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We are relatively new to ponds but are learning fast. 2 years ago bought property with beautiful pond. Approx 1/2 acre pond, artesian well fed (above ground) at least 20 gallons a minute--with an adjustable drain to control water level. Was told its 20' deep in the center. Bluing chemicals are used (didn't like look at first but it grew on me). We have dogs and family who would be swimming and drinking the water so Tom has been very careful to use environmentally safe chemicals to keep the algae at bay.
Former owner had at one time stocked, he said, 500 trout. We decided to find fishery (wrong time of year we learned) and they had maybe 20 perch and some blue gills. They did pretty well considering. Last year found a trout farm and had 50 trout delivered.
We're not fishermen but do enjoy the feeding and fishing done by family.
This year we had another 200 trout delivered, same local business. But the algae started getting the best of us and nothing we used seemed to help. There were globs of green floating on top and at different levels. We have very few weeds or cattails.
We decided to bring in the professionals who happened to be the business who sold us the trout. He was familiar with us and had helped with questions in the past.
So last Friday he came and floated around in his boat treating our water. Friday night and Saturday we still had a trout feeding frenzy, but by Sunday it was getting noticeably fewer. We weren't TOO concerned as we found only a few floating. Monday night I threw in several fist fulls before I even had a bite. Now we see very few trout and only the blue gills.
Needless to say we're crushed and a little unhappy. We told the owner who cleaned the pond what was happening and he seems baffled. Asked what he used (which seemed like a trade secret) and he told us Aqua Thermo. We tried to look it up with no related results for ponds. HE said that the trout are causing the algae and this chemical kills the plants and clears the algae, so we must have had more plants that he couldn't see and when they died they depleted the oxygen. He insists this product is safe for the fish
Oh! And we learned trout don't float when they die...they sink to the bottom!!
Any opinions? We've had no reason to not trust this fellow before. He's coming Friday to look things over. Said he could certainly replace the fish. But if they CAUSE algae it seems like a vicious circle. Loved the fish, but also loved a clean pond.

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Welcome to the forum!

Quick, or if you don't have one, tomorrow, throw a pool thermometer in the pond and tell us what the water temperature is. If you can give us two readings, it would be nice. One foot below the surface, and near the bottom, or just at the surface if you can't get out to the deepest part of the pond.

Algae grows because there are excessive nutrients in the pond that other aquatic plants or phytoplankton are not using.

Control the nutrients and you will control the algae.

Another way is to use Tilapia, but since they are a warm water fish, and trout are a cool water fish, they cannot both coexist and thrive in a pond.

Do you have any type of aeration system in the pond?


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Don't have pool thermometer so we grabbed antique one 😜 Probably not as accurate. Tom said pond is about 200' lengthwise and the water coming in is at one end on the side so maybe 150' from drain pipe. We paddled to middle and I reached down as far as I could and got a temp of maybe 70 (Tom thinks it's probably cooler). A the place the water is pouring in it's about 62, maybe a bit cooler again.

We were told the two spots water entering should do pretty good job aerating. Suggested maybe using pipe to extend more to middle of long side. We thought since drain pulls things to other end of pond, our setup would work. There is a second well on the other side, same end, but it just squirts out unless we turn on pump.

At the drain end we also get occasional aeration from our geo thermal heating/cooling system. It really bubbles up a storm, but probably not often enough.

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Trout will live in water below 70°F as long as there is sufficient oxygen. Over 70°F they tend to go belly up because of low O2. Warmer water can hold less O2 than colder water. Trout need a minimum of 5mg/L O2 to survive, 6-7 mg/L minimum if you want to keep them healthy for any length of time.

I could not find out that chemical either. The only thing that I was able to find was a process to kill plants and algae in a body of water by heating up the water, which would not do trout any good.

Trout are sensitive to copper, but even if it wasn't used, if enough plants/algae were to be killed at once it could cause an O2 sag as it decomposes, enough to kill fish in a pond.

Unless water is agitated as it comes out of the ground, it has zero dissolved oxygen. If you add water to the pond from a well, run it through a packed column. Here's a bit of reading for you if you haven't seen it already. http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=283273


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We were told fish sink when they die but in a few days float to top. We're getting very few floaters. Been noticing more trout now down near the well. The way the former owner had the pond set up seems to have worked well as the fish had been thriving, reproducing (not the trout) until we had this fellow clean it for us. Wondering if fish will slowly come back and there will not be any lasting effects. He treats, whatever he did, only once a season.

So.. The question is: would the loss of beneficial vegetation and oxygen cause the fish to go into their "hibernation of sorts" like they do in winter where they feed off bottom. Our pond does not freeze over completely winters and is open in several places. Did I mention we are in Michigan?

We're thinking of maybe getting some plants like water lilies. Good or bad idea? Will they get invasive and take over the pond?

We appreciate any advice we can get. I'm so glad I found this site. Just reading other posts has helped a lot. Thanks for the link.

I've been trying to see how to insert pictures but don't see how.

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To me it sounds like the combination of warmer temps and lowered oxygen due to decaying plants has pushed the O2 down below the tolerance of the trout.

Note for the future: Excess feed that the trout doesn't eat plus fish waste is adding to the algae problem. 200 trout is quite a few in a 1/2 acre pond if you are trying to keep the water clear. I would personally stick with 50 or even less, and then you will only need to feed 1/4 as much food or less as you do now since there will be more natural forage for them to share.

Think of the fish food as pond fertilizer. It goes in, and if you do not harvest fish, it does not come out. At some point it will be taken up by plants in a form you do not desire.

