Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Hello Pond Boss Citizens!

Hello all,

I have been reading this forum for about the past month or so, lots of great information and I'm still floating on the surface of all of it. I received my first issue of the magazine a week and ago and am impressed at the articles and professionalism.

Okay so the background on my situation. I work offshore and recently purchased my first house that is a large renovation project as it was built in the 1970's and has never been updated. It came with 6.5 Acres and 6 ponds that are in various stages of issues. Some have what I believe to be water primrose infesting them based on pictures from the forum and cross comparison(I'll upload some at a later date for verification) The water level in the ponds is down about 2' but they are old ponds and my area didn't see regular rainfall(I will be driving a well soon to add water, but I do not believe it to be any sort of catastrophic leak) Other issues are tree related adding to many nutrients and increasing my muck layer on the bottom.

I like doing back breaking work and am not afraid to get dirty or wet as it's basically what I do for a living. On a budget when it comes to the pond as the house projects come first but I plan on putting away about $250 a month for the ponds after my first project of a well and aeration system. (Unless my thinking is flawed please let me know if these are decent starting points, after tree removal)

Pond descriptions:
2 - connected by small canal spanned by a bridge that are 60' x 140' x 9' Max(With the water level 2' below normal and 6' on average.

1 - 80' x 160' x Unknown depth as I haven't broke out the dive gear and there is no place currently to launch a canoe and gain access (Chainsaw work next time I'm onshore)

1 - Relatively round 45' diameter and 6' Max depth with it also being 2' low

1 - Heavily overgrown 5' Deep with numerous protrusions that make it very hard to estimate its "Water acres"?(Dunno if I used that correctly) but is square at 125 x ~125

1 - That is shared with the neighbor that appears to be in relatively good shape that I don't plan on doing much with until the others are ship shape.

The first 3 listed are the ones I plan on aerating and adding water to. Any tips on choosing the aeration system would be deeply appreciated.

Apologies if this is an excessive first post.

Welcome to PBF. Sounds like you have a lot of nice projects to tackle.

Acre area calculator This will calculate the size of your ponds in acres.

What are your goals for the ponds? Aesthetics? Fishing? Swimming?

Lots of management options with multiple small ponds.

Hello Snrub,
3 of the ponds I would like to primarily use for fishing purposes. There are already some LMB but are around 10-12" and thin there are supposed to be brim but I have yet to catch one as I do not get to cast a line as often as I would like. Also painted turtles, minnows of an unknown species and ducks. The ponds are in decent shape I would just like to keep the weeds confined to allow shore fishing and swimming areas.

There is a guest house overlooking one pond that I would like to setup for swimming and depth dependent a zip-line someday(Still deciding due to liability issues if someone gets hurt). One close to the house I plan on using for fishing but eventually plan on creating an old time looking building as I have a lot of old lumber that looks aged but is structurally sound that I eventually want to build a water wheel type structure to link into the main pump to keep water levels up aerate and add an interesting feature. Also it would double as the pump house and compressor area for the aeration system.

The smaller circular pond I would like to use for I guess one could say a trial and error or test area. As it seems the number of variables in pond management is high. Water PH, Turbidity, Plant life, Soil Type etc.

Which is why I have come to this site and plan to stay as this is the best forum I have found so far. Friendly, Intelligent and Diverse people looking to offer advice and lessons learned.

The company I work for is pretty good about letting us use the machine shop for personal use to a certain extent. I.E. don't tie up the lathe if a work project needs it try and limit the use of consumable items Metals, Bolts, etc. I have a good understanding of construction, hydraulic and electrical items. As well as have some good friends with welding and machining expertise.

The overall plan for my land since I am single but outgoing is to create a weekend style retreat for my friends. Some have kids and other things going on that can not afford expensive vacations. I think it is important for everyone to have somewhere that they can go to recharge and this is a low cost option for them.

Thanks for leaving a response Snrub

P.S. Once I get in from work I will try and get some photos along with an aerial photo once I figure out how to get one from google without giving away my home address to the world.

Welcome to PBF! Awesome project!

Do you want to aerate from 1 central compressor to all 3 ponds or are you going to run electric to each pond and have small dedicated systems for each? IMO I would run electric to the 3 ponds and go with 3 small inexpensive diaphram pumps instead of one large compressor. Cheaper to operate, cheaper up front cost, cheaper to replace if needed, etc. There is an article on aeration coming out in the next issue of PB magazine that will probably answer many of your questions.

Good luck and please keep us up to date on your progress!

Bill D.

