While walking the pond perimeter the other day, my dad and I noticed a half dozen BG in the outlet of the pond. The outlet, on my property, is about 9' wide, 10' long by 10" deep. It is clear of any vegetation. Where the outlet enters the neighboring property, it narrows to about 5' and is loaded with mixed vegetation, i.e. grasses, shrubs, cattails. Its a night and day transition.
Being concerned with the presence of BG in the outlet and not sure if the vegetation jungle would dissuade them from an escape attempt, I decided to try a fish "gate" made from hardware cloth. We installed a 10' piece of 1/4" hardware cloth, anchored with rebar stakes. One thing I noticed right away, which Bill Cody mentioned in a prior post, was the problem with leaves. It does catch and hold leaves but if the "gate" works to keep the fish in the pond, I don't mind the daily cleaning of leaves for the next couple of weeks.
With the addition of the leaves, the water has taken on a dark hue. During cloudy days, its hard to see the fish in the water. A few will take feed but not as many as I anticipated. I do not know what the water temperature is but the diffusers will go idle this weekend. In another post, Bill C mentioned that he shuts his aeration down when water temps are between 44-48 degrees F. Is this the point at which fish, in my area, would begin to seek the comforts of the warmer bottom layer of water??
