Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Roundup

I have found 19 dead smallies of the 81 I stocked last fall, lots of RES including a couple of big ones. NDEQ has been out and taken samples, DO readings, and the company that sprayed the field was out too. Apparently they sprayed a mixture 2 4 D (no surfactant) mixed with fertilizer. What they sprayed is killing the clover on my dam 10 to 20 yards inside my property. The NE Department of AG will be out Monday morning.

Oh man, that is terrible news. I would be beside myself. I wish you the best of luck with getting a quick and hopefully fair resolution.

Sorry to hear about the fish kill Shorty! Are there any regulations in place regarding weather conditions required for application that were violated?

Shorty:

I trust you are recording dead fish numbers, species, and sizes for hopeful punitive restocking measures.

Sorry to hear Shorty! Hang em high!

Will do, the bad thing is there will be a bunch that don’t float, this is just day one and I’m sure there a bunch laying on the bottom still.

Sorry Shorty

So sorry Shorty. We just had a fish kill ourselves, and it's a heart breaker.

The wind has really been blowing today which is good but a lot of the fish that died on the bank have sunk and are laying on the bottom now. I expect a lot of them will be popping up over the next couple of days. So far I have picked up 24 of the 81 SMB I stocked last fall and suspect every single one of them are dead. The only living things I have been able to sample with my long handled dip net are BF tadpoles and small 1 to 1-1/2" FHM or shiners. I will try and run the seine later tonight and see if there are any RES survivors.

I do have a handful of survivors.

Those are some king sized tadpoles.... aren’t they?

Gosh I feel sorry for you. i am not convinced 2 4 d drift caused this. First off, 2 4 is a broad leaf chemical so when u say ur brome was already smoked, that's not from 2 4 d. Brome is a grass n not killed by 2 4 d unless possibly sprayed by a very heavy dose. If they sprayed only a day ago there is little chance a decrease in oxygen could occur as plants don't decay a day after being sprayed. Something else is going on. Be interesting to see what you find out. Hope you get an answer.

Damn Steve...hey I'm here to help you, just let me know what I can do.

It was a 2 4 D and fertilizer mix, it was the fertilizer that burned the brome grass, the 2 4 D killed the algea bloom in the pond and caused a DO sag.

I have absolutely zero FA or other aquatic vegetation in my pond due to the GSH, it is all microscopic algea suspended in the water column, the water color went from green to brown overnight. Dead and dying fish less than 24 hours after spraying in the wind, what else would have caused it?

Reserve some smallies for me this fall.

Is the 2 4 D itself directly toxic to the fish? Even if the 2 4 D killed the algae, wouldn't a DO drop take longer from the decaying algae or is the DO drop from the lack of algae generating O2? Was spraying in the relatively strong wind illegal?

Steve I agree with your horrible assessment. I will help with smb this fall.

Since 5 PM tonight I have picked up the following dead fish:

33 6" SMB (a total of 81 were stocked last November.)
326 RES
91 large GSH
9 FHM
3 BF tadpoles.

I get everything picked, count fish, turn around a spot more floaters, pick them up then go inside for a hour or more. Once I come back out to check the pond I am finding 4 to 7 dozen new floaters that were not there when I left. My 10 pm flash light pick up count was 5 SMB, 84 RES, and 4 GSH. This is going to be ugly in morning.

Steve are you aerating?

Shorty, call your closest weather reporting station and get the winds for the time period before and after they sprayed. ALL chemicals for Ag use have Labeled max wind for application-seldom do the applicators follow that to a T but they should have NEVER sprayed upwind of your pond anyway-that's your way out if needed.

What a sucker punch to the cujones. All that work to create a fishery and some idiot decides to overspray an environmental toxin so they can grow a vile, toxic weed like soybeans. I guess that is why my father always said, "Good fences make good neighbors."

I am not a big believer in civil litigation but if your tests come back with a definitive conclusion, I wouldn't blame you for lawyering up.

I started shallow water emergency aeration yesterday morning as soon as I saw what was happening. I was planning on beginning the start up procedure for my deeper water aeration this weekend now that water temps have finally warmed up.

Max wind for application is 5 mph, the Lincoln Airport history had a recorded wind speed of 9 mph at 6:54 am and had climbed to 14 mph by 10:54 AM. The Company said they started spraying the 180 acres around our place at 7am. The Lincoln Airport is 15 miles straight south of us.

We also had a record high that day, it was sunny and 85 degrees by 11:54 am. One of my coworkers who used to farm said that with the sun and wind the spray may have "atomized" and been carried by the wind as it was drying. The smell was really bad when I got home, it still smelled bad when the NEDQ was out here sampling and taking DO measurements.

Isn't 2,4-D used right in ponds? DO numbers should help. Hot day