Diver dude, welcome and good luck with your projects. You seem awfully nice for a man named Cody.

Like Bill D. says, awesome project.

Zip lines are a blast. Went round a couple times on one in Fiji once. I would worry about liability too. My son has a pond (Son's refurbished pond) that has a big Oak tree that a zip line across the pond to their dock would be perfect. It would be a short one, but a blast over the water. I've not suggested it because he and his friends have been known to indulge in adult beverages at times and I would hate to see someone hurt, even if the system were designed safe. But they are fun. Adrenalin rush.

With three ponds for fishing, you have a lot of management options to tailor each pond to a different type of fishery. Also if you don't like something in one, you can start over without loosing the ability to fish for several years. That is what bothers me about some of the recommendations to nuke a pond and start over. It is going to be a number of years before there is any decent fishing again in that nuked pond. By having multiple ponds, not all have to be refurbished at once should a problem arise.

With the bass, sounds like a very typical stunted bass pond with too many bass and too little forage for them to eat.

Wow! Guest house. Great! Would like to have a little cabin on my main pond. Don't need it because we live right at the pond, but would be nice for visiting guests.

Pictures would be great.

You have come to the right place. I'm just a novice at this. Hardly gave ponds a second thought before about three years ago. Now I really enjoy ours and enjoy what I learn from this site.

Have fun with your project. Good thing you like getting wet and dirty, because ponds are certainly not easy. At least if a person tries to do something with them and manage them.

Mr. Bill D.
I plan on running a central rocking piston 1/2 or maybe 3/4 HP setup with 3 lines less than 100' in length going to dual disc setups. To the 3 ponds I plan on stocking with fish. I will be building a temporary shack and eventually the water wheel project between these 3 as the compressor and pump house. I am curious if 3/8" tubing will be adequate based on others experience or if I should upgrade to 1/2" I have not seen these compressors and the ones that supply us with air when we work are quite large 180 psi and 178+ scfm compressors.

Right now my property is heavily overgrown as no one has maintained it in about 7 years and I moved in 4 months ago which is commonly our really busy time of year work wise. I'm hoping that once I clear some trees I will get better surface action/ wave action. Time will tell on that front.

Bob-O
I try to be nice as you never know who will win the lottery and its best to be on their good side if they do...nah, my parents were quick to correct me in bad behaviors early on and my dad is a really outgoing person who showed me how to interact with the world.

Snrub
On my anorexic bass issue, should I call my buddies over and have them harvest some of the bass out or should I try and stock more things for them to eat. Only thing I feed fish is usually leeches, worms, and artificial baits. No ones done anything with the ponds in 7 years so I was happy that the ecosystem was functioning.

Also has anyone ever tried using an "airlift" as in using a practical diameter PVC pipe suspended above a diffuser disc. To capture some bubbles creating a vacuum in hopes of increasing pond turnover rate. We use a similar systems on a larger scale for excavating pipelines to repair them. So you would have to make sure to put it high enough to not suck the diffuser into it or so it didn't dig itself into bottom. It's based off the boyle's law principle that at a constant temperature pressure and volume are inversely proportional. Also in our systems the air is introduced about 1' from the base opening and we do not try to make the bubbles small we just push lots of volume. Was just thinking about the idea and was curious if its a been there done that got the T-shirt scenario. Pictures to come once I find a host site that I like and then read the topic on how to post pictures if I remember right it involves a IMG and [ ] brackets.

Ok Going to try this photo posting thing only had a few photos on my phone.



This is the aerial view of my property



This is the pond from the bottom right.



Upper Left pond behind the main house it's infested with some emergent plant I would like to control better before it starves the pond out.



Water Primrose...I think maybe someone can verify before I purchase sprays or however you treat this stuff besides pulling it out manually...which I will do if need be.


Well I previewed it and it looked like I did it right so guess we all shall see in a few seconds. I will get better photos and anything anyone else can think of to help in suggestions / aid to help me achieve my goals of a cool refuge. As well as so I can keep people up to date on progress and my lessons learned in this whole adventure.

Welcome to the forum!

Gotta run, so this won't touch all bases.

With aeartion, you'll need cfm over psi, (depending on surface area of the pond) so depending on the length of run and cfm needed, at least on land you might need even larger diameter tubing. In the water, self sink 1/2" ID is a bit better than 3/8" again depending on volume needed.

Stunted LMB: It's better to remove LMB than try to feed them - you'll go broke trying to give them enough to eat. Remove roughly 30# per surface acre of all aizes, but concentrate on the size that is the most under relative weight. There is a relative weight chart in the archives.

