Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Some questions regarding a 3/4 acre pond

Our 3/4 Acre pond is fed from a hill run off and is drained from a steel pipe that runs into a creek. Would it be ok to raise the pipe like a foot or so to increase the depth of the pond and increase the overall size, or would this cause unforseen problems? Also there is no known structure in the middle of the pond, just a few small patches of aquatic grass near the edges. Would a pond this small benifit from a man made reef? Thanks for the advice.

I have the same size pond and I am dealing with the same issues. In my case I sank four stacks of pallets in 4'water, each weighed down with 6 cinderblocks. Get more than one person if you do this - they don't want to stay down. These are for the minnows to lay eggs on, and for smaller fish to hide. I have only done this one month ago, but the fish are definitely concentrating around them. I also bought several 4-5' kiddie pools at a baby store, filled them with 6" of pea gravel and also sank them in 4" water. My water is really murky, so I can't tell you if the Bluegill are using them or not. The rest of my bottom is mud, so the would be worse off without it. I sectioned off portions of the pond that are for fish, and I keep the swimmers away from them.

As for raising the level, that is my dad's idea that I am fighting, but I respect my dad a lot and it's difficult to do that. He plugged up my overflow pipe to increase the water level and several things happened:
1. Water backed up on my neighbor's property, but he is OK with that.
2. We get flash floods 1 - 2/yr, so when the water comes, there is lot of it. So the best I can tell, there was at least 6" flowing over my spillway because I found my boat way down on my other neighbor's property.
3. Water started seeping around my overflow pipes with quite a trickle. My dad wants to put concrete around the pipes on the pond side, but I am not convinced that it will help.

I know that he will fix the pipes if he really screws things up, but I don't know how many fish I lost.