Thanks for the posts! A few elements I am banking on are: 1) my grandfather stocked several thousand rainbow trout fingerlings 40 years ago (I being a bit younger)and raised them successfully over a three period to be 16-20" beauties. He had no electricity, no aeration and the exact same artesian well 2" steel pipe putting out 15-18 gpm, that's it. He had a few winter kills I am sure, and not sure of summer kills (but he had a hardy trout population in July and August when we used to harvest them (there were hundreds in there and we watched them be hand fed. since this is 2 hours North from home, we have a Sweeney auto feeder programmed to feed twice a day at prescribed amounts (per published feed charts)
The pond was only 8 1/2 ft. deep at it deepest spot and gradually sloped to 4 and then 2 ft.at the edges. As of lsat summer (excavation) the pond now is 13-14 feet in perhaps a 1/4 to one third. so pond voume is probably increased by 1/4 and some decent deep pocket areas etc.
Three years ago when we failed, the temps were 72 and up to 75 at the surface, lots of algae bloom AND (I beleive this to be the FATAL mistake) we kept the aerators going 24/7 into mid June which cooked the water. Fish were swimming like sharks at the surface, a dozen or more had actually jumped out onto the banks- it was ugly! Imagine having a oversized aeration system turning the water over once a day or more in 75 / 80 / 84 and even 86 degree temps- Seems to me I did a good job of convection cooking the water and the trout? Lvie and learn and PAY! Never heard of pond boss back then.
At that point I shut off the aerator (too late of course) and stopped feeding, as they wouldn't eat anything at this point. It was all over in less than a week- gone. Experienced TLS for the first time (trout loss syndrome)
Are you saying it was anoxia? Was it anoxia related to high water temps? Maybe I should look at the threshold temp for turning on the diffusers at 64 or less?
Also, I have noticed that the historic weather charts show that 80% of summer nights in West Branch do drop into the 50's and often into the high 40's for some nice cooling effect. I am hoping to capitalize on this, since I ahve a 1/4 hp / two diffuser system (which is designed for up to 1 acre ponds.
Any additional thoughts?
