Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Help me spend my rebate check!

Okay 1 acre pond, 5-8 feet deep, deepest 17 feet, triangular shaped. Im shooting for a LMB, HSB pond. I have lots of CNB and other perch in the pond for forage. Ponds been alive 30 to 40 years. We catch lots of bass 2 to 5 pounds and a few larger. recently put in 15 large HSB from TO. Im in the process of eliminating catfish and crappie. I always have a huge blow up of coontail in the summer. What would you buy for the pond next? heres my list- aerator-$1200+, feeder-$400-600, pond survey-$650.
I cant purchase all of them. I mean i can i just cant live there if i do(wife)! What would you guys do?

I would work on the wife first. She needs to understand that anything for the pond is a great long term investment and cost is of no object. That way you can get any pond related item that you feel is "necessary" and not have to make all these tough decisions!

I had to choose between the aerator and feeder last year. I chose the aerator because it's more fun to hand feed than blow bubbles and the $400 sell on the feeder later would be easier than the price of the aerator.

For a 30-40 year old pond (with 30-40 years of organic sediments built up), I'd budget the aerator first too. Protect those good fish you've got.

Spend a little money (as little as $25) for a seine. You can get pretty good data from a DIY survey - seine/net results, creel records, and observations while hand feeding (the other bonus besides saving the auto-feeder cost is YOU ARE THERE). Not as good or as quick as a professional survey, but good data over the course of time.

I agree with Theo. I would get a cheap feeder (yes they are available)to augment hand feeding and a eBay aerator and see if I could swing both.

I had a long discussion with a pond management company yesterday, and his opinion was that for LMB ponds, most under harvest and under feed. He suggested that he most important management tool was sufficient feeding.

Can you swing the aerator and a cheap feeder?

You should ask my wife. She is an ALL-STAR at spending money.

I would opt for the aerator (you can get a cheaper feeder for now, i paid $80 for mine and it suffices). But an aerator, no matter what type you opt for, is soothing and beneficial to the fish (we have a windmill). Good luck. I hope to spend my hubby's $$$S when they come in and get something new for the POND too!

MARKECIN do you like the windmill aerator? I did a search for windmill aerators and everbody seems to think they are no good. I would love to have a windmill for the looks and the ease of install. If i buy an electric one i have to dig a trench about 700+feet, buy the wire, tap into my elect in the garage, put it in a pipe , bury it and so on and so on.

I say throw convention out the window and purchase a gorilla.

You could train the gorilla to blow into the aeration tube and occasionally throw some feed into the pond. Think how cool it would be to have a gorilla roaming around your property. If you trained in in security tactics you would also elimate trepassers and poachers. Purchasing banannas might be slightly more expensive than purchasing electricity for the aerator pump but you have to remember the cool factor of having your own gorilla.

If the gorilla resists being trained then you could use the gorilla to test whether or not people will talk about a 600 pound gorilla in the room.

All I'm saying is sometimes it's good to think outside the box.

lol, and the gorilla should help with any poachers that might find your pond.

Here we go again with high jacking another thread. I asked questions for the expert's here. Please go play in the sand box boys.

I'd probably lean toward PM'ing one of the aeration experts on the forum, such as Cary, or Sue, or Ted (I'm a little tired this morning...may have forgot somebody) and really get a good thorough evaluation of the correct size of aerator, then get one if it's in the budget.

Keep in mind that a poorly designed aeration system is probably worse than no aerator at all--because you just gave away your money for a feeder...


By the way--Part of the reason that we have so many good minds on this forum is because of some of the fun that we have. I wouldn't get too bent out of shape over the occasional hi-jacking. It's not that hard to get things redirected. If we eliminated all of the thread hijackers there might not be anybody left. I know I'd be gone.

Is that the big gorilla from the L.A. Zoo? He stole my glasses - right off my face!

Yeah, that's him.

I never should have shown this thread to my wife!

catmandoo, she already met us. How bad could this be?

Jesse, I apologize for hijacking your thread. I was just blowing off a little tax season stress.

Thats cool, but the last 10 post are nothing about what i asked.

Lets try to get you back on track. When considering aeration for my pond I researched windmill aeration systems extensively. The conclusion that I came to was that if you had power withing 1,000 feet or so you are better off using a conventional plug in aeration system. The main problem with windmill aeration is that since you are at the mercy of the wind you are not able to exercise any where near as much control over the aeration system as you can with a conventional (plug in) aeration system.

The link below contains a discussion regarding windmills and a set of links to more discussions regarding windmills.

http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=31519#Post31519]

My understanding is that as long as you correctly size the air tubing you can push air a long way. You could put a plug in air pump near your power source and run the air tubing to the pond. The advantage this would have is that by using a timer you can control when it runs and how long it runs. You would probably have to dig a trench to bury the air tubing though.

I do think we need to be more careful about distractions from serious questions being asked.

George, I agree, but you have to admit that the Bski-Theo-Bski posts about the Gorilla was pretty funny!

Yeah i thought about the windmill but I talked to ted lea at clean ponds and he sounds like a great guy and im gonna have him design me a system. I think i will try a cheaper feeder so i can try and get both. What do yall think of the vertex sytems?

JHFV, I have learned on the forum that is is much more effective to run air lines to pond than electricity. Our pump is at the garage and about 200ft of buried garden hose to the pond works for me.

PVC pipe is often used for distances greater than 700+ ft.
I'm sure some of the experts can advise you.
Bill Cody helped me design a low cost DIY system.