Hello and thanks for letting me join this group. I have about a 1/3 acre pond about 25 years old and hope to find better ways to keep the water clean here. I am in Mid Michigan. Thanks.
Great to see another Michigander join the forum. There are several of us from mid-MI, SE and SW MI. I'm not sure we have any members from the U.P. of MI. Tell us about the fish/critters in your pond. You said it isn't very clean. Do you mean it is murky or there is algae? Do you have crayfish?
=canyoncreek]Great to see another Michigander join the forum. There are several of us from mid-MI, SE and SW MI. I'm not sure we have any members from the U.P. of MI. Tell us about the fish/critters in your pond. You said it isn't very clean. Do you mean it is murky or there is algae? Do you have crayfish?[/quote]
I feel like I need to start a new post as I think it will be long. I know nothing about correct pond care. I have about 1/3 acre maybe, its about 90'x120' kidney shaped. It is about 25 years old. When I built my house, because of all clay, I needed a raised septic field. So I dug a pond for about 2500 yards of fill. The guys digging it did many ponds so we started right. It has a slope then a drop off trench thru the middle. Its 20' deep in the middle. I stocked hybred blue gills and large mouth bass. I have been airating for 20 years. I have no winter fish kill. Also frogs a few crayfish. The pond fills every spring from run off. Problem is its farm run off and I think the fertilizer is growing weeds and thick surface alge. I've tried the market versions of natural bacteria but it just don't work. Only thing that helps is copper sulfate but now I think the dead alge is giving me the brown water. That's it in a nut shell. http://forums.pondboss.com/tmp/15849.jpg http://forums.pondboss.com/tmp/15850.jpg http://forums.pondboss.com/tmp/15851.jpg
somehow the forum has a glitch yesterday and today as attached files are not allowing me to open them and view them.
How does your pond hold water in the summer? IS there quite a bit of water fluctuation? Do you have groundwater coming in to replace water during the non-spring months? We have a fair amount of iron in our ground water and iron sediment makes our leaves and dirt carry a rust/brown color as the iron settles out. It hurts nothing, the fish don't mind.
I also have a smaller pond and I get a lot of hardwood leaves in it in the fall. I spend a fair amount of time raking out as far as I can reach every spring. This gets rid of lots of nasty brown muddy debris, dead algae from the year before and removes biomass, biomass that the algae will feed on the next season. I figure I can remove easily 600-800 pounds of biomass every year. Without that I think my algae problem would be big!!
There are those who have had some success with adding healthy bacteria and muck dissolving pellets. I have not tried that. I'm not sure how much that adds beyond the aeration you are doing, but some say getting muck dissolving pellets right down into the sediment on the bottom helps to some degree.
If your pond is 25 years old then you probably just have too much accumulated phosphorous and nitrogen packed in the sediment on the bottom. Ideally you would muck out with long reach excavator, but you may not get to the bottom at 20' deep. Access and cost usually is an issue too.
What type of aeration set up do you have? Maybe you can see some gains there?
Also, running an outboard motor (or better yet have someone dunk a jetski in there) to stir up the bottom sediment and really get things swirling can really help get oxygen into the bottom sediments. Think of all the kids walking in the same direction around the edge of the swimming pool and how the sediment all goes to a very tiny spot in the middle of the pool. Do that with a jetski and you can really stir things up.
For fun we had my teenager take our quad around the edge of the pond one summer day. His brother was on a wakeboard with a short rope, about 6' behind the quad. The wakeboard going round and round about 10 times was enough to uncover and sweep clean all the rock in the shallows as if I had power washed it. I'm sure this helped with aeration too.
You could have a fun experiment and when the water hits about 55 you could stock 20-30 pounds of tilapia if you can find them. They may help you to some degree too. Biggest help for me though was controlling phosphorous going into the pond and raking the perimeter fall and winter.
[quote=canyoncreek]somehow the forum has a glitch yesterday and today as attached files are not allowing me to open them and view them.
How does your pond hold water in the summer? IS there quite a bit of water fluctuation? Do you have groundwater coming in to replace water during the non-spring months? We have a fair amount of iron in our ground water and iron sediment makes our leaves and dirt carry a rust/brown color as the iron settles out. It hurts nothing, the fish don't mind.
There are those who have had some success with adding healthy bacteria and muck dissolving pellets. I have not tried that. I'm not sure how much that adds beyond the aeration you are doing, but some say getting muck dissolving pellets right down into the sediment on the bottom helps to some degree.
If your pond is 25 years old then you probably just have too much accumulated phosphorous and nitrogen packed in the sediment on the bottom. Ideally you would muck out with long reach excavator, but you may not get to the bottom at 20' deep. Access and cost usually is an issue too.