To combat the nutrients you can plant desirable plants to take up the excess, there are several threads on here about this subject.

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To post pictures they have to be stored on-line somewhere like Photobucket. There is a tutorial in the archives.

If there are live trout by where the well is dumping water into the pond, then my experience has been that the water is getting too warm and/or too low in O2 for the trout. Any of mine that are alive around this time of the year do exactly that. Then a week later they are all dead.


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Just about all fish will get out of sorts for a week or two when you change the water chemistry. I am betting this is what you are seeing. The few that died could not make the change from the increased salts.

I us salts as in the raw chemical form not in the table salts term.


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I'm guessing that the "trade secret" chemical was copper based.....copper is toxic to trout....

I would worry if the "professional" doesn't want to say what chemical was used, especially if human and animals use the pond!

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We've had maybe 7-8 fish floating. It will be a week tomorrow. Were told fish will float after 2-3 days. So could they be deeper in the middle until things stabilize or are chances better they are dead? Did we jump the gun thinking he killed them??

Pond guy says he treats about 40 ponds in the area and I would guess many of them stock his trout. He certainly couldn't keep customers if he was killing their fish, then having to replace them. He DID tell us we might lose a few. But it doesn't make me comfortable that this is baffling him.

I'm wondering if this Aqua Thermal or whatever he called it is something used to keep water from freezing. Don't understand, though, why it would be used to clean ponds. Would it warm and kill the vegetation and algae but hopefully not warm the pond too much??

I'm slowly reading through some of the threads and am picking up some useful information. But I'm beginning to feel like we need to have a chemistry degree to understand some of the terms. So do pond owners have little chemistry test kits to analyze their water?

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If you can, get a picture of the label of the Aqua Therm.

I've had trout die in the pond and not float. If they die and sink, and something opens up the body cavity, the decaying gasses won't build up and float 'em.

There are places to send water for testing. I send water to Texas A&M University. http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/files/waterweb1.pdf


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When water chemistry changes quick the fish will go dormant and not feed. Their own body chemistry needs to catch up to the change. I would expect it would take more than 40#'s but trout are finicky.

I would not panic and expect the worse just yet.


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Pond guy came today. He is 2nd generation in this type of business. He checked with his father and also company he gets his chemistry. Something that hadn't dawned on us:

We've just been here 2 years. Previous owner had pond dug and he, being an engineer, designed or helped design it. As I mentioned, he said he at one time had 500 trout. For whatever reason (maybe overabundance of algae?) decided he was cleaning the pond and used copper sulphate. Obviously, no more fish. That had been several years before we came on the scene.

We did some inquiring and were told if we were careful and didn't do any heavy-duty raking in the pond we should be okay. I guess the copper sulphate stays in the ground.

Our pond guy was using chemicals to clean out both weeds and algae. They are thinking that possibly this reacted with the bottom and maybe released some of the copper sulfate. The fish he did see he said seemed healthy (looking at their eyes). He didn't think they were all dead and we think they are going down to the well where it's cooler.

We have noticed the numbers of fish is increasing when we feed them, even since last night. So we're hopeful. Pond guy is going to keep in touch and in the fall restock some for us if we want.

The idea that they are adjusting to the change in chemistry also makes sense.

Tom mentioned that a while ago he raked out a small turtle. Guessing it got away and/or he didn't think it would do any harm. Pond guy said we should bait a hook with a piece of fish and just leave the line tied to a tree. Eventually the turtle will hook himself and we can get him out. Apparently it can still take bites out of fish...?

Trying to upload some pix of our artesian well setup. We live in a remote area...or "dead zone" so sometimes I have to wait until I go to the 'big city' for better reception.

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Our mentor Bob Lusk's philosophy is if a fish gets eaten by a turtle it deserved it. Turtles generally only eat weak, stressed, or dying fish and very rarely a healthy fish that is able to swim well. Turtles are your ponds clean up crew especially for dying and dead fish.

Last edited by Bill Cody; 07/01/16 08:51 PM.

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Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Our mentor Bob Lusk's philosophy is if a fish gets eaten by a turtle it deserved it. Turtles generally only eat weak, stressed, or dying fish and very rarely a healthy fish that is able to swim well. Turtles are your ponds clean up crew especially for dying and dead fish.


I completely agree. Turtles aren't a bad thing to have in the pond. The only turtle that I know of that preys on live fish as a mainstay of it's diet is the Alligator Snapping Turtle, and I doubt that there are any in your area.

How to tell the difference between a common snapper and an alligator snapper

http://www.outdoorhub.com/news/2016/03/2...caught-alabama/


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My bride is on the warpath against our snapper. She saw him with one of our semi-tame frogs hanging out of his mouth!


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Bill if you have to take him have a seat with your 22 or 17hmr. Hes got to breath when its warm.


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So we won't fret about the turtle, then. Thanks. And I don't have any people friendly frogs to worry about so I'm safe there.
Seems our fish are slowly coming back to life. I see a few all eaten up closer to shore, but the numbers feeding are getting closer to normal. They're even waiting for us in the feeding area again! (I love my fish!)
I saw about 5 large blue gills who seemed to be guarding possibly their nesting areas. There are several cleared circles in the muck and vegetation. I've been trying to look online to see their breeding methods but internet here can be off and on. Curious if they ARE guarding (I swear they are looking at us!). And how long before we might see little babies?

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If those BG ARE making beds and guarding them, then the water is too warm for trout and you are lucky to have them still alive.


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