Pond Boss Forums FISH & FISHING Sunfish-Including Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass Name that fish

I'm afraid I know the answer.

Your fears are correct.

Looks like a yes !

Well at least there is someone in there to keep the bullheads company.

I nuked my pond couple weeks back with lime - pretty easy process - very effective.

TJ how much lime (hydrated?) did you use say for instance for every 1000 gal of water?

I think you should name him Mr. Green, Bud Green to be precise, it would an appropriate name for a green sunfish. Besides, that's the only name I could think of after noticing the ditch weed growing in the background in your picture.

Shorty, it's only about two miles from your place so you're welcome to come get the ditch weed.
I did some experimenting yesterday and it took two ounces of hydrated lime to raise the PH of 50 gallons of water from 7 to 11. According to my figures (and checked by my wife so it must be right) that equates to 815 pounds per acre foot of water.

No thanks Bullhead, I have been working hard to eradicate the ditch weed along the perimeter of our place.

How many acre feet will you need to treat?

If it is a pure GSF the corner of the mouth when closed will come back to the front of the eye. Hard to tell in your picture how big the mouth actually is.

I have a few hybrids mixed in (not on purpose) in my main pond. Most of them as they have been caught have been transferred to my old pond where I already have GSF. The hybrids look so much like GSF with all the same markings sometimes when I re-catch one in the old pond I question myself if they are GSF or a hybrid. But then I catch a full blooded GSF and there is no question. Both the hybrids and the GSF look pretty much the same (but most of my hybrids are 8"+ now and biggest GSF to date has been 7.5) but the hybrid has a little taller profile and the mouth of the GSF is about a third larger for the same length fish. At least in the hybrids I have.

GSF will have very long first row of gill rakers also.

If you hold a GSF mouth fully open, it will be about the same mouth size as a similar length LMB. Hybrids, BG or RES will not have nearly as big of mouth.

Bill...I used 200 lbs in about an 3 acre inches of water. I probably only needed to use 100, but I had it on hand and wanted to be 100% certain before I refilled the pond. I never extrapolated with 100G tank because I knew a few 50 lb bags would be more than enough. It was horrible killing thousands of grass shrimp, fhm, and crayfish. Got all I could save...still it was Armageddon - hard to witness.

TJ what is the average depth of 3 acre inches of water??? I can calculate the gallons if we have an average depth. What did you kill besides shrimp, FHM and crays?? Also do you know the hardness and alkalinity of the water?.? I think those two parameters should have a pretty big affect on how much hydrated lime is needed to kill fish. Did you happen to take the pH of the water soon after treatment?

LOL Yeah I am a little confused on that too Bill?? 3 acre inches of water?? Huh?

RC

Average depth was 10" and estimated area at .15 acre after drawdown - so that's more like 1.5 acre inches.

Tadpoles, shrimp, crays, fhm, yoy bg

Did not test hardness - but since it's well water I know mine is already quite high on the hardness scale.

PH was 7.1 prior to treatment

PH spiked to 12.3 following treatment

Thanks. If I calculated this correctly you treated close to 40,731 gallons with 200 lbs of hydrated lime (27,154 gal per acre one inch deep X 1.5 ac). That equates to 1 pound of Hyd lime per roughly 200 gal of water (203 exact) or 5 lbs per 1000 gal. Important feature with this hydrated lime treatment is to achieve a water pH of 12+. Refining this technique would be a very good and useful, informative study for some research minded person.

Start with a known alkalinity and total hardness, and some hard to kill fish such as GSF, carp, or bullheads in 5 to 10 gallons of water. Add hydrated lime in measured grams or teaspoons until you killed the fish and then measure the pH, hardness, alkalinity. Repeat the test a few time to make sure your results are correct. Anyone have students that need a science fair project???

Due to the size and shape of the pond I really don't think I can get it below six acre feet. I was wondering if it is getting too late to treat. Are the bullheads starting to hunker down for the winter?

Were the BG the target species TJ?

Or just killing everything so you knew you had a clean slate to start from?

Will the lime Ph spike affect your aquatic vegetation problem?

Do you know anyone with an irrigation pump that you could borrow to lower the water level?

I've caught bullheads while ice fishing, so they are still somewhat active in high 30°F , low 40°F water.

Trash pumps work pretty well - I'd get a few rolling together. Certainly Steve's recommendation of irrigation pump is much better. I strongly urge you to get water level down as much as possible as Lime is not the easiest stuff with which to work...I was covered head to toe in it after only 4 bags. Also, since you are dealing with BH you are going to need to focus on super concentrated dose.

I discovered I accidentally introduced 1 BH and 2 Female BG in one of my minnow stockings...becoming a recurring issue with me. Those BG were just mature enough to pull a limited spawn - I ended up only verifying 4 YOY BG, but you know next year it would have been out of control and my fishery would have been ruined.

Bottom line for me - it wasn't nearly as bad as I thought it would be [YOY BG], but all it takes is one female to ruin the entire fishery - so I had to do it.

I learned a lot from the experience I will post soon.

That will also kill a lot of plants so be ready. Need to consider waiting on restocking until the low DO event from dead plants is over.