Pond Boss Forums PHOTO GALLERY Image Gallery FA on aerated pond, High Noon on September 9, 2016

This pond is on the western slope of CO, with approx dims: 25' x 20' x 6-8'. Two very active year-round springs running summer temps of ~64F, with a pond temp of 66 measured at bottom of many different locations, including next to diffuser. Water temp is always 66 all summer. Haven't taken pH yet, but will soon.

Hopefully someday warm enough to stock some bass & bluegills.
Starting with tilapia spring 2017 exclusively for algae reduction. This is the first time for much of any algae control method introduced into this pond since it was first dug nearly 50 years ago.

I am looking to stay as chemical free as possible to clean it up and turn it back into an enjoyable BOW. It was reportedly a great little swimming hole 40 years ago.

I LOVE learning all this GREAT education on pond management. Thanks to PBF here, this continues to be a very rewarding venture.

The tilapia may need sweaters in that pond. They become more active, eat, grow etc when temps hit 80 and the higher the better!

DCQC My limited experience with tilapia in a cool water pond is they did not reproduce in any numbers capable of eating up the FA that thrives in cool water.
My Colorado pond is fed by irrigation water in summer from the Dolores river, a trout stream. The shallow water of the pond gets warm enough for LMB and BG, but they certainly don't grow very much each year as the growing season is short. YP live and bite year round; RBT thrived until a winter kill last year. I've come to believe they just simply got old. My hatchery said as much. They grew from fingerlings to 5 and 6 pound fish in 3 years and possibly just burned out.
But, I've wandered off track. It seems that you might be able to raise several species of cold or cool water fish rather than LMB and BG. That is, unless you devise a method of warming the water. A local tilapia grower tried spreading sheets of black plastic on a slope above his pond. He then pumped pond water up to the top of the slope and let it warm up as it ran back to the BOW.
I can't report on his success. It seems he's now out of business.

Thank you both for replying here and helping me learn more.

Here is what one Colorado hatchery told me when I asked about tilapia for my pond. (Please let me know what you think of his feedback).

"Most people add tilapia to their ponds in the spring or early summer, as that gives them time to eat the algae before it gets out of control. Catfish, while nice to have for fishing, do not eat algae.

The catfish will live through the winter, but the tilapia will not unless the pond stays at least 55 degrees through the winter. Even if your spring water is 60 it is not likely the whole pond will stay that warm is it? The only fish I have that will live through the winter and eat the algae is carp.

Regular carp can breed out of control and take over a pond, but do keep the algae eaten. I also have ornamental koi, that will eat the algae and live through the winter, but are very expensive to buy enough for a pond that size."

Agree with their statement on Tilapia and catfish, disagree with their statement on carp. They don't eat algae in enough quantity to control it.

As always esshup, thank you for chiming in to further my education on this venture of pond rehab. I am pretty well back to square one, reading up on what I can put in this pond, that will survive through the winter. I do not know yet what temp the pond reaches during a typical winter. All I do know is it doesn't freeze over. It does get some ice on it, but only partially, and thin at that.

Trapdoor snails? Rated for cold weather, and touted to be good algae eaters supposedly. Trying quickly to find what cold water species will not only live through winter, but actually EAT the DOGGONE algae, and preferably propagate. I'm beginning to get discouraged from what I'm hearing about tilapia's supposed incompatibility with my pond's temperature. I would be curious just to try them anyway next spring to see if they live, and do anything beneficial through the summer. It's worth a shot just to see.

Adding beneficial bacteria may also be a good idea to my pond, but would like to find out if adding it now vs. in the spring is better.

This pond might also be a good candidate for a lot of dark dye as a desperate alternative, but I have absolutely no idea how long it would be until I could eventually stock fish after experimenting with dye. Being a brain tumor survivor of 18 years now, I do not trust ANY chemical if I can help it. But I digress.

