Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Fertilization Should I fertilize?

Everything I thought I knew before building my pond now seems much more complicated! I had basically learned that a pond will support more & bigger fish if it is fertilized but some posts indicate fertilization is not always a good idea. Thus, I would love some expert opinion for my situation: 1.5 acre pond built Fall 2015, clay bottom, in the woods, filled by 55 acres (according to NRCS survey) of runoff via a feeder creek that has a spring in it that always has trickled some even in drought in Longview, TX. Stocked with 150 LMB, 2000 CNBG/RES, & 6000 FHM in Nov. 15 with goal of biggest LMB I can manage but balancing that with numbers for good catch rate. Feeding bluegill high protein food 4 times/day. Water is tannic, 26 inches visibility, alkalinity=25(that's after 9 tons lime before it filled and another 1.5 tons after!), pH=7.2, calcium hardness=20. Water has been flowing out of an overflow pipe 4 feet from the bottom continuously since it filled in Novemeber but I expect that to stop soon with summer. On that note, should I do anything about too much "flushing?" More importantly, should I fertilize? Thanks for your help.

See this from the archives.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96127#Post96127

Educate yourself well on how to fertilize. The flushing is almost always a good thing. Fish really like fresh water. The flushing could make fertilizing a bit trickier, but since you are feeding 4 times a day, I'd wait on fertilizing. (fish feed becomes a fertilizer itself)

If it was my pond I would somehow, someway add another 10 tons of agricultural lime and not add any fertilizer until the alkalinity was up over 40.

Adding a few tons of Ag lime to the old stream bed will help a lot. The ag lime needs to be in as much watershed area as possible, not just the pond basin.

Added another 8 tons of lime, alkalinity came up to 55, pH 7.8, and hardness 45. Put in 4 gallons on 11-37-0 liquid fertilizer on 6/23/16. On July 5, visibility on Secchi disk had actually gone up to over 40 inches, added another gallon and on 7/11/16, visibility about 32 inches without much green to the water. How long should I wait on a bloom or do I need to add more? I diluted it a lot in a bucket over and over, through it out in the pond, and agitated it a bit with an oar.

Did you have the water or soil tested? Sometimes fertilizer and alkalinity are not the limiting factor to a plankton bloom.

I only had water tested. No soil tests done.

Can you post the results ?

Results are there in my earlier post.

Is that all that is in the tests ?

It sounds like you have had some decrease in visibility from 40 to 32 is that continuing?

I don't think alkalinity is the problem at 55 and 45. Keep checking for decreased visibility for the next week and report back.

Well, what do you know? Went down to the pond and noticed a distinct difference: the water is green! Measured visibility and, sure enough, down to 25 inches! Thanks for advising me to hang on. Now, I guess I just monitor and add more fertilizer when visibility becomes greater than 26 inches again?

Yes keep checking. Watch for stabilization . Keep good records of what you did and rates and timing , and results. In the meantime learn all you can about the subject .