Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Differing water clarity of connected ponds

I have a 1 acre pond connected to a 1/3 acre pond via an 18" culvert pipe.

I also have a ditch leading into the small pond to replenish the water level, that culvert utilizes a 15 inch diameter inflatable pipe plug from late Feb to early Nov to keep the pond water from draining out.

The watershed for these 2 ponds is not great, and I'm basically at the mercy of the seasonal rainfall when it comes to keeping the water level up. A typical year is 18" of water level loss from April-Sept. I have added a well, but it turned out to be only 4 GPM and I don't think that will help me much.

The attached picture shows where the culvert is (blue) and where the pipe plug is (red).

Pretty much all year round, when there isn't ice on the ponds, the larger pond is much clearer than the smaller pond. I have not made any tools to check clarity, but it's quite evident just by observation.

If on a given day I can see down 4 ft in the large pond, I'm lucky to see 1 ft down into the small pond.

I constructed both ponds in a similar fashion, with the same soils. I'm not sure what is going on.

Pond Clarity

I believe that the way water flows through your ponds has turned the smaller pond into what some folks here term a "settlement pond". Meaning that the water comes into the small pond, the suspended particles "settle out"'of that h20, and thus clearer h20'then continues onto the larger pond

One way to help the smaller ponds clarity is to have h2o run through an artificial wetland type area so water is "prefiltered"'before it gets to your small pond

Well I stop the water flow into the small pond in late Feb, and no water is allowed to pass that red line on my picture from Feb to Nov. I would have thought the small pond would settle out in that time period...

That ditch I use to replenish the water level is really only active for a week or so, that's all it takes to replenish, then I put the plug in.

I do see your point, and would agree with that if that ditch was "operational" all year round. Also, the ditch is full of tall grasses, not sure how good of a silt filter it is...

Do you have the same species and density of fish in both ponds?

You could have a high enough population of BH in the small pond to keep the mud stirred up. Or, because it's acting as a settlement pond, there is MORE mud in the smaller pond and it's easier to keep stirred up.

If you want the small pond to look as nice as your larger pond, the blueing agent that is prescribed to add that nice water color and filter out sun will also act as a clarifier given a couple of weeks. You don't even have to use as much as the bottle states if you don't like that artificial blue look. Use a small amount and wait a couple of days to judge the effect. You can always add more with small amounts at a time.

Well, I know what I stocked into that pond:

FH, GSH and grass carp.

There is only one grass carp left as 3 of the 4 I put in there died, and I don't think any of the 12 I put into the large pond swam through the culvert.

In the large pond I stocked:

FH, GSH, grass carp, YP, WE, PS & SMB.

I know that the small pond was full of YOY PS last year as I was trapping to remove some of them from both ponds. Other than that, I have no idea if any of the WE, YP of SMB migrated through the culvert from the large pond to the small.

However, this water clarity difference was an issue before I stocked any fish.

I was thinking that maybe some fish that you didn't expect made it to the small pond via the ditch during a high water event.

Do the jar test and see if it settles out.

Is there a specific way to perform this test, or is it as easy as it sounds?

Easy? Heck, I can do it.

I only have one GC left in the small pond, but it is a huge fish. I see it circling the 1/3rd acre pond all the time. Could this thing be contributing to the clarity issue?