Hey Bruce,

Thanks for your thoughts on this. I thought I'd revisit this as I'm finally getting close to breaking ground (April 2).

I posted that question after finding this forum, and I've since learned so much from reading on here and in the mag. (thanks to all of you!) We're definetly going to squeeze everything into this pond in the middle of the desert.

All told it will be about .2 acres now - as I figure out how to make it bigger than I originally planned. I know you said "size doesn't always matter" - but you also said to "squeeze every last square foot" out of it. I chose to go with the later!

I'm putting in an 'aquascape' type pond, so I'm building a constructed wetland of about 30'x40'. It will help filter the water quite a bit. Anyone done one of these?? They put gravel and rocks all over the liner, and I'll have 2 skimmers, the wetland filter, 2 waterfalls, a stream back into the pond (about 50'), and aeration. I prefer not to seine, and it's kinda a shape that prohibits it anyway.

The company (an aquascapeinc.com installer) typically build these as watergardens with a huge focus on water quality, but we're tweaking it a bit and I'm following the PB guidlines to get most of it deeper than 3 ft quickly, although I'll have a few shallow shelves with some plants. Max depth will be 8'.

I'm going follow your suggestion of removing nutrient rich pond water, and probably utilize this as a water change system. The pond is in my backyard so I can manage it pretty closely.

Now that I think I've got 'most' of the pond details figured out, I've got to figure out how I'm going to stock this pond.

I did have a quetsion about your post from 10/18... do you have your smallies controlling the BG and RES in that pond??

thanks- Aaron