Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations I might be Freaking out here

Yes I now aerate after 8 years. I've had power to the pond for 7 years but had to run it 2500' from the road to my parcel at $4.50/ft. One could run air up to 1000' IIRC from aeration experts.

Ok, in the back of my mind I was thinking/hoping, maybe I wouldn't need to. I know I do, as I've got lots of fish in one acre, and lots of trees dumping lots of leaves every fall..
thx

I plan to aerate too, if I can ever stop the seeps and make the pond worth doing aeration. Right now the pond is a hassle due to the seepage, and needing to pump every time it rains enough to make the creek flow.

Thanks, John. I'm gonna check out a buried line, as 30 feet of clearance will really take out a lot of trees.

BrianL, yes I have pinched back the feeders to a 2 second throw in the early morning and a 1 second and two second throw in the evenings. That's 3 TH feeders at one per acre. Like I said earlier, I have cut back on the feeding this past few months because of my past experience with 12" green water during the hot summer months. I am still seeing heavy blooms even after cutting back on the feeding this past few months. The last two years I would have been feeding at 15 second throws 3 times per day.

I had to replace the sparkplug on the Honda pump and we are back and running the Big Sprinkler. The problem is I am not there to have it running at dusk and at dawn. Not sure how much the sprinkler helps but makes me feel a little better than nothing being done. It is an irrigation sprinkler and kicks out a lot of water, all the Honda 160 pump will pump.

Tj, I may bite the bullet on the power line before it is all over and done with but I am still looking into a generator with propane fuel.

DIY aeration isn't expensive and provides a huge benefit in water quality. I'm going to introduce a bacteria program starting next year also to help reduce eutrophication effects over many seasons. Buying years back on the pond.

Update - its been a week and the green water visibility remains at 11" with a couple of times it was checked at 9" sushi visibility. After talking to Todd Overton and discussing surface aeration along with the Kasco diffusers I have running, it was suggested I need a D O Meter. I need to know the dissolved oxygen numbers before I go out and throw more money around, and which direction to go from here. It made sense to me, kinda of like DAH! I order a kit from Pentair Aquatics, spoke to their tec depart but I think I got a new tec, he was not familiar of Kasco diffusers. We also discussed paddlewheels, he suggested three 1hp paddlewheels for my pond. Todd recommended two of the two hp paddlewheels. Todd's recommendation makes more since. less equipment to hook up, more agitation for the buck, two motors cheaper than three, and less repair, fewer parts etc. Ad the D O meter will arrive here Tuesday. Fish count at the feeders remain low in numbers, but the pond is loaded right no with all kinds of fry and I feel like the fish are feeding on the fry also right now.

High heat reduces feeding as well.

Yep. By this time last year, feeding at my BOW had tapered off quite a bit. This year it is still going strong, probably due to more rain and lower average temperatures.

OK! Things are kinda coming together in my mind and in the pond. Once again, going back to the last PB Magazine where the green water article said you want 12" visibility I am starting to feel a little better about it all, maybe because I am still a little unsure about it all but I am passing this along so I might learn more and maybe others might pick up a little information as well. Please add to this if you want to share.

The DO meter arrived and I was at the pond at 7 this morning and had the probe in the water by 7:30. The probe has a 9' cable, so that's the deepest I checked. 6 diffusers running 24/7, sushi reading at 9am was 11.5"

DO @ 9' in 12' water showed 5.6mg/l or 76% water temp at 9' 83.6F
Do @ 9' in 10' water had 3.4 mg/l , raised probe a foot and had 5.6mg/l The very bottom foot had lower DO number.
Do @ 6' in 6' water had 5.6 mg/l water temp 84F at 6' depths.
Do @ 3' in 3' water had 5.6mg/l water temp 84F
DO @ 1' in all of the above water depths was 6.4 water temp was 84F
DO @ 1' in 1' of water along the shoreline was 4.1 as the water temps raised to 85.6

The water has been getting better and better as far as how the water looks all shiny and such. It has never looked dull but was a pea green about 3 weeks ago with suchi readings at 9" most days.

Water temps are high at 84 degrees F at 7:30 am and the temps are at all water depths due to the diffusers. I did see lower DO numbers in the air columns rising from the diffusers a 3.4 mg/l in the 10 water depths. This is most likely due to raising water off bottom where the lower DO number matched the bottom foot DO. I was not able to measure the DO on bottom in the 12 depths due to short cable.

6.1mg/l was at the surface except for the shoreline and 7.5 if I recall was the atmosphere prior to dropping the probe.

Any thoughts on where a 5.6mg/l or 76% is when it comes to oxygen level in warm water?

Will, its been a few days since I started monitoring the DO and temps and sushi readings in the pond during early morning. In the past five days the water temp has moved up to 85F from 84 and the DO has dropped to a 5.5 from a 5.6 but I did have a day of 6.1 readings just a couple of days ago. The water visibility is getting better with 12" reading a couple days ago and an 14" reading this morning. And this morning, for the first time in about 3 weeks, I saw HSB feeding on the surface (eating TFS I suspect). I also saw the cnbg feeding improving to where it is about 50% of the norm. It looks like the worst of it has passed with only a couple of HSB floaters and that may have been due to me adding some HSB to the pond during the beginning of this heavy bloom. It was not my plans to add HSB to the pond at the beginning of this bloom but it is how it worked out.

