Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New member - pond almost dead

Greetings,
I need to restore my 1 1/2 acre pond after having it go dry 5 years ago and neglecting it since.
When I first decided to take action on the pond condition 3 months ago, there were no fish, no plants and very murky water. It has hundreds of bull frogs, lots of snakes and turtles and scads of crawfish.
Till this pond went dry, I kept it stocked with largemouth bass, bream and channel cats. My intention now is to grow very small fish - golden shriners for bait, and gambusia for mosquito control. I released a few hundred small fish into the pond in late June and they just disappeared. I finally realized I had almost no oxygen in the water and started emergency aeration with a trash pump/venturi setup and a week later, the fish showed up and started coming to food.
The pond is 7' at its deepest and my most pressing need is to get a permanent aeration system going. I need advice on what type is most effective. I'll have to have the pump in my barn and run 600' of tubing to the pond in order to get air down there. After I get the aeration going, I'd like to try to grow some aquatic plants to get the thing in balance again.

Thanks for whatever help you can give me and I'll also search the PB archives for relevant posts.

Welcome! You are in an enviable spot in pond management, i.e. practically starting over but with something more than just muddy water.
Check the posts re:sediment pond starting with #480067 today. GSH (golden shiner) questions.
I got a chuckle out of the typo "golden shriners" as I grew up back east and am familiar with the Mummers Day Parade and Shriners parades.
Roger

If your goal is to have a forage ONLY pond, you might want to sample vigorously to be sure you ONLY have frogs, snakes, turtles and crayfish. It seems that almost any puddle somehow ends up with LMB or BG (or green sunfish) in the northern states and I hear in the southern states, tilapia tend to show up uninvited.

I don't know how 'dry' it went or what type of fish you stocked (the few hundred small fish?) You might drag a seine net through to get a better idea?

But if you don't mind having a mixed species pond from the start then I agree, just load up on your forage, add different types of shiners, minnows, tilapia if you want them as forage and then let the pond fill and let the forage base grow.

Thanks, Roger.
I'll check out the posts and avoid stocking with Shriners - can't afford their preferred feed

thanks for the input, canyoncreek.
The pond went completely dry and didn't fill back up for 2 years. I seined my initial stock this year from nearby BOWs and know that some unID'd sunfish under an inch and 3 CCs of 3 inches and a bunch of tiny freshwater shrimp got in there with the gambusia and shiners. The gambusia population has exploded and they are feeding like crazy in a 10' ring. I would recognize the CCs feeding if they were. The sunfish might be feeding but I haven't actually seen them doing so.
As late this year as the beginning of August, I thought I had some kind of fish in the tank because there was a lot of top water activity through the day. I finally figured out that first year bullfrog tadpoles were surfacing to gulp air and that was a heads up that the DO level is way too low (I'd attach a photo but I don't see the option on this reply page). The tadpoles stopped hitting the surface after emergency aeration and a heavy rain.
I'm ready to spend around $1,000 on a aeration system but need some help getting the most effective type. I'll check the sediment pond posts, but if you've got a suggestion I'd appreciate it.

Thanks again.

I missed something, why did you say you were giving up on shiners? They are in the pond already, probably will always be there since they have a headstart?

Also if this is a forage only pond will you be removing the CC?

What will be your population control measure for the sunfish?

fowells, what would you say is the average depth of the pond, and how much does the water level fluctuate annually? I'm not an aeration guy, but I'm wondering if a bottom diffuser aeration system will give you enough lift in 3-4'of water. Just from my research, a big and shallow pond may respond well to surface aeration. That's in essence what you were doing with the trash pump.

Oh, welcome to the forum.

canyoncreek,
The Shriners comment was in reference to Roger pointing out a typo in my initial post.
I let the 3-3" CCs go into the pond just because they were cute. I doubt they'll reproduce with all the crawfish and frog presence in the pond and they are not coming to the feed (very unusual behavior for CCs if they're still alive).
Maybe a dozen sunfish got into the pond in the initial releases. I'll hope they're small mouthed species until I become aware that they're interfering with the forage fish program. If they grow at all, I'll recognize them feeding and try to trap them out. Is there a better way to control them?
Thanks.

