Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants Moss / Algae - New Pond Ower

Hey Charlie,

Congrats on the new place man! A couple things:

- Your pond is a nice size for aeration. It wouldn't take a terribly large system to work well. However, it looks extremely nutrient rich, so an aeration system would need to be phased in very slowly so as not to potentially cause a fish kill. You definitely do not want to put one in, turn it on and forget about it. You'll be kicking yourself for that most likely.
- Tilapia will probably help a great deal with the algae, but they will require annual stocking. The other plus with regard to tilapia is that they will provide a lot of extra forage for your LMB, due to their high reproduction rate throughout the summer.
- Crappie in a pond this size can present an additional and somewhat unpredictable variable from year to year. Crappie in small impoundments tend to go through boom and bust cycles from year to year. This can lead to LOTS of stunted crappie with very few making it to a harvestable size unless they are well managed. Most folks recommend "catch and harvest" with all that you catch. This helps to mitigate the potential boom/bust issues.
- It sounds like you are probably bass heavy. Typical for most ponds, and essentially guaranteed for ponds that have not been managed for several years. The benefit with a bass heavy pond is that you tend to get trophy panfish because the bass keep them in check. They are also likely keeping your crappie population in relative balance as well. If you harvest lots of bass, you may end up with an over abundance of crappie. Another benefit of a bass heavy pond is that you'll always get a lot of fishing action. With true trophy bass management, the bass fishing is much slower, but when you do catch them, you'll catch big ones. You will often have over abundant blugill though... which is fun for the kids to catch, but not promising for the frying pan.
- Shallow ponds will typically always struggle with some aquatic vegetation issues. If it isn't FA, it's chara. If it isn't chara, it's often pondweed. In other words, it's essentially always going to be something. Mechanical removal in select spots might be your best option for opening up fishing spots, and otherwise living with the rest. As a side note, my pond has more FA for this time of year than I have ever seen. I think the mild winter temps combined with the early warm spring temps in our area has been the ideal situation for an FA explosion. ICK...
- The drawdown caused by the pipe issue was probably temporarily beneficial to the aquatic plant issue to a degree. It helps to remove some of the existing nutrients, but also kills off most of the vegetation around the shallows temporarily. Some people do intentional drawdowns every couple of years or so as part of their overall management plan.


By the way, if you want some nice channel catfish, you are welcome to come by my place and keep all you catch. They are all in the 3-6 pound range (a few pushing 10), and I'd like to get some more out this year.

Take Care!