Hi Diver Cody,

I am really looking forward to following your project!

I have seen discussions on airlift here at the forum but do not recall one as you describe. The ones I have read are attempting to pump water up a few inches. The air is injected into a pipe a couple feet below the surface and relies on bouyancy of the bubbles for the lift. The bottom of the pipe is at depth. I will be curious if your concept will make a significant lift, over just the normal water lift from the diffuser, at the depths seen in a pond. If I understand the description of the setup you propose, the lift will use Boyle's Law, P1V1=P2V2, and rely on the increasing size of the bubbles for lift as they move from the higher pressure at the bottom of a pond to the low pressure at the surface. The question is will you get a significant enough bubble volume increase as the bubbles rise from say a 6 foot depth to the surface, maybe 3 psi pressure change, to create a significant vacuum.

I would be cautious about just starting aeration in a pond with deep muck. From what I have read here at PBF, there can be significant toxins lurking in that muck that a quick pond turn over can bring up and create a fish kill. I hope one of the experts will weigh in on that concern.

Bill D.

Edit. Bill D.

I remembered seeing something about aerator startup in the paperwork from the company I got my system from. I dug it out and their recommendation to prevent fish kill during startup in ponds with muck is:

Day 1 - 1 hour
Day 2 - 2 hours
Day 3 - 4 hours
Day 4 - 8 hours
Day 5 - 16 hours
Day 6 - 24/7

I think first you might want to see if you can catch any trophy size BG. LMB heavy(stunted) ponds might be a sign of a good BG fishery. They might be harder to catch than just a pond loaded with BG. Then you have to decide if you want to keep it that way and make one of the other ponds for trophy bass, and leave this one alone. Depends on your goals. With all those pond, you have options that most us can only wish for!!!

Diver, airlifts could be used, but in the pond, the smaller the bubbles created from a bottom diffuser are, the more lift that will be created. Smaller bubbles are also more energy efficient. One other benefit with small, over large bubbles, is reduced turbulence to avoid waves that could lead to erosion.

Thank you guys for all the help and insight, I have to get on shift but will be thinking about what each of you has said.

Also can anyone please verify that is water primrose in the above pictures the stuff that bloomed yellow flower petals that my understanding is most aquatic plants have flowers of this color. Or I'll just re-post that picture to the plant identification part of the forum so that it's in the correct area. Trying to see if aeration and chemical treatment with a "glysophate" based product is the correct course of action?

Hi Cody. The plant in your photo is NOT one of the primrose species (which have alternating leaves and usually a smaller yellow bloom).
Instead, it's called Burr-Marigold (Bidens laevis), yet it grows in a similar manner to primrose.

Treatment-options remain comparable, but (depending on water-use restrictions) you might consider using a hormone herbicide such as 2,4-D, Hardball, Trycera, etc; all of which will selectively target broadleaf plant species (and bulrush) while leaving most grassy-types of plants unaffected. Probably best to wait until May for these types of products, when the targeted plants are actively growing.

I've already exceeded the limit of my expertise, and now that you are getting some good suggestions from people that know a lot more than I do you are in good hands.

What Esshup said on the bass. Time to fillet some skinny bass.

On the plants, keep in mind that when you kill off that plant something is very likely going to replace it. It might be something you like better, or something you like worse. But something will end up utilizing the nutrients. Just another management issue to be aware of.

While looking for something else, ran across this in the archives about over crowded bass. This might be of some help with the bass culling.

LMB culling and management

Another benefit of those littler bubbles is you are exposing much larger surface area for O2 exchange than with big bubbles. Although I am not sure that much O2 exchange actually happens at the bubble level.

If the pond is eutrophic, I'd only run the aeration system for 15 minutes the first day, 30 minutes the 2nd day, etc. If the water still smells like rotten eggs the 2nd day, I'd not double the time the next day, keeping the time short until the anoxic water was mixed with the upper water and allowed to outgass. Too high of a hydrogen sulfide level will kill the fish.

http://www.nfkc.info/Hydrogen%20Sulfide.htm

Diver Cody,

Now you have an input you can run with from somebody that knows what the heck he is talking about! I would follow his advice to the letter!

To all THANK YOU for the help when I get in this time I plan on cutting back the trees, manually removing some of the burr- marigold.(Thanks for the clarification on my plant...and I thought I had it nailed )

Also starting on the trenching needed to get power out to my pump building which still has to be constructed. I might drive a well first to make sure I am on use-able water, prior to trenching. With no power out there yet this would require me to purchase a pitcher pump or a few more extension cords. Pitcher pump is probably cheaper than another 150' of contractor grade extension cords.