Al,
The deepest part is 7', average is 3'. In an average year, the surface level of the pond will come down from spillway elevation 3 to 4 feet. Of course it's been a long time since we've had an average year.
The pond seemed to respond well to the trash pump aeration, but I was thinking diffuser aeration because running power to the pond will take up most of the $ I can devote to aeration but I'll do surface aeration if it is the most effective method.
Also, can you give me a tip for attaching a photo to a post? I'm not seeing the opportunity on this post page.

Thanks for your help,
fowells

Use the Switch to Full Reply Screen option instead of the Submit,and it should let you add a picture.

Bobbss,
I don't see a Switch to Full Reply Screen option but I used File Manager and attached a photo. Hope this works.

It works. Where are you in North Texas?

Near Decatur.

I was on leave in the Navy and wanted to visit a shipmate that lived in Decatur, Alabama. I had an envelope with his address on it and was on my way there.

As a young kid, I was driving, not really paying attention to much but all of a sudden I see an exit for Decatur. I take it and think to myself... "wow.. that was a lot faster than I thought"...so I pull over to ask directions... (pre-cell...)

I show the guy behind the gas station counter the envelope and he is like, "what is this "AL" stand for?"

I am thinking, "man, what a dummy.." That is Alabama...

"You're in Georgia..."

Yea, my Decatur story...

Young, not a care in the world, on liberty.. and not a clue.. heh

Yes, I made it to Alabama eventually :P

Russ

Good one, RussinTX.
I've been spending my weekends in Galveston County doing flood damage repairs so I haven't been able to search the PB posts for aeration tips.
I need to find out what to feed my little fish. I've been feeding them goldfish pellets and multi species fish pellets from Tractor Supply but the the pellets are so big that they take an hour to wrestle them down and are still ravenous. I don't want to overfeed and exacerbate my low DO problem. Any suggestions?
Thx

I have been feeding the cheap stuff, game fish chow. The fish like it well enough, though it is not optimal on protein. If you need it smaller, perhaps a cheap coffee grinder set on maximum size will knock it down a little for them.

Thanks for the tips, Liquidsquid. I just ordered a coffee grinder. I'll feed 2/3 game fish chow and 1/3 goldfish pellets (for the high plant content).
Next question is what do I do to winterize? Change feeds? Stop feeding altogether? My water temp has dropped 20 degrees in the past 2 weeks.

For most pond fish (LMB, BG, CC, RES, FH etc.) feeding slows at 60 F water temps and is minimal in low 50s. Most stop feeding pellets in the south at 55 +-.

Thanks, ewest.
My water temp is 65 degrees now and the little fish are still feeding well. I'd like to keep feeding to encourage reproduction and because I've rigged a net under the feed ring that I'll raise in order to do a census of the number and types of fish coming to the feed. Guess I'll shut her down when the temp gets to 55 as you suggest.

Let the fish tell you - is a good general guideline for feeding. When they slow down feeding then stop feeding as much. If you put out food and they don't eat much/any then stop. 55 is a guideline only.

Will do, ewest.
Apparently my forage fish are too well pellet trained now. I got the coffee grinder as liquidsquid suggested and am feeding 1/3 ground feed and 2/3 pellets. The fish ignore the ground feed that sinks to the bottom and still wrestle the pellets till they are gone. The bullfrog tadpoles and crawfish and turtles come in and graze on the ground feed. If I put some of the ground feed near brush cover near the bank, forage fish fry will eat it. I take my BB gun with me when I feed and discourage the big red-eared sliders with it. I can't bear to shoot the baby turtles, they're too cute.

Anyone else have a problem with Pied Billed Grebes? I got them and need for them to leave. Wood hate to shoot them. Also have a Kingfisher but I don't think he lives at my pond the way the grebes do.

I'm just North of you and never seen a Grebe. Like you, I don't like to shoot birds or anything else without a good reason. However, if I was raising chickens and a hawk was getting them, I'd shoot the hawk. But, I would dang sure keep my mouth shut about it.