I wet a hook this morning to get a look sample of the lmb. I did not catch a lmb and suspect they are slow due to the water temps being so hot, but I managed to catch an HSB while plastic worm fishing. I horsed it in and returned it to the water asap. This hsb was in the 14" range and so I am hoping it will survive the short fight. I purposely used a plastic worm fished Texas style hoping to avoid the HSB. So much for THAT idea, but the hsb looked really healthy. Hope I don't find it floating tomorrow. I think it will be ok.

I continue to look into getting elec to the pond for paddle wheels. It seams I can get a 8500 wht generator but having trouble finding someone that will service it if needed later on.

Tracy, how do you monitor raw fish readings? (sushi)

It would be more efficient fuel wise to run the paddle wheel with a gas engine, rather than run an electric paddle wheel with a generator, unless the generator is very temporary and the paddle wheel is shortly to be run by public electricity service.

Ha ha ha one bite at a time lol ck spelling

John I am sure u r correct about a gas engine being more efficient. I am looking into my options now. I found a diesel powered generator(air pro) for 8 grand. It's more than I want to spend but I like the idea of it being mobile. Also looked at a PTO tractor driven system but its to small for a 3+ acre pond. Another thing I don't like is the paddlewheel surface aeration system may require electrical wiring to be in the water. John, u seem to be very knowledgeable about such things. I suspect surface aeration may be necessary during the heat of the summer or June through Sept. it's what might be necessary when attempting to grow numbers of large lmb in a 3+ acre pond. Ideas and out loud thinking welcome

Tracy
Have you looked into a Miller gas welding machine/ generator for about $ 4 k
11000 watts

That is not a bad idea Pat. The 2 -2hp paddlewheels will use around 4800 watts if I understand it correctly. And to add the Miller onto a trailer it could be moved around to other ponds that might come into play at some future dates. Thanks Pat

Update, The pond is looking good. Visibility is back to 18" of an Olive green color. The oxygen levels are now running 8.8mg/l through out the pond. Last week the water just started clearing up. It took around 3 days where visibility went from 9" pea green to 18" of visibility. I ran an outboard engine to move water around and to form a volcano for surface aeration. I would move the boat around to all parts of the pond and put the nose of the boat against the bank and run the engine in forward gear around 3,000 rpm(I'm guessing). I did this for several days. I also ran an irrigation sprinkler 2 to 4 hrs per day to assist in surface aeration. And the diffusers ran 24/7.

I lost a couple of hsb(that I could see) and the cnbg are once again feeding at the feeders. Water temps are now at 85 to 86F.

All I can say is thanks for ya'll help,

So any idea on what you can do to prevent this from happening again? Sounded like you were doing everything to prevent this and it still happened. Too many fish caused by too much feed? Fish #s ok, but too much feed? I have backed down on the feed I am throwing this year. NO real reason other than they weren't feeding real good when the water was turbid earlier in the year, when water cleared I never increased time as their feeding increased. Last year I was feeding 80-90 seconds per day(6-7#s), this year 36 seconds per day(3#s), plus what I hand throw on occasion.

Glad things worked out. Try to establish what caused the improvement as you may need it again. Was the water from the irrigation sprinkler chlorinated ? If so that may be a part of the plankton reduction process. Plankton often runs in cycles and this cycle may be over but it could come back. I still do not think it is a temp problem as those fish can take 90 F + temps. Good alkalinity and a plankton bloom usually improves DO in a pond. The most important part of pond mgt is learning what is going on and adapting to your water.

I have a small sediment pond to catch all the sand that comes into the big pond when we get large rain events. I tossed in some fhm's last year and feed the minnows daily by hand tossing. This fertilized the water and after going through a drought on the pond this last year, the water was pretty green and high in nutrients. Lots of FHM's also. We had a really good rain event and flushed the pond into the big pond. The large dense bloom started just days after that event. I have had many blooms in the pond, some by fertilizing and some natural. I did not fertilize this year because the water looked to be almost perfect the whole year(lack of cold winter, I'm guessing).

I still have a few fhm's in the sediment pond but I will not feed them again and fertilize that water. They will have to survive the natural way.

Eric, the water sprinkler using the Honda pump, would pick up water from the five foot water depths from the pond and then spray. I also ran the water well, but after seeing the two floating hsb and where it was suggested, may have been caused by water temp change, I backed off the water well to every other day during this event. I was looking for dilution at the time.

How big is the sediment pond (water vol) vs the big pond ? Some marginal food excess in a small pond should not overcome the vol in the big pond absent unusual conditions.

The sediment pond is smaller now than it was when built. It has trapped a lot of sand since it was built. Pond is 30x45'x6' when the large rain event flushed the pond into the larger pond. The water in the sediment was fertile with a strong green tent to the water. I guess it is possible that a soybean wildlife food plot at the top of the hill might be the cause or the clover food that grows on the side of the hill might contribute to that strong bloom, Both of these plants introduce nitrogen into the soils where run off into the pond might do it. I never fertilize these food plots and rotate soybean so winter food plots enjoy that nitrogen.

If not the sediment pond then I am not sure at this point what started such a strong bloom that ran over a course of around 3 weeks, most blooms I had seen before lasted a week or so.

Gather as many facts (info) as possible and write them all down. Keep an open mind and don't let any early conclusions stop the fact gathering. As for the crops/clover etc there is a measurement on how far those nutrients may move. I would be shocked if they were the cause but write them down anyway. Truth is it may be a combination of factors.