Only time will tell what the winter holds in store for temp ranges. I have begun keeping a log of conditions to have a pattern I can evaluate later for what will thrive. I grew up in NE Pennsylvania with a large pond in the backyard. We had BIG bass, blue gills, sunfish, water snakes, snapping turtles, ducks, geese, you name it. All fish in there fared VERY well all winter, and some even made for good ice fishing prospects.

I am gauging mainly by using my Pennsylvania experience. I get that this is a very different climate here in western Colorado, where "winter" is seriously lame in comparison. I have wintered here in western CO for several years now, and it is always quite warm to my standards.

Many thanks to anyone for helpful advice, input, opinions, suggestions, recommendations, etc.

Is there any validity to the claims on this page? http://www.doityourself.com/stry/6-algaeeating-pond-fish

DCQC, being that your pond is small, how about dragging most of that algae from it? Reducing excessive nutrients helps with the algae problem. It can be a wiser alternative to using chemicals. I get it relative to your distrust of chemical "fixes". There are threads on the forum about what kinds of rakes or drags people are using. I built a rake that doubles as an aquatic weed dragger and FA puller. I also paddle around in an aluminum boat and rake the stuff over the side of the boat for disposal later.
I imagine those algae eater claims are valid for small, warm, backyard ponds. I think they are talking about ponds much smaller than yours.
I grew up and got my interest in ponds in se Pennsylvania. We had a spring pond; it was used at one time for keeping milk and cheese cold. Of course, I often brought fish home live from the nearby creek. I begged and begged my folks for a real pond on our 30 acres. Never got one. So now I've bought my own. LOL
You and I live farther apart now on our respective ponds that when we were kids, but in the same state once again.

4CP,

Thanks for the great chuckle you gave me with your fun reply. Yeah, pretty cool we both come from PA, had similar backgrounds with pond interests, and here we are, as you said. For pond size and treatment, I kind of figured as much for something as small as snails to try to make a dent in this behemoth FA problem. I find great joy in watching the strong bubble activity on a bright sunny day. Too bad it is only that way when the sun is high. I set my solar panels to the 38 degree mark, as per our latitude here from instructions I received by Missouri Wind & Solar for how to angle it. hm.

I have a not-quite-long-enough green plastic netting fence I used once to scrape as much FA off as I could. It all came back so quickly, within a day or two it seemed anyway. Following that, no change was visible. Granted it wasn't by any means ALL of the floating FA at the time, but as concerted an effort as possible at the time anyway. Here is Part one of two (second half will be uploaded 9/20) of the video showing my Honey's son and me (gimpy guy in white shirt) doing just that: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=31QONcOLxQY

We waited until the breeze set most of the algae on the easier end to drag it to. Really needed to weigh down the netting a bit perhaps, I think. Will try that next time to hopefully get more of it. Need a little longer fence as well.

Let me know what you think.

Thanks a bunch again for swapp'n words with me here. It helps me to learn as much as I can about working with this pond, and what I can do to improve it. One of many points I'd like to find out more about is whether or not to leave all the willows in place on the south side of the pond. I don't know if they help or hurt things in my attempt to clean it up any. I want to put a dock at that end sometime.

A dock would offer any fish some shelter. We had a big dock back home in PA my Dad built of angle iron and 2x6's. Pond was 16' deep, and FULL of fish, which fed us many a supper. All in all, the water in our pond here at home is crystal clear where there isn't any algae. No cloudy water at all anywhere. I worry a little bit now after digging out and exposing a feeder spring on the north end. I suspect it must have some metal corrosion contaminants leaching into the water, as it has the revealing shiny colorful appearance about it.

I am going to go down to the pond tomorrow (Tuesday) to check temp and take a closer look at that presumably contaminating spring to see if that is really what is happening. I noticed a slight oil looking film on the pond from a distance the other day. That is what I see coming from the northern spring.

There are several small spring supplying this pond year round. The others look perfectly clean. I am digging them out to "develop" them to some degree so I know for sure what they are contributing.

Have another great day!
Chuck