I thought it was a cute little duck and got hopeful that I may have some submerged plants growing in the pond. I went and ID'd it on Google and found that all they eat is crustaceans, fish and amphibians. I haven't seen them for a few days - I think they didn't like the sound of me discouraging turtles with the BB gun.
I'm thinking about buying a diffuser aeration system from Northern Tool. I can keep the pump in the barn and run 300' of pex for airline to the pond. I can do this for way less than half of what I would spend to run power to the pond and buy a surface aeration system. May not be optimal, but I need to get some aeration going ASAP.

Finally dropped off my 2 jugs of pond water at Overton for testing. Maybe I'll find out why there are no plants growing. I used to spend a lot of time and effort fighting cattails and I've got old cattails along much of the shoreline but it seems like they are afraid to get their feet wet in the water. I've been blaming the scads of crawfish for the lack of plants but there may be another reason. Will plants show up volunteer when I start aerating? Anyone seen this happen? In the past I've had pondweed and algae issues but nothing wants to grow since the pond went dry and then refilled.

fowells, hopefully someone truly expert in aeration will reply, but I don't think aeration will make plants grow. Plants MAKE oxygen not consume it so i don't think you have an oxygen dearth. However aeration does tend to clear up the water and if light can penetrate in the deeper water to the bottom then you may see good vegetation growth.

The little I can say is that my pond was bare (refurbished and redug) and vegetation found its way easily in the clear, nutrient poor water. In a couple of years I had vegetation explosions (mostly unwanted milfoil) The last 2 years the nutrients are higher due to 'aging', natural leaf fall, algae, fertilizer run off, more fish poop, and not a single stem, weed or aquatic plant anywhere period. Chemicals couldn't have stripped it this clean.

The only difference? 2 years ago I added a few crayfish. Now I do have a few left over goldfish that I keep fishing out maybe they also help but I think the crayfish are to blame. Are they that hungry? I only put in a few and never saw little ones so I can't imagine there are that many in a bare bottom pond with hungry perch around. But the adult stockers were too large for any of the perch to eat so the adults should still be there.

So maybe your crayfish are eating plants, but also crayfish tend to stir up the water and the light can't get to the bottom. My pond is a muddy color all year around and I probably can thank the crayfish for the natural 'pond dye'

I'm told if you have LMB or SMB to control the crayfish you might see the vegetation come back, on the other hand, if the crayfish have rip, rocks, logs, trees, and other cover, you probably will never diminish their numbers...just achieve a balance.

Aeration will not cause plants to grow better. It can take 1-2 years or moer for a rebuilt pond with well compacted clay for plants to recolonize a hard bottom pond. Algae especially phytoplankton and then filamentous algae(FA) are always the first to colonize a new pond. IMO the crayfish and slider turtles are consuming the plants that are trying to get growing. After you add predators (LMB-CC) and they grow the crayfish numbers will diminish and then plants will develop more visible growth. High density of slider turtles could also reduce plant numbers. Google food habits of red slider turtles to get an idea of their food habits.
This is what I found about natural foods for sliders: "Red-eared Sliders feed mainly on plants and small animals, such as crickets, fish, crayfish, snails, tadpoles, worms, aquatic insects and aquatic plants." Turtles don't have teeth, but instead have horny ridges that are serrated and sharp on their upper and lower jaws.

Thanks, canyoncreek. 15 years ago I bought 1,000 Louisiana crawfish at the Vietnamese grocery store and released them into the pond. They and the bullfrogs are the only big animal species that survived when the pond dried up 5-6 years ago. When the water level came back up, the crawfish population exploded. My intention is to grow forage fish only and so I won't be using predator fish to control them. I'm confident that when the water temps come back up next year I'll be able to trap them out down to a healthy number for the pond.
Right now they've got me worried because they're no longer visibly feeding but are burrowing like crazy all around the shoreline but especially on the dam bank. I don't know how deep they burrow but I'm concerned that they may be compromising the structural integrity of the dam. Do you know if this is a valid concern?

