First a little background on our pond:
We began construction on our pond late summer 2016. We were blessed with a dry spell that lasted for pretty much the entire excavation process. What we ended with is an approximately 3 acre pond with an average depth of 8'. The pond is pretty much all dug as we had only about 1.5' of fall over the 500'+ back stretch of the pond site. It has one corner that goes down to 16' deep and on the other side there is an island that will be submerged 2-3' at full pool. 4:1 slope on all banks and the soil was clean clay from about 2' down. Pond was dug with dirt pans.
Once the pond was completed we had small rain events beginning about a week later. I had plans to put gravel on top of the island for spawning area and SMB beds on the slopes of the island as they will see less siltation hopefully since the island is under water. I also plan to have about 6 Bald Cypress trees on the corners of the island. Before I could complete any of this however, the rain set in and the pond filled much faster than anticipated. I expected to be pumping water from a well and hoping for rain for almost a year before I saw full pool. Now, about 2 months after completion, the pond is full.
The problem with the quick filling of the pond are that I was only able to get the top couple of feet of the pond banks seeded before it filled and only a little of that actually had time to germinate. Now I'm left with very muddy water as there is exposed clay on the entire pond basin. We did a jar test and after 2 weeks undisturbed in a dark closet the water is still very cloudy.
Here is where I start to feel overwhelmed:
My hope was to stock scuds, minnows, and maybe grass shrimp this spring and give them all summer to reproduce before introducing other fish. From what I've read though, most of those critters will do much better in clear water. So now I'm thinking step one is clear up the water, but that seems almost a hopeless venture until I get vegetation around and in the pond. Problem with that is its hard to get plants to start in January. Am I just being impatient by wanting clear water so soon? Would an alum treatment be in order? I need suggestions on what sorts of vegetation I can use to stabilize by pond basin and clear up the water.
