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I took the plunge. Have been thinking about building a very small pond to raise some FHM and RES to help stock various older ponds I have been cleaning out and a few more I might get to some day. Well I jumped on the dozer yesterday and there is a hole in the ground now. (I know Bill Cody, equipment operators dig holes, pond builders build ponds LOL. Well I'm neither grin , so we will see if it ends up being a pond or a hole in the ground. grin laugh

The other fish seem fairly easy to get out of my main pond to stock the other ponds, but the RES are harder and the FHM will be gone out of my main pond in another year (probably).

Probably not a practical idea. Probably better to just buy the fish I need. But who says a hobby needs to be practical. Matter of fact is, I just wanted to do it, so I did it. The experience is the main goal more than the fish anyway. I just want to see if I can do it. Raising fish is pretty new to me and kind of exciting for the time being.

It is awfully small. Roughly 60x45 feet which is only about 1/20 acre. Will get a better measurement later. I did not want it great big because am planning on using a pump to lower water if I ever want to seine it. Thinking mostly will use traps to get the fish I want out when needed. I was able to trap a bunch of FHM (probably 5 or 6 pounds) out of my main pond the other day pretty easily. Guessing depth at 8' but will get the laser out later today to get the water level set, overflow level and dam level established later today so will check it for sure then. Hopefully will have all but the finish work and seeding done by evening today.

It is adjacent to my main pond. I had some extra room that was only going to be a mowing job anyway as the area was not useful for much else. I have room to make the forage pond bigger but thought about putting a cabin for guests someday in the same area adjacent to it so did not want to take all the area up. Also since am planning on using a pump to remove water did not want to get the water capacity too big.

This may not be a well thought out plan eek , although have been thinking about doing this for most of a year now. Nothing new there. Any suggestions (even discouraging ones) are welcome. Have read several of the older threads about forage ponds for ideas.

Pics below.

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Last edited by snrub; 03/30/14 10:33 AM.

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Great project snrub! I'll be watching this thread for information as I've been considering doing something similar. Wonder how much forage you can raise in a pond that small? Id be using mine to raise FH and GSH. Thanks for posting...

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Shape it like a paint roller tray. (bottom and side contours)


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It appears you've got some decent clay soil so it should hold water - maybe well. It looks like a good job for a minnow pond. If fertilized and/or minnow feeding you could raise maybe 50 lbs of minnows per year. At $5.00/ lb that is around $250/yr. Multi-species of minnows feeding in different niches could increase the annual production. Aeration (RC51 style) would help. If it gets lots of algae or weeds which it likely will, put papershell crayfish in there to keep the bottom clean - polyculture and a double crop for a total of more than 50 lbs - minnows + crayfish. Crayfish will eat the excess minnow food. You won't need cover for crayfish if just minnows are present. There are people here that will buy your crayfish.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 03/30/14 05:10 PM.

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Pretty well finished for now except for adding some more rock tomorrow. Will wait for the soil to weather a little before doing the final work down before planting something temporary for cover. Will use a box blade and harrow for that.

Put some rock in the bottom as well as AB3 in places along with a bench on one side for RES spawning beds (or BG if I ever decide to use it for them). Made it a little longer. Final size 40x70 which figures .064 or about 1/16 acre. Only 2' of freeboard above full pool but that should be plenty for the amount of runoff it will get plus the fact that the spillway is wide to handle nearly any flow. Final max depth ended up at 7.5'.

Water in bottom is seepage from the pond next to it. Full pool of this mini pond will be about 11" above full pool of the main pond. Main pond has an 8" overflow pipe and emergency overflow spillway at 8" above full pool so theoretically if we had a big enough rain event to have the pipe running full siphon and 3" depth running out the emergency (would be about 15' wide by that point) then the water could back up to the spillway of the mini forage pond and be even with it. Couple more inches higher than that and a LMB could swim upstream and get into the forage mini pond. If that happens I will have a lot more to worry about than bass getting in my forage pond. Had a 12" rain event that brought water level within 1" of emergency overflow so it would take almost a Noah flood for it to become a problem. Thanks to PBF and another poster that had this problem with his forage pond, this was something I kept in mind. I was going to put this pond lower, but after reading about his forage pond getting flooded and LMB getting in it, realized I could have the same problem and should move it to a little higher ground. Thanks to PBF and someone else's misery they posted, I was able to consider the problem and avoid it.

Additional pictures below. Can see the red paint lines in some of the pictures which is full pool level.

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Last edited by snrub; 03/30/14 09:18 PM.

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esshup: Shape it like a paint roller tray. (bottom and side contours)

I remember you giving that advice to someone previously and tried to follow it. I did put a shallow area bench along one side for a spawning area but if I pull enough water out to get to seigning depth, the bench will then be exposed anyway. Put the slope to the north more gentle than the rest so would not be so bad walking out.

