Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry Salinity, how much is too much?

For the pond I'm trying to renovate, see my other post on lime, I'd like to drill a well to add some water. Talked to a well driller today who told me that most of the wells in the area are 150 foot deep or so and put out maybe 10 GPM. Not too great. I asked if it's any use drilling deeper than that. He said that we'd probably hit salt water. I asked him "How salty?" He said, "too salty to treat".

I know that a certain amount of salinity in a pond is good. I believe that Bruce had a pond on the other end of the county that was fairly salty. How much can your common pond fish like BG, LMB, CC and maybe HSB stand?

I can't answer your question but I will provide my experience.
I have a large drainage ditch which is my north boundary. The area that it drains is the top of a salt dome which was once the site of a large sulfur mine. The site is now used for underground storage and brine production. The salinity in the ditch usually stays between 500 and 800 ppm. I have seen it peak around 3000 ppm when they had a leak on one of the brine lines. There are large pools along the gully that hold water all year. I have caught LMB and BG (many different variety and mixes), There is also an abundance of needle nose and alligator gar. I even caught a small blue crab in a minnow trap once which tells me it is salty enough for their reproduction since this ditch is well over 5 miles from even a brackish body of water.

http://wildlife.tamu.edu/files/2010/04/6_Calculating_Treatments.pdf

200 to 2,000 ppm

No data given on a ppm range between 2,000 and 10,000.

Hopefully Bruce will chime in on what his salinity was at his old place. I wonder if TJ knows?

Many species grow and thrive in Lake Texoma - the water is too salty to drink until diluted with downstream sweet water.
Chris Steelman should know PPM?
G/

Salinity
Salinity is the dissolved salt content
of water and is often expressed
as the parts of salt by
weight per thousand parts of
water by weight (ppt). Channel
catfish can breed and reproduce
over a wide range of salinities.
Eggs can hatch and fry will develop
in waters with salinities up
to at least 8 parts per thousand,
but the optimum salinity for channel
catfish hatchery supplies appears
to be between 0.5 and 3 ppt
(500 to 3,000 ppm).

Hybrids HSB are
generally stocked into freshwater systems
but they do well in salinities of
O to 25 ppt, and some can survive
salinities up to full strength seawater
(35 ppt).