Don,
If the ground is dry, and the pond is still filling, then the soil will suck up some water to get saturated. It won't pack down any more than it was packed with the heavy equipement when the pond was dug tho, unless it's the frost heaving that is settling back down.
I'd put the aeration system in when it's convenient for you and get it fired up, using the slow start-up procedure.
Let the fish be your guide to the amount that you feed, but you have to feed every day, not every other day, and at the same time every day. Fish get on a schedule, and will be waiting for you to throw the food. Don't feed more than what they can consume in 15 minutes. Were the fish that were purchased feed trained?
Yes the fish were feed trained and the feed I have on hand is the same product. The problem I have is I have not seen any perch since the day we let them go in November of last year. No floaters nothing. The sun fish on the other hand.... ya they didn't winter so well. The water of the pond is very dark green blue from the heavy clay bottom so we are lucky to get say 4 feet of visibility. I will post up some pictures later today. If I just throw in some feed I really do not know if it is being consumed or not. The feed will float a bit but not long and then it slinks down. It is not floating feed but will for a bit. Could we be wasting our time and feed if we can't see the fish eating this up?
Ya I was not to sure about driving a sheep foot packer so close to the ponds edge. If she went into the pond nothing good would have come of that. So just the bulldozer that made the banks is all the traffic the banks seen for packing. Over the winter the water level stayed at the level of undisturbed dirt so anything above that is the banks. Trying to keep full pool 24"s above that area. Again like stated before we did dig this deeper adds more pressure to leaks. Any leaks seem to be in the new banks more than some where ells.
Cheers Don.
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