I'm making good progress on the 1/3 acre destination pond. I drained it down to a puddle and applied Hydrated lime to kill off any of the undesirable hybrid bream I stocked earlier in the year. The following morning I went to check for floaters and, although there weren't any, there was a 5" fish barely hanging on in shallow water. I scooped him by hand and through him on the bank. The high PH definitely was taking its toll. His eyes were glazed over an the tips of his fins irritated. I tested PH with my strips and it was reading as high as it would read (above 9). Interestingly, the tadpoles didn't seem to be adversely affected although I imagine a few more days of PH at that level will have an impact.

I also put out around 6 tons of lime over essentially the entire 3 or 4 acre drainage basin. This is future pastureland that came back with a soil test PH of 4.6. I imagine this will help with my struggles of getting pond alkalinity/PH to acceptable levels. I had already put around 1300 lbs of lime in the pond 3 or 4 weeks ago.

-Jason