Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Need help with exisiting pond.

Howdy all, new here.

We recently moved into a new house and the property has an acre pond. It is an old farm pond and only like 3 foot deep all over and about a foot or more of muck on the bottom. Ideally id rather drain, dredge, make deeper, and refill. Not sure if that will ever happen.

Currently the pond is slap solid full of duckweed and trying to manually remove it with a rake is discouraging as there is SO much. Last year we had a fish die off as well and currently there is still some fish in it along with turtles, a beaver that I cant find, and some snakes. Sounds like a real winner huh?

Im lost into how to approach this in one, removing the duckweed (triploid grass carp), water quality after duckweed removal, and getting clear looking water to stock quality fish.

We do not want to use any chemicals either. Stopping now as I don't want to have a wall of text. hahaha

Thanks and any info needed just let me know. I really want a nice clean pond to fish out of since it is really close to our house.

Look into tilapia instead of grass carp.

Start learning about aeration. It will help with water quality and muck build up.

Learn as much as you can about all different aspects of ponds, via this forum. Read everything that comes along. This will help tremendously when it comes to re-doing the pond, which I think you eventually will come to the conclusion it needs badly.

Often times it is cheaper to build a new pond rather than cleaning an old one out. Then the old one can be left as is for a forage or trash fish pond.

But if the old pond is in a strategic location that may not be an option for you. Just another option to think about.

You definitely need to go deeper! My family owns a 1 acre farm pond in IL that was built in 1965 or so. By the 1990s it had gotten pretty silted in and the fish were stunted. In 2000 or so we had it dredged and raised our dam such that our average depth is probably 15' with a max of 20' and we stopped stocking largemouth bass, bluegill, and crappie, because they spawn, but stocked some catfish.

The only things we do now are aerate with a 1/4 hp aerator on an alternating timer and run an automatic fish feeder. Stock some catfish every once in a while because they don't seem to spawn in the pond. Fishing today is better than it has ever been with a good population of largemouth 2-5lbs and catfish 5-15lbs.

We have hired out this work in the past and in my experience, it's definitely not cheap. I've been planning an additional pond on our property and I'm considering renting equipment from United Rentals, Sunbelt, or someone similar and taking some time off of work. Where I'm at I'm getting quotes of $1000-2000/week for backhoes, mini excavators, skid steers, etc., but I am not an experienced operator. That said I'm still trying to figure out what I would need and if I can find the time.

On the duckweed problem, we dealt with this when our pond was more shallow. Be careful with the grass carp. We overdid it, they grew to be huge, and ate the pond barren. They are hard to catch too, so we used to shoot them until we stopped seeing them everywhere. We have at least one left and he could be 50 lbs, and the pond could use more vegetation. I don't know what the person selling you the carp will tell you, but for 1 acre I would recommend starting with just 2 of them and being patient. The muck and the depth issues are also impacting your vegetation, as well as the lack of aeration. I do agree with you on avoiding the chemicals though, and don't think we've put any chemicals in the pond in over 20 years and haven't seen a need.

The other thing on the existing fish in the pond, it sounds like you may not be sure of what species are currently in there. If you're not sure or you know there are undesirable species (bullhead etc.), then I would pump it dry before doing anything else. From there you can plan based on the species mix you want to maintain. Restocking isn't very expensive.

Good luck!

Im with Patrick on this one. 3 feet really wont cut it. I would drain get rest of fish out and then dig it deeper. Make sure your edge of your pond drops off to about 2 plus feet right away. Make it at least8 to 10 feet if you can I think that would be good where you are located as far as weather wise. I have a one acre pond as well and it's 9 feet deep and it's doing very well. Top 5 Pros and Cons of redoing the pond.


Pros. 1. You will have a deeper better pond
2. You will know for sure what's in your pond.
3. Your duckweed issues should go away with steeper banks.
4. Like Patrick said re stocking a 1 acre pond isn't real expensive.
5. You will have a pond you can enjoy and be proud of and in 2 years or so you will be catching nice fish out of it.


Cons: 1. Never know what your gonna run into once you start digging.
2. You need somewhere to put all that muck.
3. Cost of digging out pond.
4. Finding someone that knows what their doing when it comes to digging and hauling.
5. In one acre your going to have a lot of muck / dirt to haul off or put somewhere.

With this comment, I still stand by my initial suggestion.
I am assuming you don't have money to thro into it right now, and re-doing a pond can get expensive. More expensive than building a new one.

The tilapia will eat the duckweed. = Cost 500.00 ???

Aeration will help with muck, etc. You can use parts and pieces of the system when/if you re-do the pond one day. = 1,000 + ????

I did read years ago where some ponds in the old days ( Europe?) would raise the fish they wanted for a year or two, then drain and dry out the pond. It let the muck breakdown faster. Then refill and repeat. It was their way of combating muck like we do now a days with aeration. Might be something to consider if you don't have the cash to put into it now.

Thanks for the replies!!

A little more about the pond. It is right in my back yard so letting it go and building another is really not an option for me. The pond is an old farm pond and is only fed by runoff and rain water. During the hot and dry Mississippi summers it can get kind of low but has never dried up, not even close. Winter always fills it back up. Last year, the end of summer, the pond was low and water was hot. Im guessing the pond turned over and lost oxygen and we had a fish die off. Lots of BG and largmouths! So there is no dam per se as it is a hole in the ground filled up. Does have a spot where water runs out when its super full.

I will look into tilapia and see what they are all about. I hear they die off every year so they don’t grow to be huge and eat ALL the vegetation in the pond like hybrid GC. So im on the fence for that as I wouldn’t mind hunting the GC when they have done the job. hehe

As far as spending money on the pond im not opposed to it but at this point its not a truly high priority item. Now with that said I can spend some money now just ask my wife! Hahaha

Im breaking it down into short and long term goals here.

Short term: remove duckweed and start to improve aesthetics. We get to look at this pond everyday so really would like it to look good. There are birds, ducks, turtles, fish that all hang out on it so its not totally ugly but the duckweed makes it look like a green cesspool. Also in the short term removing muck wouldn’t hurt...Can aerating help remove muck that’s already there? Maybe stock some fish, though I think im getting ahead of myself.

Long term, I wouldn’t mind having it dug out. I have a place for the muck so it doesn’t need to be hauled off. Stock the pond the correct way, and keep it looking good.

Just not sure if my attempts for things now would be worth it..I mean it would be because we want the pond but just looking for ideas on where to begin.

Thanks again!

One more thought on short term might be to stock mosquitofish. I'd imagine the mosquitoes can be pretty bad living next to a pond like that. I don't have experience with them myself but my understanding is that they will do pretty well with poor water quality and will propagate in a pond, and eat mosquito larvae. There are studies out there that imply that they can really make a difference. If you have a bunch of bass they will just get eaten and it could be a waste of your money, but it sounds like you may not with the fish kills you mentioned. If my house was next a pond I'd be wanting to do something about the mosquitoes. Our pond is full of fish that would eat them and we don't live next to it, so not something I would try. Just a thought.