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#476203 07/17/17 07:13 AM
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Well it has be gone, I dropped a 2 inch pump in the pond and plugged it in. I have been pumping for 3 days now and the pond seems to be going down nicely.

Right now we have 2 half acre ponds right beside each other, about 30 or 40 feet apart. 1 pond is around 8 years old and has Walleye, Perch, Blue Gill, Pumpkinseed, Green Sunfish, Spot Tail Shiners. The other pond is 2 years old and has very little if anything in it.

We are hoping to have the older pond down to 2 feet of water by this Saturday. We have 30 people coming over for a pond netting and barbeque party. If all goes well we will net and move the fish we want to keep into the other pond. Then finish the pumping and schedule the heavy equipment to come in.

We will be renovating the older pond before we break through and connect the two ponds. Goals for the renovation are to make it deeper and steeper to help with our milfoil issue. Remove a peninsula that we have (nothing grows on it but grass and it grows so quick it needs to be cut almost daily) and to remove nutrients.

I will take lots of pics and if I can figure out how to post them I will.

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Well it looks like 1 two inch pump in a half acre pond is not going to get me down to a good netting depth in 8 days so a second pump is going in tonight.

I took two 1000 lt IBC Totes and cut them in half so I got holding tanks to dump the nets in and sort fish from.

This is going to be quite the event my wife is in full event planning mode. she has a blow up castle/pool/slide thing coming for the kids and enough barbeque food to feed an army.

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are you planning on building a channel to actually "connect" the ponds? I have a similar scenario on my property but the distance is less than 30 feet. More likely about 20ish.

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I bet a 4" siphon pipe would get you there a little quicker. If you use a roll of 4" drain pipe, when you are done, cut it up and make a couple of Georgia fish cubes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4JmX4gHUiQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wveI9444eas


Last edited by BrianL; 07/19/17 10:07 AM.

1.8 acre pond with CNBG, RES, HSB, and LMB
Trophy Hunter feeder.
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My ponds are dug out on relatively flat ground so no dam or slope. So I don't think a siphon would work. We are taking all the earth in-between the two ponds out so it will be much more then just a channel. When we are done it will look like the pond was dug all at the same time.

I am a little nervous about the actual break through but my heavy equipment guy seems to think it will be fine.

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I remember dad sticking a dozer between two ponds doing that, but I'm sure they will use a track hoe for that job.


1.8 acre pond with CNBG, RES, HSB, and LMB
Trophy Hunter feeder.
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It wont be a dozer that's for sure, one pond full one empty and a dozer in the middle would be ugly. He thinks he can dig a trench from the empty pond half way to the full pond then start working his way from the full pond to the half way point. When they meet slowly dig and control the water flow. Should be interesting.

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Well the shallow parts of my pond are now mud so we got to go looking around. 2 things we noticed, one we haven't seen any crayfish yet. this pond use to have tons of them and we have lots of rock. So not sure what that means? also we found a bunch of huge clams in the mud, like the size of my hand. Is that a good thing?

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Clams mean good water quality, the crawfish may be hiding under the rocks.

I don't know how he will control the water flowing from one pond to the other, it will tend to wash dirt away from the edges as the water flows from one to the other.

Just a note: I'm seeing a lot more Blue Green algae showing up in ponds that are steep enough to limit underwater plant growth, but have a high nutrient load. The jury is still out whether nutrient management without vascular underwater plants in the pond will limit BG algae growth. I will know for sure in a year, hopefully in two months.


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).
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Thanks for the information. I'm not trying to have no plants, I will be planting some for sure. Right now we have some shallow areas near the dock that were put there for fishing purposes but have turned into milfoil beds. The plan is to have deep water near the dock and the sides drop off quick enough that the milfoil will be limited to the shoreline.

We are actually going to extend the pond out a bit in the direction that rain water enters the pond and plant this area with beneficial plants and try to manage that area and keep the milfoil out.

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Saturday was pond netting day and what a fun day it was. First the fish. Walleye: We put in 42 or 43 that were 2 1/2 inches long about 4 years ago, We netted 21. 20 of them were the same around 14 inches and about a pound to a pound and a half. 1 was 18 inches and pushing 3 pounds. Perch: Not near as many as I thought there would be. 15 to 20 really nice ones 9 to 11 inches. very few 1 year old perch. Thousands of this year fry that were too small for the net. Blue Gill: Really surprised that there was very few big gills, only about 10 big ones, Not even very many of the next size down say 5 inches or so. But there was thousands of 2 to 3 inchers. Green Sunfish: It turns out that I didn't have the problem I thought I did Only netted about 100.

Overall, I'm happy with the health of my Walleye. When feeding my blue gill I think every good gill in the pond was coming for feed. What Perch I have are healthy but its obvious the Walleye are hammering them. When I was seeing lots of greenies right up against the shore I was seeing everyone in the pond. The only real surprise was 1 huge bull head catfish.

As for the after party, We cooked up 100 sausages 50 burgers and 50 cobs of corn. I'm not going to admit to how many empty cans of beer there was the next day. Lets just say my head still hurts.

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I had my heavy equipment guy over last night and it all looks good. He is confident that he can use the peninsula to make a ramp so he can back the trucks down in the pond and fill them with the excavator instead of having a dozer in the pond pushing the dirt to the bank. This is good news as it means one less piece of equipment and I really prefer the finish work of an excavator over the dozer. It is looking like we will get started in 2 weeks, now I just need this darn rain to stop falling.

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When ponds are close togther, muskrats can do it free of charge. I have two sets of ponds so connected. Charge comes later to fix.

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That's Funny. I have only ever had 1 visit my pond. Me and Remington strongly suggested he leave.

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It finally stopped raining here and the excavator started moving earth yesterday. The first day wasn't really productive because of the prep work needed. Some of the rock has been moved, top soil stripped for the expansion and a earth bridge built so the trucks can back right into the pond. Today I have three dup trucks coming so there should be a lot of dirt moved. I just got back form picking up steel posts for my dock. I got a carpenter buddy coming over in a few hours to help my lay them out and then the excavator will push them in the ground for me. Its getting exciting now.

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The reno is almost complete, The old pond has been taken down about 5 ft. (approx. 300 dump trucks full). The area between the two ponds is now only 8 ft wide and I have two 2 inch pumps running trying to equalize the water depth. If all goes well Monday we will have the excavator, two dump trucks and a dozer on site to complete the job.

We have to remove the strip of land between the two ponds put down 300 ft of fabric and 3 to 4 loads of rock. The dozer has about 1/2 the berm done so that needs to be completed and then just touch up the land with the top soil that was stripped in the beginning.

I'm super happy with the quality of the job but it is defiantly going over budget.

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It is finial done!! We now have a 1.4 acre pond with a deep spot of about 15 ft and an average depth of about 7 to 8 ft. It has 12 ft wide Landscape fabric all the way around and covered in 6 inch rock. Now I have a 27 ft long dock to build and some minor landscaping to do.

A few things of note: The bluegill were only in the other pond for around 3 weeks and we found 3 beds when we let the water down. also there were thousands of 1 inch long crayfish trying to get back to the water.

Cost, OUCH! This went way over budget. When they say it is cheaper to build a new pond over renovating an old one they are not kidding.

All in all I am very happy with the finished product and now get to start researching plants for next spring.

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sounds like a nice pond. let see some pics.


.75 acre pond dug in September 2016. YP, HBG, HSB, SMB, and RES.
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I am the least tech savvy guy you will meet, email is about as high-tech as I get. I will see if my daughter can help me post them.

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I agree! Need pics!!

Congrats!


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