I was wondering if it would help filter my watershed if I knew where certain channels of my water run down the watershed and I put 2 inch lime rock in those channels would that help filter my water any? I can get lime rock very cheap. 7 bucks a ton and I was thinking I could filter a couple of my main watershed vaines with some of this rock? Plus it would introduce lime into the water as well. Would that work for filtering my watershed? Or would it just be a bunch of work for nothing?

Thanks for the help!

RC, the lime road rock works well by adding the calcium you need with all your pine trees. Only problem might be when a bigger rain event comes the smaller rock will likely wash into your pond.

if your inflow areas are fairly level, I would opt for 10-12 inch lime rock as it is more likely to stay in place. You will get the same benefit of the additional calcium, plus filtering a lot of debris out and 100%+ DO saturation.

I have a pond "in the woods" in a steep draw (8:1 slope) and I had a mini-dam built out of Dolomite Limestone. The run-off hits it and flows through filtering out tons of hardwood leaf debris and keeping my PH around 7 (PH was ~5 prior to rock filter dam).

The rock works well but may not be attractive in many cases.

Hey RM thanks. I am not sure if I can get it bigger from them or not I did not ask? I will though. My watershed area is not real steep so I think the 2 inch rock would hold up for the most part, but like you said even if I could get 5 or 6 inch rock they would stay put better.

thanks,

Where can you get rock for $7 a ton?

Mid West Lime company in Batesville Arkansas $7.50 a ton. Rock or crushed. Course that just happens to be where my pond is and Batesville Arkansas is lime country! There are 2 quarries withing 6 miles of my pond.

RC, that's exactly what a guy from WVU suggested I do with any inflow areas to my ponds. He said lining them with limestone is a great way to not only filter the inflow, but add O2 and also the lime for its obvious benefits. That is a project I'll probably have in my future. At $7.50/ton, of course, my future would probably be right now! I say go for it - makes a lot of sense, especially with all your pine trees as Rainman said.

Hey Todd thanks for the info I am going to get started on it before the rain start coming this fall. Right now my watershed is pretty dry so it would be easy to lay the rock down. I know I can get the rock pretty darn cheap compared to some folks. They will even let me come by and get it by the truck load if I want to.

Thanks,

Sounds like a great plan and a great project. Remember - pics!

the first 40 feet or so of my pond is very narrow-maybe 6'wide. early this spring i dug that area to about 3 ft deep and put a rip rap rock dam across there. the rock is about bowling ball size or maybe a little smaller. it is all limestone. i did it to help slow the water that flies into my pond during a heavy rain.

does some of the rock erode away with water flow and help lime the pond? looks like it would get cover with dirt and algae kinda quick and not much of the stone will be exposed.