I appreciate everyone's input. As I mentioned earlier, I am a new pond owner and obviously have a lot to learn. And learning all the aspects of pond mgmt and some of the chemical makeup is very interesting to me.
I got into this situation by going with what I thought was good advice on treating the pond with Reward from a local pond mgmt company, and a little reading here. The pond mgmt co told me they would treat the entire pond at once, but if I wanted to do it myself there was no magic to it. It was supposed to slowly kill the plant so we would not experience a DO crash... Based on reading this forum I decided to break up the treatment into 50% at the time separated by 3 weeks to lessen the likely hood of any DO issues. But apparently my plan was flawed, maybe no measurable rain for the last 3-4 weeks also contributed after a wet spring, not sure. The only thing that I am sure about is that many fish were lost. I don't have any idea of what percentage of fish may have been lost. That's another topic after the issue that got us here is resolved.
I hope to learn in this process how to prevent this from happening again, especially if I find myself in a situation to again feel the need to treat the pond with a herbicide - which will be very tough decision. The pond had a lot of coontail, to the point it really wasn't good for fishing or much of anything else during the summer months.
If a properly sized surface aerator is the only real safety net then we will probably have to go that route. And if that is the best course of action, I am curious about what type of schedule you experts would recommend, I can't imagine just keeping an eye on things and turning it on when it's likely already too late.
I appreciate everyone's input this has been a great learning experience, I obviously have a lot left to learn. And by posting this experience I hope others will be able to make better decisions when it comes to herbicide treatment in ponds with a lot of plant growth.
Thanks!
