Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? New Member, New Pond

Hi all. I just had a 1/2 acre farm pond re-dug in the Florida panhandle just North of P'cola. It has filled up now with all the recent rain we have had. It has a very good clay bottom and I have not noticed any water loss. But man is it muddy! I have read a little about the negatively charged particles staying in suspension, and about the need to lime the pond to "condition" the bottom so the PH will be closer to ideal. (It's running around 6.2 right now) Will liming the pond settle these charged particles? Or is that just the first step toward applying something, ie "alum", to clear it up? Also, is it OK to use bagged "Pelletized" Lime? I've read that the binding agent can cause problems of its own...

Thanks!

Gareth, welcome aboard. Somebody will chime in about Alum, but do you have the same quartz as Destin? If so, I'm surprised it muddied.

Was your pond clear before the last rain? If so, it may settle itself.

Gareth, with 6.2 PH, Aglime is a good thing. If it were me, I would add the aglime and do a settle test (simply go take a sample of water and see if it settles in a few days, I think the experts want you to place the sample in a darker place, but I can't remember that part). If your sample will not settle naturally, alum should help.

As I understand it, pelletized aglime will not have the effect you want. I use the powder version in my ponds.


Tell us about you pond, size after the re-dig, shape, depth, kinds of fish, your goals for your pond, ect.

I bought the land back in October and it had a pond that was about 40 years old on it. The dam was leaking and brush and trees had taken over around the entire perimeter of the pond. The pond was shallow, less than 3 ft and crystal clear. The bottom was completely covered in a coarse tough stringy algae. Below that was a silt layer that was waste deep, I found out by wading into it one day, I still have not found one of my rubber boots.

I found a fella that was highly recommended as a pond builder. He told me what he would do and it sounded good to me. He went and got his big ole John Deere Dozer and went to work that afternoon. The dam was pushed down completely, a new footing went down into the clay that lies below the pasture topsoil. After all the pond bottom muck was pushed out into the pasture he built a new dam core with clay pushed out of the pond bottom. What I ended up with is a brand new pond twice as big as the original and about 9 ft deep behind the dam.

Then it sat, waiting on the rain, and waited, and waited some more. Finally in December we got a hard rain and it filled up about half way. That rain, pounding against that clay bottom, made it pretty muddy water though. By mid January we had gotten enough rain to fill it up and test the spillways on either side of the dam that lets the overflow run out into the pasture.

Now its been a couple of months and there is no sign that the water has cleared even a little bit. The water that runs off 6 to 8 acres of very well grassed pasture looks clear where I see it running into the pond. We have seeded the pond perimeter and dam with a mixture of rye and Bahia grass. I mulched the area with seed hay. The rye grass is up and I expect the Bahia to start coming up when it starts warming up.

I want this 1/2 acre pond to be a Hybrid Bluegill pond. The Pasture it is in will be my new homes front yard. Our horses will be fenced out of the immediate pond area and have limited access to the pasture outside that fence, they have their own playground on the back of our property.

I feel like I have rambled quite a while, but if any of you can get a feel for what my next step should be in growing this pond I sure would appreciate it.

Thanks

Our beaches and creek banks are just as white as Destin's. But beneath my pastures 2 to 3' layer of topsoil is a heavy, sticky, slippery when wet layer of red clay. Sure seems to have made a water tight pond, but now I have to get the PH right!

Gareth

Welcome to the forum. Have you performed the jar/bottle test yet? We need to know the results of the test before we can make recommendations to clear your turbid pond water. Fill a jar or soda bottle and place it somewhere undisturbed for a few days.

If it clears up and sediment sinks to the bottom of the container, something like wave action, turbid runoff, erosion or resident fish population is the cause for the turbidity. Sounds like you don't have fish stocked yet and the surrounding watershed is pasture - so doesn't seem like they are the culprits.

If your water remains turbid despite resting for a few days, you likely have an ionic imbalance. This can be addressed by adding alum to the pond, as Brian and Al suggested. Many here have performed alum treatments to buffer their pond water so you're in good hands.

Good news is - you have a nice sized pond that appears to be holding water - that's the most important part - so congrats! Let us know the results of the test, and report back.

I'll jump on the settling test and let y'all know how it turns out. Thanks for the quick responses!

Gareth, good for you. I'm surprised about the clay, but that's a great thing. If you can hold water, you can fix water, so any turbidity issues are far easier to fix than a leaky pond.

I like to take before/during/after pics so I can have a visual history of progress. You're entering the world of record keeping, and it's fun to look back on successes.

Again, welcome aboard and good luck.

Welcome to the forum, and the family you will love this place.

Worked in the panhandle a long time ago. Never even saw any clay, the whole time I was there, good for you. There was a high water table. That makes much of a pond hard to do. It looks like you hit a home run.

You have more than likely done this, but be sure the area that was disturbed by the dirt guy has grass on it. A good cover will help the erosion �the water clarity and make the pond much friendlier to the family.
Otto

I've got plenty of before, during rebuild and after construction pic's that I'll put up when I get home in a few days.

Would it be OK to go ahead and stock the pond with the Blue Gill before I get the pond to clear up? Will they handle the 6.2 PH level?

My neighbor works for DEP and does water monitoring by examining insect larvae. He told me that our local streams, rivers and lakes all have a very low PH naturally. How concerned should I be about trying to raise my ponds PH?

There ar calculations you can do to determine how much ag like you need to add

Gareth, it's not just negatively charged particles that stay suspended. It's actually both neg and pos that keep bouncing off of each other and won't settle and play nice. Lime or gypsum act as a floculant to bind them together so they get heavy enough to settle to the bottom.

Have you done a jar test to see if it might be something else, something we call mechanical, that is causing the suspended junk?

Where are the results of the jar test, dangit? I'm sitting on the edge of my seat here!

Hey Y'all! Sorry for the long absence, my job gets in the way of my fun!!

The pond is doing great. After liming it the water cleared up pretty quick. The fish are doing good, eating and growing. I do think the pond bottom is still going through the "sealing" process. It loses a little more water than I think evaporation is causing. It's not bad and we just got the windmill and well reconditioned and ready to put back in service, that should help.

I posted a pic in the gallery earlier today of one of the Bream we stocked back in March. I couldn't resist tossing a beetle spin out there and they climbed all over it!

Now's the time for posting some photos

Posted a few pic's in the gallery under "Before & after". Can't figure out how to post a photo in the msg body.