Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Too late for aquashade?

Just wondering if its too late in the spring to put aquashade in our 11 acre lake which is in southern MO, very clear and has abundant coontail and milfoil? Any opinion would be helpful. Thanks

Hey Doug,

I would say it's not to late, but 11 acres is pretty big. If you AQ that entire lake at once you could have a big D.O. problem on your hands unless you have air running in your lake. AQ if I have this correct will stop plant life at any time as it blocks off sunlight from getting into your water and therefore no plant growth. And or plants will start to die off which is why you need to be concerned about your D.O. if you treat the entire lake at once. And with AQ I don't see any other way of doing it? It's not like you can treat part of the lake that stuff goes everywhere and if you don't treat it all it will be to weak to do the job it's intended to do.

Good Luck and lets see what someone else has to say quick,

RC

Vegetation management probably cost prohibitive from a chemical application standpoint, and on the organic front I'm not sure your vegetation is preferred forage for grass carp. Only other organic solution I can conceive would be heavy stocking of crayfish. Rusty Crayfish are considered invasive, believe they are non native to MO, and might even be illegal to possess in MO, but they will consume copious amounts of vegetation. You'd need to stock high qty for a lake of your size, but I'd consider it if I were in your place if my vegetation was a major issue. It's a loaded solution, however...others will weigh in soon to help.

Yes on the GC preferring Milfoil and Coontail. I don't know what (if any) restrictions are to stocking Triploid GC in Mo.

What's the largest predator fish in the BOW? (LMB, etc.) That way you can figure out what size GC to stock. If the weeds are usually bad, I'd start out with 10/acre.

Esshup is right I think on the GC per acre. I have 4 in my 1 acre and they can't keep up. I'll have 4 foot round spots with no vegatation but still have 50 percent or more chara on bottom of pond. I need at least 3 or 4 more.

RC

We did stock grass carp at 10 per acre 2 yrs ago with no visible impact yet, but I'm told it takes 2-3 years to see any change. My concern is that we've had some heavy rains and some neighbors downstream from our spillway report seeing GC in the creek. We've also had at least 3 otters in our lake in the last couple years that have been persuaded to leave, but I don't know what they've done to our GC population. Our largest predators are LMB and a few big CC. The GC were 10" when stocked. The biologist said he though we had 80% vegetation cover at the time. Thanks a bunch for your advice.

What is your average and max depth? Does the lake have many coves or a larger main body? What is the water clarity?

green head, I would say the average depth would be 5-6ft and max depth about 11ft. It is mostly a large body of water with only one small cove. It had 3 small islands, but they've mostly eroded away. The water is very clear.
Somebody else mentioned putting 0-46-0 fertilizer in the lake to cloud up the water and prohibit sunlight from reaching plants. I was wondering if anybody had luck with that? Thanks again.

Doug...I sent you a PM.

Mike