Thanks for the advice.


Last edited by snrub; 03/30/14 09:24 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
It appears you've got some decent clay soil so it should hold water - maybe well. It looks like a good job for a minnow pond. If fertilized and/or minnow feeding you could raise maybe 50 lbs of minnows per year. At $5.00/ lb that is around $250/yr. Multi-species of minnows feeding in different niches could increase the annual production. Aeration (RC51 style) would help. If it gets lots of algae or weeds which it likely will, put papershell crayfish in there to keep the bottom clean - polyculture and a double crop for a total of more than 50 lbs - minnows + crayfish. Crayfish will eat the excess minnow food. You won't need cover for crayfish if just minnows are present. There are people here that will buy your crayfish.


Not going to get rich raising FHM's!!!! cry Fortunately that was not a goal for this project anyway. smile

Thanks for mentioning the fertilizer. Reminds me I need to put a scoop of the manure/hay compost pile in there to get things growing when it fills.

Had not thought of paper shell crayfish. I kind of like that idea.

If the FA in my big pond is any indication, yep, I'm going to have algae.

Figuring on putting a diffuser in there when the aeration goes into the big pond later this spring.

Will hand feed the FHM's. I like watching them.

Would like to raise some RES. What would happen if I put in something like 10 RES, a pound of FHM's, and some soft shell crayfish. Just let them duke it out and see what comes out the winner. laugh

I know RES preferred food is snails. If my main pond is any indication the rock I put in this pond will be covered with snails. Realizing this probably will not be enough, it is my understanding that RES also eat pretty much what BG eat, so they should consume young FHM's also. I'm guessing the RES also would like crayfish so they might be goners. Would the rock I put in there give them some hiding places and a chance for survival? Would I need to start out with a higher amount of FHM's to account for the RES wiping out a significant number? Is this just a recipe for disaster? eek

Surely I would end up with one out of three surviving and reproducing. Two out of three would not be too bad either. Three out of three would probably be too much to ask.

I feel an experiment coming on. wink

Thanks for the advice.


Last edited by snrub; 03/30/14 09:49 PM.

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By the way Bill, there is a clay brick company, clay tile company, and used to be a clay pottery company all within about 7 miles of me. They all use that red clay you see in the picture.

If we build new terraces in a field and get a low spot, we have a pond till it evaporates.

Good for building ponds, sucks for farming. Percolation rates is something on the order of a few hundredths of an inch per hour for out subsoil.


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Had at least one request for an update on this pond, so on this nasty outside day will try and bring the project up to date. I've failed to keep it up to date.

Pictures below of final finish of rock lining before filling with water. The rock is all crushed limestone.

Part of rocked area is 2-3" size cleaned lateral (septic tank system) rock and the rest is AB3 which is about 1" and all the fines below that size, which contains a lot of ag lime in the fines.

Hopefully rock will supply spawning areas for RES and hiding areas for PK shrimp.

This should supply all the lime needed for the naturally acidic clay. End of March 2014 completion.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 01:49 PM.

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Below are pictures of initial water fill. Not sure what the runoff area is for this pond, but guess it to be a couple acres. Mostly water comes from gravel area surrounding our shop and buildings. Notice a little erosion of the rock where the water ran into the pond too fast.

Several dozen FHM trapped from my main pond were added along with a couple pallets for them to spawn on. Noticed at least one FHM male had taken residence under one of the 3-4" limestone rocks for his nest and spawning substrate.

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Buyer beware when buying fish. The pictures below are some of what I received when I purchased 200 RES part of which were going in my mini forage pond.

Good thing I hand sorted every fish. Put 25 of the best looking RES in this pond. Anything I could not positively ID part went into my old pond, part in daughters pond and part into my sons pond. They are all contaminated with GSF already, so some of the fish that have obvious GSF parentage will hurt nothing there. The fish that actually are RES (that were too small for me to identify) will help their ponds, which we are stocking from my pond this spring.

Fish were stressed and in rough condition. Lost five of the 25 stocked in the first week that I know of. First of May, 2014

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 02:26 PM.

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Added some additional FHM spawning material.

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Picture taken from the top of the dirt pile. The dirt is coming out of a sediment pond I'm building to capture runoff from an agricultural field before it enters the main pond. First part of June 2014.

Also a picture of the new sediment pond with the dirt work pretty well complete.

Have had a very dry year. Just enough rain so the crops are looking great, but very little runoff. Main pond still way low, and this forage pond still not filled to full pool. Normally we have numerous spring large rain events that everything starts the year full. Not this year.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 02:50 PM.