Bill, your bringing up the red-ear slider issue reminds me of a turtle related story that happened about 10 years ago in this region of Texas. An entrepreneur devised a pyramid scheme sort of like Amway that was aimed at providing turtles to the Asian market. Some of the PB members might remember this. He supplied turtle traps to individuals who went out and trapped the turtles and then scheduled regular collection and weigh-in events at a defunct roadside attraction west of Weatherford. I had trapped more than a hundred sliders out of my pond and decided I'd take a couple of buckets full to the collection event. I guess I'm too softhearted toward turtles but this event kind of turned my stomach. There were a few snapping turtles and soft-shelled turtles which were highly prized and then there were tons of red-ear sliders which were just dumped into a flatbed trailer with high side walls - to be shipped to Asia. I quietly slunk off and released my sliders into the Brazos. I think the enterprise fizzled after a couple of months. Anyone remember this? Is there still a market for sliders for meat?
My pond now has a couple of big sliders and around 30 babies. I'll get around to building a turtle trap and reduce that number.
Since I'm just raising forage fish, I won't be stocking predator fish species so I'll just have to take care of the turtle and crawfish populations with trapping and the BB gun.
Thanks for your help.

fowells, if you find an effective trap that lets you control numbers or crayfish many of us are all ears! I've tried different traps and baits and can't seem to reliably get them to come in the trap and stay in.

If you are only raising forage then muddy water won't be a concern, it will keep it algae and weed free. Aeration would still be a plus for better survival and carrying capacity.

You might still want to pick a species like SMB that target crayfish and put a small number in (they possibly could reproduce) and keep the small number. They would certainly get some of your forage fish but probably would help preferentially nab the crayfish. Easy pickings for them if not much rip rap or other suitable hiding spots in the way.

canyon creek, I attached a pic of the type of trap I use. I run 7 or 8 of them at a time and check them every couple of hours to make sure the crawdads don't leave and to keep them from devouring each other (I had a trap that rolled into deeper water and I didn't find it for a week - it was full of crawfish, half alive and whole and the other half either dead or de-limbed and still flipping). I use cheap dog food or fresh dead fish for bait. I trapped out more than a thousand in one week and finally stopped because I didn't have time to mess with it. I think when the temps are warm I can catch out a majority of these creatures. I wish there was a local market for them for fishing bait.
I'm going to stay strong and resist the temptation to stock SMB. I love fishing for them and have caught the most and biggest on golden shiners - one of the species I'm raising!
I want to get plants growing mostly for cover for the forage fish. Right now all they have to hide in is brush piles I've set in shallow water near the feed rings and I know I will eventually have a problem with the inevitable GSF predation.
I appreciate your input and my understanding of what's happening down in the pond grows as I read it.

I appreciate your input. I'm happy for you that the standard minnow trap captures your crayfish. Mine must be very wary or something. I've tried, bread, dogfood, bacon scraps, raw chicken and cuttings from chicken trimmings, corn, and fish carcasses. I've been advised that the rubberized coating on the metal may be the issue. I've burned my coating off (easy to do with a hand held butane torch or in a campfire) and painted. Tried brown, grey, natural rust color, doesn't seem to matter. Tried other mesh traps, pyramid traps, not much success.

I've watched youtube videos of how viciously the innocent looking turtles can go after crayfish. Perhaps my turtles are putting a hurt on the crayfish?

I think it has to do with total numbers. Perhaps if you have 1,000,000 crayfish and can catch 1000 in a week that makes sense. Maybe I don't have as many crayfish as I think. What type are your crayfish, maybe they are more aggressive or more hungry? Are they red swamp crayfish?

You've thought about the SMB and have good reason to not put them in. I would agree with your logic.

It will be neat to see how things go for your forage in the future. Sounds like you could set up a bait shop for both the GSH and the crayfish!

