summer aquaponics system. The best part is they can be easily built.