Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose 1 acre, HSB/SMB - With a geothermal?

IMO the main problem is not the fish combination for this pond, but pond temps due to summer bottom water temps due to aeration and the default winter water temeratures. How much are you saving by putting the loops in the pond vs ground? Personally I wouldn't want that snarled tube mass in the pond to 'attract' fish lures. If tubes ever leak you got bigger trouble than if they were in the ground.
According to Cecil Baird1 he would not use the open loop system again.

One option as I see it is to dig a wide (8'-12'wide) trench down to 20-24ft in the pond's belly and put your loops there and then just aerate the top 13-16ft by placing the diffuser at the depth where you want water mixing down to. To do this by begin aerating each year after the pond has stratified in mid-late May or June. Then the recirculated warmer surface will only mix down to the depth of the diffusers due to the thermal properties and differences in the density of water. Below the mixing depth it will be cold (55f-65F) and anoxic with lots of acidic hydrogen sulfide which will slowly corrode metal. Strong full pond aeration 24/7 can easily bring bottom water temperatures within 1-2F of mid-summer surface temps which can be 85F-90F.

RES-HBG-HSB-SMB can work but IMO the competion of the HSB will not allow the SMB to reach their potential of top end of 4-5 lbs. Two to 3 lbs would be likely their top size after 5-8yrs without pellet feeding. Pellet fed smallies as with HSB grow fast and big.

Be advised that HBG are biters of swimmers using floaty things. I've got grandparents complaining that the larger HBG will draw blood from grandkids when nipples and moles are bit. This is probaly not a problem with regular active swimmers- teenagers -just with smallest kids sitting and playing in the beach. The green sunfish contributes to the aggressive behavior attitude of the HBG.

RC1 has good points about the trees near the pond. A pond in a woods is aestetically pleasing but it is usually a big management problem. Look at the amount of leaves under the trees in the woods in late fall then think of what it will be like with all those leaves in the pond plus those blown in leaves from other parts of the woods. This can amount to at a minimum of 1 ft of leaf accumulation per year on the bottom of down wind areas of the pond. Some have told me they get 2 ft of leaves each year in their pond. Yikes!!! When people come to me and complain about the bad problems they are having with their pond in a woods,, I tell them and you, that a pond in a wooded area is your worst nightmare. All those leaves composted in a garden will make plants grow great and in a pond they provide lots of organics and nutrients to make huge amounts of all sorts of extra unnecessary vegetation grow that consist of submerged plants, filamentous algae, and later in life bluegreen algae (Cyanobacteria blooms) and duckweed -water meal. Reseach here about the complaints pond owners have about duckweed. How long this degredation process takes depends on the rate of leaf accumulation. Annual nutrient accumulation is what ages ponds - the more they get the faster they age - eutrophication