Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Weekly Observations

Dang! That is a bunch of ice! I'd love to see that, although on my small pond, that would mean in many areas there'd be no water below it! Hope you get warm weather soon!

I could ship you the ice in a dry-ice pack. The only problem is I don't have a coring drill to get the ice out of there in one 25 inch pillar.

Updated Weekly

If you look down the hole you can see clearly all the way down to the bottom.

Well, maybe we can work on another solution for next year!

Updated Weekly

I predict that this will be the last week that the ice pack builds. We have been having some warmer days and the nights are starting to move into the mid-twenties for lows. We are also expecting some rain over the weekend. As soon as water starts moving through the Rock river,the groundwater table will rise and float the ice pack up from the pond banks. That event is a game changer.

There were 4 flying toilets near the open water in the circulator area. These four scouts were appropriately warned!!

I saw a Blue Jay Wednesday.

The bottom D.O. spiking upward also means that changes are in progress.

Spring is near.

That bottom DO has really moved up. Any ideas why - should be at about its yearly low.

I think it has something to do with increased movement of the ground water through the pond. That movement mixes the higher D.O. water that lies 12-18 inches off the bottom with the bottom water. When I take the bottom D.O. readings they are truly taken on the bottom. 12-18 inches above the bottom the D.O. is quite a bit higher.

My guess is a lot of your very good water quality is due to ground water and your circulator. I would not discount either.

Agreed

Darlene gets to breathe a high % of O2 year round. Hope her metabolism doesn't spike and cause her to lose weight.

Did I really say that about a woman? jk ladies.

Darlene are all happy and they are all female, though they are definitely not women!

Burger, If you keep this up you will never grab the pebble from the masters hand girl-wise.

I received this photo of our pond from the County GIS guy. It is from 2009 when it was pretty dry and the pond was low.

We have discussed ground water movement and the influence of the Rock River on the pond in this thread and others. This photo shows the close physical relationship between the pond and the river on the east side (right side of photo).

The river flow and ground water flow are both in a southerly direction (bottom of photo is south).

If you look really closely at the northeast bay you can see me fishing off the the barge.

It looks like you have the barge out in the river just below the island.

What are the odds that Dwight would be out fishing when the photo was shot?

What are the Odds that Dwight made it back before this happened!

Updated Weekly

The 23 inches of ice is still clear and solid though there is slush and water on the top. D.O has changed radically. If you recall, last week I mentioned a coming game changer. The ice is now floating free from the pond banks and the pond has burped.

I used the Mule for transportation today. The gap between the bank and the shore is a challenge but the chains on the Mule allow it to claw its way back up onto the ice or back up on the bank going the other direction. After the first time the fear was gone and I crossed it a few more times just for the fun of it.

The Mule is going to summer tires next week as there won't be anymore driving on the ice this year for me. The warming trend is supposed to continue and the ice will float farther and farther from the banks.

Dwight, has the DO gone for the better and how much change? I'm just curious because I would think the influx of runoff water would bring in lots of DO especially after the ice "burps". BTW, good term for that. I've tried to explain that phenomenon to people and I never heard of calling it "burping" but that's a perfect description. Is that an official pond terminology that would show up in a glossary? My pond just burped about two days ago.

Man look at those green DO lines go up , up and away.

Man, that bottom D.O. did zoom up in a hurry, didn't it?? Makes sense, but so cool that you are monitoring so closely, and documented that fast change.

Duh, I didn't realize Dwight had a link to a sight with a nice graph. Wow that did skyrocket. Do you guys think this is because of the influx of runoff? On a related subject. What are the conditions that exist to cause natural turnover? Does it happen when the surface water hits 39 degrees and then swithes places with all the cooler water below it? What is the rest of the water column doing when this happens?

Udated Weekly

I had to estimate that average ice thickness. The ice is just too treacherous to get on top of and bore a hole.

Water is clear down to at least 10 feet, oxygen saturated, and the temperature is nearing equilibrium top to bottom.

Spring turnover!

So turnover happened while there is still ice covering the pond?

Awwww, 'come on Dwight. I'll bet you could get one more reading on the ice thickness if you put on your snow shoes!

Well, it's tricky, isn't it bz? However, I was guessing that there was enough ice off to allow the circulation to equalize the water temps from top to bottom.