Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Hydrated Lime

The pond has filled up about 60% so it is probably about 1/2 surface acre with 7-8 feet at it's deepest. Had a hole or two with a few sunfish in it. They escaped into the pond as it filled. How much hydrated lime to kill it off completely?

Do you just spread it over the water with a shovel and check pH periodically?

Rotenone is a pain in the butt to even find someone who can apply it.

Why not just stock some BG to outcompete the other sunfish ?

I was planning on stocking HBG. Wanting a pond with big sunfish. It will be right at 1 acre. The bottom has no structure, so any fry should be eliminated by predators (LMB, maybe HSB).

If I was going to stock native bluegill, I wouldn't be concerned as most of them are bluegills that have survived. There may be a greenie or two in there.

If you stock HBG you will have gsf anyways. It is going to take alot fo hyrdrated lime for that much water. Do some more research you might find CNBG or even native might get even bigger than HBG.

How long after stocking before the HBG somehow transmutate into GSF???

Those few of us who grow HBG would be very interested in knowing the answer.

Immediately! They're the spawn of the devil!!!

Not going to gamble on coppernose. I'm just north of Tulsa, OK. For every person I talk to that says they'll do good, I talk to two that say I'll lose many every winter. Not taking that risk. I have spent a lot of time on here and know the merits of native bluegill and hybrids. I also know the disadvantage of each. I have a pond that is just under an acre and I do not wish to spend night and day trying to manage it as a bass fishery. Native bluegill would be ok, but the hybrids interest me.

I understand F2s and so on may lose desirable characteristics, but have never heard of a hybrid turning into one of the parents.

The HBG fx spawn will not turn into GSF. That is not possible. They will exhibit outbreeding depression which is worse than turning into GSF which are a viable species.

I doubt that anyone on the forum would advocate the stocking of CNBG, or native BG, as a stand alone fish. The reason being of course that they would readily overrun the pond. You need a predatory species in place to control their numbers. Without one, you end up with a pond full of stunted BG, fish that are unable to achieve their full potential. If you stock HBG without a predator, you might end up with a pond full of genetically inferior fish, (not GSF however). In other words, fish that are unable to achieve their full potential. Ultimately, the solution appears the same for both BG and HBG... stock them with a predator.

You've already mentioned that you're going to feed, and you're willing to restock periodically. Your goals are fast growing big BG, with low maintenance. You understand the pros and cons of HBG, as well as BG.

I think your situation is tailor made for HBG, and I look forward to following your progress, and learning a thing or two.

A friend bought HBG....


LOL. Or they were straight greenies!!

I know, right? That theme does seem to come up a lot round' here.

"Hey you HBG! Untie that CNBG, put down the knife, and back away from the altar! Bad fish, bad bad fish!"

I'm not a GSF hater. Pound for pound or ounce for ounce they will out fight a BG, RES or CNBG every time. I trap and seine them from my forage pond along with BG and CNBG and toss them into my larger pond. I have never had a problem and the bass keep them pretty well beaten back. If I don't restock them, the BG and/or CNBG will outspawn them. In 20 years, I have yet to see a problem.

Yes post too quickly how about this; you will end up with GSF look alikes that grow to sizes that most pondowners would not be proud of. Aaron sounds like you have done your research. I guess question remains why bother with killing off sunfish when you can stock others that will out compete.

How about stock some native bg and some HBG of the same size and track their intial growth and top end growth??? We would love to see the results.

Greg, they don't get as big as a BG but outfight them. They become bass groceries in a pretty short time. The point is that I really don't lose any sleep about them and no longer try to eradicate them.

I've never figured out how they got into the forage pond. No, I don't believe the stork brought them.

So, back to the original question because I'm curious....how many pounds of hydrated lime on a pond that size to produce a kill? Is there a certain rule of thumb for a fish kill from hydrated lime per acre feet of water?

good question and it varies too much and why we dont use it anymore. Applied as much as 500 lbs/ acft with fish still living.

Thanks Greg. Good information. That's strange being that almost every publication, article, post I've read in the past says to be very, very, very careful using hydrated lime due to the potential fish kill. Even when clearing muddy water with aluminum sulfate you are only supposed to use very little hydrated lime to keep the ph in check.

500 lbs/acre foot of hydrated lime seems like it would be a slam dunk for fish kill...especially given that you only need to add 2000-4000 lbs/surface acre of ag lime to keep the ph levels in check.

I agree. I think it is due to complex water differecnes sure in some ponds 100 lbs will kill fish. I have killed fish with less than 200 lbs/acft but results are too inconsistent so that is why we stick with rotenone.

Thanks for the info Greg. We were planning on putting some hydrated lime in our renovated pond to kill the existing fish due to the application and costs of rotenone, but I don't want to throw 50 bags (500 lbs) of hydrated lime in our 4 acft pond and have it not work.

I may just end up stocking it with the BG and LMB and hope the little trash fish that are currently in there (not sure if they are BG,RESF, GSF, or HBG, but they are only about 2" max) get taken out over time.

Continued thoughts would be greatly appreciated.

If you could post a close-up side view picture or 2 of the fish, I'm sure we could identify them for you.

Horrible picture, I know....received this via text this morning. I'll work on some more. I'm new at this, but from my research it appears to be the dreaded GSF or some form of HBG.

Here are four more pics...these are better quality. I think some of these have been dead for 12+ hrs.

I fear that since these were flowing out of the overflow from the massive rain we had the other day that filled our pond, there may be a lot more of these "stunted" fish in the pond than we originally anticipated.

Are these bad guys? If we stocked BG in the next month or so and then LMB later, would we be ok or should we kill these existing fish regardless?

Expert thoughts are greatly appreciated!

Those are mostly BG. The first one is odd.

No need to get rid of them. Just go ahead with your stocking progran. Those fish need some food.

Your initial picture appears to be a hybrid of some sort as does the first picture in the second set. The other three photos appear to all be pure BG.

So, if we do not kill the existing fish what happens to the total population in a year, two ,three, etc after we stock. We'll be ok? This is all fascinating to me. I really appreciate the advice.