Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations My Pond is a mess! What is this?

Good morning everybody! I have been a lurker on this forum for quite some time but I never registered. I am looking forward to learning everything I can about ponds.

Last summer I purchased a new farm because we needed to upgrade due to growing business. I have had ponds in the past but never had any issues with them until moving here and this new pond is a mess.

I believe this is coontail, but it could be millfoil, I am hoping for some advice about this. The pond is 1 acre, with average depth of about 4 feet, and deeper in some spots.

I took my boat out on it last summer and the whole entire pond is covered with these weeds, and it's so thick in the summer that my motor kept getting tangled.

The water is very clear in the pond which is great. It's spring fed, and feeds out to a river though though in the summer water does not feed out at all.

We are in RI and they won't let us have grass carp, so I am wondering if there is an alternative fish that might help clear this up and is not illegal in RI? Also, I am looking for a cost effective herbicide to do a kill before it really starts growing. I have been looking at Sonar but it's so expensive.

Any advice would be much appreciated. Please see the photos. Thanks!

Beautiful place! And welcome to participating at Pond Boss.

Let's see what others have to say about the pond plant/weed situation.

Using a pond dye might help with some of the plant growth, but it has other downsides.

Thank you very much for the compliment on the property, and for the warm welcome!

We tried the die last summer, it was a waste of money!

Tilapia?

I would consider Talapia, they aren't illegal, and they die off in Fall.

Welcome to PBF LCF!

You didn't say what fish are in the pond but, depending on your situation, crawfish may be a tool you could try. There are lots of threads about them. Here is just one with some info.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=259314

Again,

Welcome!

Bill D.

Hi Bill, thanks for the info!

I was told that back in the day there used to be bass in the pond, but I haven't caught any. My father tried fishing and said he got a sunfish, and there are tons of tadpoles, frogs and turtles.

That is a fairly shallow pond of only 4'. It is possible that it experienced drought at some point where the surface area got too small to support healthy fish. There is also the possibility of long-term freeze killing them also.

My pond drops almost 3' in the summer which is partly evaporation and some leakage, and if it were only 4' I would not expect the fish to survive.

I don't want to alarm you, so maybe observe for the first year or two before making changes, but you certainly could stock some new fish this year.

does it look like there is an easy way to raise the depth, perhaps raise a dam height or overflow?

Tilapia are illegal to stock in RI, yet dying each fall is what makes them a great management tool....like aeration or feeding. The Tilapia grow eating the problem plants nothing else can, mainly FA, then in turn get eaten, passing otherwise wasted nutrient up the food chain.

You might consider ornamental water lilies to block some of the sunlight.

Thanks for the info!

Does anyone know what the weed is? Hopefully the photos are clear enough to make a determination.

I think my first step will be an herbicide so I am hoping to identify the weed and then kill it before I decide what to stock the pond with to prevent future growth.

LiquidSquid, there is no way to raise the water level. Unfortunately the water stays almost level with the surface of the ground for the entire property. It does drop a bit in the summer, but not much as it's spring fed.

We will absolutely be putting aeration in. I don't know if you can see in the photo, but there is a building over by the pond, with electricity. Once we deal with a circuit breaker problem in that building we will be installing an aerator.

While there is risk involved, you could get a long-reach backhoe and dig out some large 'pits' in the water to create some depth.

Sunil, it is in the plans to make the pond deeper, but probably not for a few years.

I'm not sure, can you get more photos both in and out of the water? It could be coontail, or chara, or something else.

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/alphabetical-index/muskgrass/

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/alphabetical-index/coontail/

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/alphabetical-index/eurasian-watermilfoil/

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/alphabetical-index/southern-naiad/

http://aquaplant.tamu.edu/plant-identification/alphabetical-index/nitella/#photos

Once the rains stops I will take some new photos, just need some sunlight!

Curious what type of dye did you use? I have been using Aqua shade from time to time and it seems to work ok for me. It may not kill off the weeds but it does seem to slow them down quite a bit by not letting that sunlight through! Specially if your boost it each month a little.

RC

As far as the plant it is not chara, coontail, or millfoil As far as I can tell. I have seen it before up in the Adirondack park. I don't have if it is native ot not. Charra is out since the plant has one central stem with leaves much like coontail.

Wild guess
http://www.aquariumplants.com/mobile/Category.aspx?id=209&page=9
2nd from bottom.

Finally I was able to get some photos to try and identify this weed. Any ideas?

To me from the pictures it looks like a type of milfoil - maybe Eurasian Water Milfoil.

There are several species of native milfoil. I suggest that you get one nice healthy looking 'branch' (stem) out of the water and photograph it in a pan of water and again in a zip loc bag with water. Try to include the stem tip. We need to see details of the leaf structure and how leaves are arranged on the stem. Also a picture of it fruiting in summer will be very helpful. If it is milfoil a flower inflorescence will stick above the water surface.

Hi Bill,

I don't believe it's Millfoil then because nothing sticks up out of the water in the summer. The entire weed is below the water surface. I bought the property in July though, but had visited every week from January to July until my closing and I never noticed anything growing above the surface.

I am not sure about when the weed flowers, I never saw any flowering, just a nasty mess below the surface. Perhaps it's not Millfoil?

It definitely looks like a watermilfoil to me....Rhode Island is home to Eurasian watermilfoil and Variable watermilfoil (Rhode Island aquatic invasives website)

Another close-looking plant is Bladderwort, but the leaf structures are different. Also, Bladderwort is a rootless plant, and in your first set of pictures, in the middle picture, you can see a root coming off the plant section in the lower middle of the image.


If you 100% ID it as a watermilfoil (Eurasian, variable or native), the cheapest treatment is liquid 2,4-D (DMA-4 is aquatic labeled). Treat at about 2 ppm and it should be gone in 2-4 weeks depending on temperature.