When you can't catch crayfish in baited traps then the density of crayfish is low. Numbers of crayfish caught by trapping is directly proportional to the numbers of crayfish present. Crayfish are not hard to catch when they are common. I suspect the existing fish, even without bass, are consuming lots or most all the crayfish offspring. Life span of adults is likely 2-3 yrs. I have seen 2.5"-3" crayfish in stomach of 8"-9" YP. My papershell crays are not overly abundant and any trap with a large enough opening for the critter will capture a few to several of them each overnight set with out using any bait. When they are not entering a baited trap the cray numbers are low to very low.

fowells - if you say and have "blaming the scads of crawfish" then as you suspect it is primarily those critters that are keeping your pond plant free and I also suspect turbid.

It is likely you have critters like crayfish, ducks, and turtles eating the plants faster than you can establish them. Aeration is unlikely to make a difference, if not make it more difficult to get plants established because it may reduce water clarity for sunlight penetration. This is due to water movement not allowing suspended particles to settle.

Simply put, your predator/prey relationship between plants and critters is unstable. Take out a bunch of predators to get the balance back in check. You need some big bass and whatever else is required to get a handle on the crayfish. Turtles are minor unless you have a ton of them, or you have lilies of which they target. The ducks, not much you can do unless you sit around the pond day after day to discourage them. Once you think you have a handle on them, go into "desirable plant mode" and plant what you want in your pond. Put cages around the plants to keep turtles out. Simple fence cages should work. Once you have a good base of plants started, it should establish itself and be not much more work.

canyoncreek, yes they are red swamp crawfish. I put in the initial thousand to provide another food source for the LMB and CC I was raising 15 years ago. When the pond went dry, the crawfish just burrowed in and waited out the drought. Interestingly, over the years we've had numerous big crawfish visit our front yard on their way to who knows where. Our yard is 200 yards from the pond.
I Googled the turtles eating crawfish videos and it looks like my turtles have much easier pickings with forage fish and young bullfrogs. Dismembering a crawfish looks like hard work for them. Most of the sliders have to go.
I've also got racoons eating a lot of crawfish but I'm actively live-trapping them out. I hate racoons, the thieving, destructive, wildlife killing marauders that they are. It's personal. I know that the coons would take care of a lot of the crawdads burrowing into my pond banks but I can't tolerate their presence. I wonder if there's some chemical I could put a drop or two into each burrow that would stop the crawfish and not hurt the ecosystem?

Thanks, Bill. I have water samples being tested for turbidity and other qualities at Overton Fisheries now. Maybe I'll have a new understanding of the state of pond in a couple of weeks.

liquidsquid, sounds like a plan except for the big bass. They'll just slurp up my desired forage fish by the thousands. Ducks will visit briefly on their migration south and won't be a problem. The turtles are manageable. The crawfish have gone into full burrowing mode since the water temps have fallen and I'm thinking I will pour an ounce or two of ag strength vinegar into each burrow I can find and then, along the bank of the dam, pour Sacrete into each burrow to counteract the effects the burrowing has had on the structural integrity of the dam. I think this burrow treatment will throw a real kink into the reproduction of the crawfish and I'll start trapping them out again in the spring.
The part of your reply I'm most interested in and completely clueless about is what and how and when to plant when I've reached a good condition for plants to grow. Never planted a plant in water in my life. Are there resources available where I can find out what are desirable plants and how to propagate them?
Coincidentally, I just saw a very thin layer of pond scum in the shallow water where I've placed brush piles for cover for the forage fish. Is this algae? Should I be concerned or encouraged that some plant life is appearing?

It will be almost impossible to tell I suppose, other than observing the burrowing going minimal. I don't really think you can knock down the amount of crayfish unless you find a means to kill them in large quantities. They will out-breed your efforts. The only way I think it may work is to stock fish that work 24/7 to keep the numbers under control.

I only have planted lilies in my pond, the rest have come uninvited. I have no crayfish (yet), so I don't have a problem with too little plants.

There are some pretty good threads on this site about what plants to choose that don't take over a pond and look nice. I used to have a decently maintained pond garden until an 11yo boy gained priority. I used to just go to the local pond garden place and picked out plants that looked nice.

liquidsquid,
That family stuff can really get in the way of working on the pond as much as we'd like to.
I'll find and go to a pond garden place when I find one.
Thanks for your help.