Will either keep this thread going or try and find the "My project section" Stay safe everyone.

Very true on the surface area, yet in the case of pond aeration, the bubbles are still far too large to get meaningful O2 transfer. Only about 5% of the O2 from the bubbles actually dissolves directly into the water as the bubbles rise. With small aeration bubbles, the greater surface area creates more water lift and circulation to allow the gas exchange ay the air-water interface. Bubbles breaking the surface in the "boil" breaks water tension and will allow bad gases like CO2 and Hydrogen Sulfide to be released while the water super-saturates with oxygen.

I get the smaller bubbles = more surface area statement when not channeling it threw something. But if you do channel it threw a pipe you create a suction on the water below which has got to increase your turnover rate. It will also maintain the small bubbles as long as there surface tension isn't disturbed to much that they merge. I was planning on just putting one over the diffuser about 1' off the diffuser and the same or slightly smaller diameter of the disc should suffice I'm thinking.

The reason it work's in the water is due to the venturi effect and also boyles law but not by restricting an opening and making it large again but as the bubbles expand even slightly they create the pull on the bottom of the pipe.

Think I'm going to try it worst case is I drop some money on a piece of PVC i end up not needing or I'll Just borrow one from our shop. But that's going to be in a few months I just purchased the items to drive a well and still have that project to tackle. Plus I then have to get the aeration system and wait after the whole start up period that esshup recommended in a previous post for things to stabilize. I was just curious if anyone ever attempted it before and there results.

Gotta go get on shift everyone have a good day/night

Hey Diver Coy,

Please don't think I am trying to talk you out of the air lift idea. I thinks its cool. It reminds me of an ait lift dredge design. What's the reason for running the air thru the diffuser first and keeping the pipe entrance a foot away? Is there an advantage over just injecting the air directly into the bottom of the pipe?

Working offshore diving must be one great job. Ever see any really cool or unusual fish down there? Come on man! Tell us a diving story!

I think you are correct, in that as long as they are constrained, larger bubbles will work as well or better than smaller ones. You might have to make a inverted funnel for the bottom of the tube to catch all the bubbles. You could make one out of rolled soffit material pretty easily.

If you use a membrane diffuser, you will have to attach a weight to the diffuser. They sink initially, but once air is going through them, they swell up like a balloon and will float.

Another thought is to make a larger barrel at the bottom, and place the diffuser inside the barrel. Transition it to the smaller diameter of the rest of the vertical tube.

If I place the diffuser to close to the bottom it will get sucked up and clog the airlift causing the whole unit to rise this happens to us often offshore with sand dollars, mud, rocks, you name it which then turns the entire pipe into basically a column of air and it tries to take off on you. Which is why we often use "odom" weights which are roughly 6"x6" of lead that weigh around 50 lbs or else we tag it into a pipeline we are working on with straps.

I could introduce air directly into the pipe and the design would still work for turning over my water column. Just from what I have read on the forums an unconstrained diffuser disc will also do this and I was just curious if one way or another was better. Million dollar idea theory .

Ok you asked for a diving story. Hmm one time I was burning underwater with a broco torch(which is a neat process I'm sure there are some youtube videos of it) and we were doing some cutting on a caisson when a small 3'-3.5' shark started chasing the squid around that were attracted to the glow of the camera and light system mounted to my dive helmet. It was pretty interesting to say the least as you are trying to work and a small predatory animal is buzzing by you and sometimes even bumping into you. I have never been attacked by a shark though have seen many but we make a lot of noise working and they usually show no interest.

Another one I was going inside of a caisson a 28" diameter pipe to check on some stuff inside since we were trying to pull it out so I was verifying it was cut. Well inside of the caisson which is a tight fight since I am not a small man but a healthy 205 there was a lion fish(invasive species with no natural predators in the gulf of mexico becoming a nuisance fish very quickly) waiting you can google these little suckers(Included a link at the bottom on lion fish). Pretty cool looking fish except for they have barbs or stingers on them that have a strong venom on them. Needless to say it got me right in my buttock all forerst gump style and the pain that accompanied it was some of the worst pain I have ever felt.(I have been shot before in a hunting accident and hit by a car...life's fun like that sometimes)


Anyways hope these stories provide some laughs for everyone

Lion fish Link
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/fish/lionfish/

Link to a youtube on Broco Torch Underwater there are many more if interested too.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IXAysiwhlho