Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Slave Dog

Theo Gallus – This is just a small area of my corporate work place where I have a few hobby items stored temporarily.

Mold isn’t a very cooperative organism.

Bruce Condello - Do you like fishing through the ice?

I see a frown after, I would happily beam over 5 or 6 inches from here in Jan-Feb! :rolleyes:

I love fishing through the ice. I just have very demanding criteria.

1. Ice at least 5 inches thick
2. Air temperature over 35 degrees
3. No wind or light winds
4. Lots of fish biting
5. NFL playoff game blaring on the radio from my truck
6. Beef jerky or goose jerky readily available

By the way, I really like the diagram. It is very applicable to my situation. I hope you keep posting on it, Dwight. I'm going to be turning mine off for the season next week or the week after, and putting it in the building for cleaning and service. I'm assuming that my oxygen problems will be a thing of the past when the water temps drop to the 40's.

Bruce Condello – I too am a fair weather ice fisher. My criteria vary somewhat from yours, but conceptually we are on the same agenda.

1. Ice at least 12 inches thick so I can drive on the ice down to the heated ice fishing shack.
2. Air temperature over 0 degrees
3. No wind or light winds
4. Lots of fish biting
5. NFL playoff game on the radio in the fishing shack.
6. Snacks and beverages readily available


What type of maintenance do you perform on the circulator?

I will add to the post as I learn anything new.

We are expecting 35 mph winds here again today, sheeesh!

I have 6ppt salt levels in my ponds so I have to check the circulator for corrosion and clean if necessary. I'm not sure yet if I need to do any winter lubricant checks, since I haven't had them during a winter yet. I'll try to get the manual later today.

Dwight, on our aerators we use a 3 point anchoring system. Two ropes and two concrete blocks off the front, one rope and one concrete block off the back. It is in the shape of a "Y" witht he current going out the top of the "Y".

The twisty comment can be explained after trying to deal with a 200' power cord being wrapped up in two anchor ropes with algae, all being anchored by 3 cinder blocks.
My girls get dolls and other toys anchored in the box by thin, vinyl coated wire that is very time consuming to remove unless you have some cutting equipment.

Bruce, come again? 6 ppt as in parts per trillion? on what type of device can you measure sodium chloride to ppt levels? and are levels of salt in the ppt range really anything to be at all concerned about?

educate me in el dorado

Bruce Condello – I would think since the circulator is designed for use in salt water, there wouldn’t be much to do other than checking the anode and an exterior clean-up.

You may need to come up with another excuse to go to the cabin.

Hmmmm.. Sounds like Bruce's wife reads the forum. He uses a similarly calibrated device that he uses to measure 1/1 millionth of an inch of rainfall.

Shorty – Your 3 point setup appears to be the way to go with a float system. I would do that tomorrow, but I still want to have the ability to pull the whole system in closer to shore during my “testing the system winter”.

I hope you noticed in the diagram that I took your recommendation and went to a concrete block on the back. I am also using a 40 foot length of rope on the back end as per your recommendation to a have a rope at least three times the depth of the water.

I am putting the revised system back on line tomorrow. It is supposed to be a balmy 48 degrees, with wind 8 to 15 mph.

RBurke Keystone Hatcheries – Good grief, that sounds like a massive entanglement!

I haven’t had the opportunity of dealing with those toy anchors that you describe.

I can tell you that as you go further through life with daughters you will find the toy anchors were actually fun as compared to cars and boys, or any combination of boys and cars!! :p

That's 6 parts per thousand, folks. As in 6,000 parts per million. Seawater is 36 parts per thousand. That's one reason why HSB do so well in my ponds. They can tolerate salinities up to nearly full seawater. My well water is about ten times saltier than you'd want to drink. Interestingly, my water is similar in salinity to a bluegill's body. That may be one reason why my bluegill grow so well and have so few disease problems. They are expending little or no energy to maintain an osmotic gradient. All the more energy to go towards growth. I've also found that redear sunfish thrive in levels like this. I've got some that grew quite large this summer, although I'm hesitant to tell anybody how big. I don't know if anybody would believe me. :p

...Now look who's got the good memory.

and by the way...

Where the heck is my anode?

awlright, in and as it relates to dwight's maintenance requirements on his circulator..........

i deal with analytical data in ppm, ppb, and ppt (parts per trillion) on a daily basis so that one had me....when it gets that high we either stay with ppm or go to percentage.

oh oh, i'm having an off topic brettski_itus attack.....a thought out of the box....

so if yer theory is correct bruce, for those of us managing for big lepomis, and assuming most of us have normal (fresh) pondwater, we could carefully salt our ponds for happier and bigger BG and RES? calibrate and add x lbs of salt to Y gallons of pondwater volume to yield concentrations in the low ppt (parts per thousand) hmmmmmmmm.

D.I.E.D, I actually think that could be possible. I even ran an analysis of it and it wasn't that incredibly expensive. It could help with keeping diseases levels low, but I'm concerned with what it might do to the plant community. I have no filamentous algae, no duckweed, no chara, no coontail. Just sago (potemogeton) and cattails--and not many of the latter.

And for whatever reason, I always see water analyses listed in ppm, but when texts report on salinity levels it's listed in parts per thousand. Don't know why, it just is.

Sample. http://el.erdc.usace.army.mil/zebra/zmis/zmishelp4/salinity_level.htm

Bruce Condello - Your anode is located on your circulator shaft.

I hope I am not headed for a steady diet of government cheese and living in a Van down by the river!

All right lets hear about those RES !!! You have to quit keeping these things secret. It seems like we have to keep asking about once a mth.

If your water has a ph of 7.4 with the same salt content as blood you should be set.

Fish and other vertebrates have an
average blood pH of 7.4. Fish
blood comes into close contact
with water (1- or 2-cell separation)
as it passes through the blood vessels
of the gills and skin. A desirable
range for pond water pH
would be close to that of fish
blood (i.e., 7.0 to 8.0).

...a character building lifestyle that nurtured me through adolescence. No wonder I spent so much time in Wisconsin as a kid.
-
-
Dave's exasperated cry for help:
...welcome to my world; want some cheese?

My pH is 8.0.

My salinity is 6 ppt.

My fish are, in essence, swimming in their own blood.

I took a picture of one, but I didn't post it for fear that Theo would comment on the length of my arms. I transplanted some into my Dad's pond (circular aeration pond, with bluegill condo) and the size distribution went from a range of 7.5 to 9.5 inches, to a range of 9 to 10.5 inches in five months. The body condition is ridiculously good. I don't know RES Wr's, but I would equate them to a BG at 130.

Brettski – What do you think about dumping bags of water softener pellets in your pond water as per the BC and D.I.E.D discussion?

I can almost guarantee that it would kill all the Topekas Shiners in my pond and destroy all hope for the $5,000,000 pond improvement grant that I applied for.

TOPEKA SHINER

If you hooked up the monster according to the blueprint, it's the neck bolt on the right side.