I am a new first time pond owner, I subscribed to PB magazine this week and I just registered on this forum.
My pond is brand new, just completed about 3 weeks ago in SE Ohio (Gallia County). The pond was created in a wooded valley in front of a location we cleared to build a house in 2 years. The pond is ~6/10 of an acre(~150' wide at the dam x ~170 feet long) and 18' deep at the dam backing up into shallower fingers on the far end. It has some nice character to it. The pond is very well built and in a heavy clay area with a very high clay content used to line the pond and to build the dam. I am confident with this aspect of the project so far.
We have not had much rain but it is fed by a couple of springs and there was about 3' of water in it last weekend when I was there. I have started to add structure and plan to go back Memorial weekend to complete that work from information I found on this forum. I have read that heavy clay content can cause muddy/ cloudy water, I hope the springs will help clear the water.
My starting questions are:
How much water should be in the pond before I stock it with fish? Do I need to wait until it is full of water or wait for it to "settle out" before adding fish?
Marlows Fish Hatchery is about an hour from my land, if anyone has any feedback on this hatchery and using them as my source of fish I would appreciate it.
Their recommendation (from the web site) for first stocking of a 1/2 acre pond in SE Ohio is:
1/2 acre pond
50 LM Bass
250 Bluegill
50 Channel Catfish
50 Red ear
10 lb. Minnows
From what I have read on this forum, this seems to be a reasonable starting point, comments on this recommendation or modifications to it would be appreciated also.
I will have more questions once I get advice on this first set of questions for my new pond.
Thanks, Chris
Last edited by Chris SE Ohio; 05/08/10 06:29 PM.