What type of aeration set up do you have? Maybe you can see some gains there?
The pond fills in the spring from snow melt and spring rain and drops several feet thru summer. That is its cycle. Their is no ground feed. Excavating would be very difficult. I do have leaves, but I rake many times and keep out most. My aeration is a buried 3/8 air line from an air compressor in my pole barn. The line comes out next to the pond and I use different things for airation. Right now I have the air line connected to a soaker hose. I think it needs improvement.
Lots of good threads here about bottom aeration. In your case bottom aeration is going to be the best as it is not going to add OXYGEN, but with proper set up you are going to LIFT WATER up from the bottom. You do that by getting a very well designed membrane diffuser that has micron size slits that produce millions of tiny bubbles. The millions of bubbles lift water and create that upwelling of the stagnant water at 20' depth.
My brother-in-law has about the same setup as you, similar pond size, similar depth and he used fountain aeration and got no where with water clarity or algae control. His center hole is closer to 30 feet deep. He finally got bottom aeration and in one season the difference was like magic. Organic matter gone, sand was showing in the shallows, water quality better, less algae, etc.
He had his membrane diffuser in the deep but if you choose to do that you have to be very cautious about starting it up slowly (meaning 15 min run, next day 20, next day 30 etc.) You have 'bad water' at the deepest spot and you want to mix that up into the 'good water' slowly over time. It is better to do that mixing in the spring where water temps are cold and oxygen carrying capacity is high anyway.
Others are better at aeration questions, but they may advise running it at about 10-12 foot depth rather than at 25 foot depth. This would also be true if you are trying to get away with one aeration station placed in your pond rather than in 2 locations. Going to about 12' means you'll get good mixing at about the thermocline and you will push that water movement up into the shallows too.
Since you have weighted line and pump already you can easily purchase 2 vertex brand membranes (very good membrane, very small pore size for millions of bubbles) and pipe them together with membrane heads about 15" apart and figure out some way to attach them to a tote, or a flat cutting board, or some other wide base that won't tip over as it is lowered down. Most find it is best to have the membranes about 24" off the bottom to avoid stirring up the bottom (so you would place at 14' if you want aeration at 12' depth). The further the horizontal distance between the diffuser heads, the deeper the diffuser station goes, the shallower you have the station the closer together the heads are.
Soaker hose makes bubbles but not enough to lift water. A good membrane diffuser makes a rolicking 5' wide boil at the top of the water and that boil is not so much AIR as it is water coming up from the bottom mixed with air. This is the key to success.
Lots of good threads here about bottom aeration. In your case bottom aeration is going to be the best as it is not going to add OXYGEN, but with proper set up you are going to LIFT WATER up from the bottom. You do that by getting a very well designed membrane diffuser that has micron size slits that produce millions of tiny bubbles. The millions of bubbles lift water and create that upwelling of the stagnant water at 20' depth.
My brother-in-law has about the same setup as you, similar pond size, similar depth and he used fountain aeration and got no where with water clarity or algae control. His center hole is closer to 30 feet deep. He finally got bottom aeration and in one season the difference was like magic. Organic matter gone, sand was showing in the shallows, water quality better, less algae, etc.
He had his membrane diffuser in the deep but if you choose to do that you have to be very cautious about starting it up slowly (meaning 15 min run, next day 20, next day 30 etc.) You have 'bad water' at the deepest spot and you want to mix that up into the 'good water' slowly over time. It is better to do that mixing in the spring where water temps are cold and oxygen carrying capacity is high anyway.
Others are better at aeration questions, but they may advise running it at about 10-12 foot depth rather than at 25 foot depth. This would also be true if you are trying to get away with one aeration station placed in your pond rather than in 2 locations. Going to about 12' means you'll get good mixing at about the thermocline and you will push that water movement up into the shallows too.
Since you have weighted line and pump already you can easily purchase 2 vertex brand membranes (very good membrane, very small pore size for millions of bubbles) and pipe them together with membrane heads about 15" apart and figure out some way to attach them to a tote, or a flat cutting board, or some other wide base that won't tip over as it is lowered down. Most find it is best to have the membranes about 24" off the bottom to avoid stirring up the bottom (so you would place at 14' if you want aeration at 12' depth). The further the horizontal distance between the diffuser heads, the deeper the diffuser station goes, the shallower you have the station the closer together the heads are.
Soaker hose makes bubbles but not enough to lift water. A good membrane diffuser makes a rolicking 5' wide boil at the top of the water and that boil is not so much AIR as it is water coming up from the bottom mixed with air. This is the key to success.
Thanks for your insite my Michigan friend. I would like to get this question in front of more members, since most do not read the new member section as much as other sections. Since you seem to know this forum well, can you suggest what section I should ask in?
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