Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Small Pond...Hundreds of new fish...What first?

Hey everyone, a new year and springtime has brought some changes! I discovered hundreds of baby goldfish/Koi!!! Dozens of schools. I am pretty shocked and can only guess that the adult fish got busy!

While taking photos, the high resolution allowed me to see that a film is on the water already, I can only assume it is algae. This is not a surprise since we had a pretty bad algae bloom last summer. (Pond/house is new to us last July.)

I haven't done anything but drop in the lime at this point. I would love to put in an aeration system, but just can't afford to do it. Too many other things on the to-do list.

I was about to buy a cutter/rake to start getting rid of the water plants. Now I am wondering if I should do that or focus on something else? The massive increase in fish is going to reduce oxygen, but they should eat vegetation, too, right???

Last year I had a professional come out and paid him to analyze our 0.4 acre pond. It came back with:

• Add lime - Done
• Install Vertex Air 1 System - $1400
• Add Complete and Digester - $650
• Add Grass Carp

While those might be the "best" things to do, I want to try and avoid spending that much money and also am wondering what this influx in new Goldfish/Koi will mean to my plans...I'd also like some validation that those are the best things for me to do.

Is removing the plants a good or bad thing? What else can I do that isn't overly expensive? I was originally thinking about turning this into a small LMB pond, but, priorities are elsewhere right now so just looking to do what I can to help without blowing a large wad of cash!

Hopefully some pics will help!!!

Here's a picture of this spring's fish explosion, the orange blobs are schools!!!:






Here are some pictures from last summer/fall:






Thanks for your help!!!

You might want to look about selling some fine looking fish bait. Where are you in Va.?

Hah! I'm in the Richmond area. Assuming you aren't just kidding around...why would I want to sell them as bait? That's not really the approach I was looking for.

We live in Chesterfield,I didn't mean to slight your fish. Be glad to take you fishing sometimes(44 cr.yesterday).

That's A LOT of GOLDFISH!!! I replied back to your PM.

Those ARE a lot of goldfish! Those fish look like they were hatched a year or 2 ago.

O.K. If you remove underwater vegetation, that leaves more nutrients for algae to grow.

You could possibly use a fine mesh cast net to get them out, catching most of one school at a time.

You could start throwing out floating fish food a handful at a time, and when they get used to eating it, start throwing out a Stubby Steves pellet on a #10 hook on 2# or 4# line. It'll take a lot of catching to get the majority of them.

Stocking a dozen 14" LMB would fatten up the LMB in a hurry!

What are the goals (fish wise) for your pond?

O.K. One last question. Is it just me, or do others on here have to scroll sideways to read the posts on this thread? If so, anybody know why the thread is so wide?

some threads I do, not this one. I think it is one of the banners.

Nice Gold fish!!

Grass carp should be some nice friends for your GF schools.

Perhaps you could host a goldfish swallowing contest. I understand these were popular during the fifties. What could possibly go wrong?

That's a cool looking pond, with some nice features surrounding it. Pretty place you have there.

Ok, so, the fish seemed kinda large to just have hatched, but I wasn't sure and didn't see them last year...So, good to know that they survived the algae bloom last summer then!

I know this doesn't help, but I haven't decided which way to go with the pond. At a high level...I want to choose an approach that takes advantage of the area and doesn't leave me fighting mother-nature all the time. For instance...If LMB were easier than Goldfish/Koi to maintain in the pond, I'd probably head that route. If LMB or pan fish or whatever were harder to maintain than Goldfish, I'd probably stick with what I have I guess.

My overall goal is for the pond to look nice and as naturally maintained as possible. I have all girls in elementary school and while they will fish, I know they don't want to hurt fish and are less likely to want to fish on their own.

When we bought the house, I fell in love with the view/pond...but had no idea that it would be difficult to maintain...So, really looking to keep things as simple as possible.

Thanks for all your help/thoughts!

Can you stock HSB in Va?

HSB can not be stocked in Va.

couple hybrid muskies would be fun to fish for and could eat gold fish.....