Cecil, Im sure youve post this somewhere before, but could you tell me how much water per minute your pumping into your trout pond in order to keep the temps that low year round?
The well pump is rated at 45 gpm. However I put a meter on the external pipe and it said 41 gpm. Not sure how accurate it was though as it wasn't anything too sophisticated.
I've estimated pond volume is about 100,000 gallons. 41 gpm X 60 is 2460 gph and times 24 hrs. comes out to 59,040 gpd. So approximately a 59 percent influx of fresh water per day. I could say 59 percent water exchange per day but according to one source that's not really true as that would mean that exactly the same amount of old water leaves as new water comes in instead of mixing. Of course we know that doesn't happen.
Trout culture in the U.S. is mostly stuck on concrete raceways at cc of about 50 lbs. per gpm of flow. However I found an earthen pond publication from England that say capacity
for earthen ponds is about 12 lbs. per gpm of flow. So if I go with that I shouldn't exceed about 500 lbs. of trout upon final harvest.
If you're interested in doing this for yourself or a client let me know. I'll be happy to answer any questions. Been doing this for at least 10 years!
If you have the ground water a small trout pond overflowing into a larger pond would be a great way to keep the big pond topped off in the summer and have another specie or species of fish to catch.
