Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Fertilization Does fertilizing make sense in my case?

I live on an 8 acre pond and my pond is in the middle of a line of ponds. The water in my pond comes from the pond up from mine via a weir and of course rain. When my pond is full and it rains the excess water goes into a weir on my pond and flows to the next pond.

Does it make sense to fertilize my pond? Seems like it wouldn't since it constantly (although very slowly) gets flushed away and into the next pond.

Thanks for the advice!

See this from the archives.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96127#Post96127

Slow flushing does not mean fertilization won't work. Ours slowly flush also.

Test your retention time in the pond I like to see 14 days at least.

How do I test the retention time? Thanks!

Anyone know how to test retention time?

Gallons flowing out of the pond vs. gallons held by the pond. How often the water in the pond is completely changed.

How do I measure the gallons going out?

Anyone?

I have no idea lol.. And can't see how it's even possible besides seeing how long it takes your drain to fill up a 1 gallon bucket then lots of math..

Measure the width and depth of the water going out, then measure how fast the water is flowing in feet per second. (ruler or tape measure, something that floats and a stop watch or a watch that measures seconds. Plop the floating thing in the water and measure how long it takes to travel "X" amount of feet. The longer that it travels without bumping into something, the more accurate your measurement will be.)

Here, they explain it better than I can:
http://www.ehow.com/how_6697587_calculate-stream-flow-rate.html

I have a rectangular weir near the end of my pond. the water just falls into it. So I don't have a stream to calculate flow.

Where does it go after it falls into the weir?

Into a culvert under a road and into another pond.

Then it's easy. Measure the depth of water in the culvert, and the width of the water at the surface. Plop something in there that floats and see how long it takes to come out the other side. Measure the distance that it traveled and you should be able to figure out the flow rate.

My pond is 1 &1/2 acres and is pond # 5 in a 18 pond string. I have no problem getting and keeping a bloom. The pond before me doesn't fertilize at all.

If you have a bloom what is the visibility ? If its 18 to 24 inches you do not need fertilizer. See this archive.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=96127#Post96127