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First time at full pool for the forage pond............ finally. Main pond still about 18" low at this point.

Over flow at lower left in first photo. Main pond in immediate background. Old pond in far background behind the small creek ahead and to the left of the growing corn.

July 11, 2014. FHM fry seen in shallows.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 10:21 PM.

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Mid July

One bad thing about owning equipment and it sitting in a shed a hundred feet away. Sometimes I just can't leave well enough alone. Mini forage pond not yet a year old and already expanding and modifying it.

Picture shows dozer tearing out crushed rock overflow area. Going to pack in clay and raise that portion up to dam height. Cut slot in dam just to the west of the original overflow and put in 6" overflow pipe and raise water level about a foot. Will make max depth 8.5' now. Will put emergency overflow on other end.

Hey....... pond looks kind of small...........backhoe is right here handy.........water is down from evaporation and dry weather. Let's make it bigger!!!!! North end dug out with backhoe as far out as it would reach. Pond is about 85' long now. Now instead of paint roller shaped like Esshup suggested it is now paint roller shaped with a steep drop off at the shallow end.......... oh well, at 60 I don't feel much like seining anyway.

New sediment pond in background of last picture.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 11:32 PM.

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Pictures of added section to the north end. Reached out as far as the JCB 214e backhoe would reach. The ridge of ground left in the picture will be about a foot under water at the new full pool level. The reason the ridge was left, I did not want to dig in the water all the time. So I dug at the very edge of the water starting with my hoe fully extended. When finished digging all I could, I dug out each end (the two sides of the pond) of the cut and let the water run into the new portion. This lowered the water level and exposed that much dirt shown in the picture.

No worry of compacting bottom of this pond. Solid clay with water percolation measurements in the hundredths of an inch per hour.

New dam completed along east side and over the previous rock overflow in the background.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/12/14 11:46 PM.

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Pictures of installing the overflow pipe. I used rubber anti-seep collars in the big pond, but the 3pt tractor mounted cement mixer was going to be used to make concrete ends for the overflow pipe, so I just used cement anti-seep collars. Backhoe dug trench for pipe, then we hand dug slot on sides and bottom of trench for anti-seep, then poured concrete.

Definitely a farmer done job. Not professional at all but functional.

Notice new dam portion to the left in the first picture. That is where the rocked overflow used to be.

The main pond is about 2' low at this point which is mid August. The flat concrete for the water to hit when it exits will be a few inches under water when the main pond is at full pool. The outlet pipe will be about 8" above the main pond full pool level so fish can not swim up the pipe to the forage pond. Good time to work on ponds when they are low. Hard on water quality and fish.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/13/14 12:00 AM.

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Aeration in the main pond was put in early in the summer. This is the installation of air to this mini forage pond as well as to the new sediment pond.

Made two home made diffuser bases, one for each small pond.
Two Matala single membrane diffusers driven by a Pondmaster 100 linear air compressor with the air split using a garden hose splitter with incorporated shutoff valves. Valves used to adjust air flow to each pond. A little more air sent to sediment pond because it is about twice as big as the forage pond. 3/4" black water pipe to waters edge and a ways into each pond sunk with concrete blocks, then 3/8 sinking hose the rest of the way to the diffusers. Used our telehandler to set the diffusers, then my body to get them just where I wanted them under water.

Diffusers are marked by a small buoy (as seen in the two pictures) attached to a rope attached to the concrete base. We use the rope to pull the diffuser with the telehandler if needed.

It does not look like much water moving in the pictures of the diffusers operating. But pictures are deceiving. They are actually moving so much water I worried about it being too much. But they have been running over a month now with no problem that I can detect. I back-drug some washed in dirt in the sediment pond one day with a front end loader bucket. Mucked up the water and made it muddy in the north end of the pond. Within 30 minutes the diffuser had moved the muddy water from the north end of the pond, under the upper water, and made a mushroom cloud of dirty water surrounding the diffuser. Within a few hours the pond was homogenized. So these diffusers are moving a considerable amount of water.

Edit 5/20/17: the home made diffuser base works fine after a couple seasons, but if doing it again I would change one thing. The concrete base is heavy which is great to keep it on the bottom. But the foktprint is so small it easily sinks into loose clay or muck. I would make provision for the base to have a bigger footprint either by setting it in a plastic tub or attaching a bigger base. Otherwise it works great. I actually like them better than the boughten plastic bases filled with sand.

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Last edited by snrub; 05/20/17 07:48 AM.

