OK, I'm new hear and I'd like to see this topic and it's experiments keep going.

I have a 1/8 acre bean shaped pond that has about 2 feet of muck. Due to foreclosure, lack of care, and them damn cotton woods that they let grow around it. I just girdled 2 of them today with plans to dominate the rest in the near future. I understand that 2 feet of muck most likely requires manual removal but to be honest with you and myself, I doubt that's ever going to happen. I've got an aggressive fountain running at one end and a 2 ring bubbler running at the other. The fountain needs to go for electricity bill reasons but it has done a decent job of reducing muck when it was the sole apparatus in the middle of the pond. I've got my 1st hatching of bluegill from 5 that were released 2 summers ago, so that's a good sign. It was a swampy frog pond when we moved in and got the fountain going 2 years ago. Killed off the duckweed last summer and hope to keep the algae at bay. I'm with the crowd that thinks stiring it up and keeping the oxygen in there is the way to go. So... will I regret putting in some catfish to help work it up a bit?