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Mid September and finally FULL POOL. And holding water.....hooray! grin

Notice I have very little dam above full pool. Actually only a foot, with a six inch overflow pipe and the emergency overflow set at the top of the 6" pipe. So 6" of dam left after the pipe is at full flow. Risky? Probably. But this is a very small pond with very limited runoff. I built it and if it breeches the dam I'll fix it. So I can take risks that a contractor dare not. Plus if it fails the main pond is a mere two foot lower level and the forage will run into the main pond. For me having the extra depth in the forage pond was worth the risk of pushing the limits on the dam. Judgement call. Not professional. Not recommended. No self respecting engineer would do it. Luckily I'm a farmer instead of an engineer. grin I think it will work.

Some FHM produced from the mini forage pond. I have not weighed what has been taken out of the pond so far but I would guess it to be at least a half of a 5 gallon bucket full. Still plenty of fry left behind to grow up before winter.

Saw some of the RES on beds earlier in the summer. They looked to be about 5" long. Have not seen any recruitment so maybe the youngsters were just practicing for next year.

Edit: the big pile of dirt in the background is dirt taken out of the main pond shallow spawning area while the pond was low. I decided did not need that much spawning area. It is not part of the forage pond project. Whole different story.

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Last edited by snrub; 10/13/14 01:00 AM.

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Finally! This thread is up to date with this post. I've been taking pictures as things progressed but drug my feet on getting the updates here. Will try to do better in the future.

Only additional plans for this mini forage pond is to use it and I have just a little more crushed rock to put around the edge to cover the bigger stuff. Other than the rock, IT IS DONE.

Will try to remember to do updates about the production that comes out of it.

One thing I forgot to add earlier, put 400 PK shrimp (grass shrimp, glass shrimp, ghost shrimp, whatever) in this pond earlier this year. Was not sure if there would be enough habitat for them to survive the FHM swarms and the RES. But happy to say just a couple days ago used a dip net to swipe up along some of the bank and grass and snagged a few. They are not thick like I would like to see them. But at least some are still there. Maybe now with some more cover around the banks and me quit using the backhoe on the pond they will have a chance to thrive. Hopefully if they do well in this pond, I can use the production to stock my other ponds. Caught a few in a minnow trap about a month ago and transferred them to the sediment pond. My hopes are fry will bet washed out the overflow into the main pond during high rainfall events.

All ponds at full pool as of yesterday.......FINALLY. We have had very limited runoff for about a year and a half now. Pond went into winter last year over a foot low and never filled spring of 2014. Rare for us to not have high rainfall events in either fall or spring. Was two foot low this summer. Will feel a lot better about going into this winter with a full pond. Water looks lots better now with some flow through.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. You Texas guys are singing "cry me a river". I hear you guys talking about DRY ponds or six foot low ponds. I feel for you. It is common for us to get dry in the summer and ponds drop some, but rare for them to not get recharged sometime during the year.

Feels good to have a project completed. Now if I can get that dog house sized building finished for the aeration pumps.................... As Rosann Rosana Danna always used to say......"It's alllllllways sumptin"

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snrub, you've got some cool stuff going on up there! Smaller ponds are way more fun than bigger ones.


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I'm enjoying them.

Since my old pond did not work out for my RES pond, got my eye on a ravine near the old pond that could be dammed up at about half an acre......................... I gotta quit thinking about this stuff! Got enough projects in the works! grin


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Why did you do the rock lining?


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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Good question. Several reasons I guess.

I liked the rock around my main pond for bank erosion prevention.

The acidic clay needed lime anyway, so lining the pond with limestone rock took care of that. Probably 75% coverage of the bottom and sides.

I was considering crayfish at the time, and figured the rocks would be good habitat. Crawdads never appeared this year in number because of the drought (so I never found a source of local variety to capture and put in the pond) and once I decided to try the PK shrimp the crayfish idea went away. Figured the crayfish would do away with my PK shrimp. Crawdads are mean, feisty little critters. We've kept them in an aquarium before.

It was a small enough pond it did not take that much rock. I kind of started on the water line around the shore and forgot to quit. The rock is not deep at all. As close as I could come to a single layer of it.

But the reason above all others is because of an observation in my main pond. The limestone rocks seemed to be an ideal substrate for quick algae growth. And every time the water fell and rose again on the rock and a fresh batch of algae grew, snails multiplied by the gazillions. Normally that would not be such a good thing. But since my emphasis for this pond was to raise RES fry from a few adult brood stock into fingerlings, in addition to the FHM's, I knew the RES would have a much better chance of thriving if I had their preferred food in abundance. So it was the snail explosion in the main pond on the rock that induced me to use a lot of it in this small pond. I actually inoculated this pond with algae and snails as it first filled.

Right or wrong, good or bad, that is what I did.

Last edited by snrub; 10/14/14 09:42 AM.

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Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 16,026
Likes: 274
Makes a lotta sense


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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