Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction newbie

Hello all,
I just built a .89 acre pond. Max depth is 19 feet. It is all clay. No spring. It filled up with runnoff and rainwater this spring and I originally stocked it with 10 gallons of FHM. They reproduced nicely. Just put in 180 5-6 inch perch. Going for the perch/walleye/smallmouth route with a few hybrid bluegills for shoreline viewing pleasure. Do I need to aerate? No weeds as of yet.

Thanks and Happy to be here.

Congrats on the new pond. You will get great enjoyment out of it.

Although I am pretty new to this fish stuff, I already know the answer to your question about aeration.

"It depends".

Now I will turn the floor over to someone who can give you actual useful guidance.

I myself built a pond last year and it is now fully stocked, waiting for the fish to grow up. I also decided this fall that aeration is going in next spring. Even though our pond is fairly new, already starting to get filamentous algae.

I originally was not going to feed the fish. Then decided I would supplement them a little till they got on their feet (figuratevely speaking, of course) to give them a little boost to the reproduction. It worked, but also about then I found Pond Boss and filamentous algae.

Seems the more you push a pond, the more critical management gets. Add feed means adding nutrients. Adding nutrients to make more fish means more fish poop. More fish poop means something else is going to take advantage of those nutrients.

So that is what I have learned to date. The more you manage your pond for larger production, the more you will be required to manage it. And along those lines, the more beneficial aeration would be.

That is why I say, as I have learned from the best here on Pond Boss in my short tenure, "it depends".

The first thing they are going to ask you is "What are your goals?". Those goals will determine a lot of what best management practices will be for your pond.

So think about it some more, if you have not already (I had extremely fuzzy goals to begin with, thus my slow learning curve), and let us know what you would like from your pond. Big trophy fish? Pan fish to supply the table? A fish every cast for some young kids? Etc, etc.

Once your goals are known, the experts on here will do a bang up job with some good ideas for management.

Again, congrats on your new pond. I gotta go eat some Christmas dinner!

Thanks alot. My goals for my pond are to be able to catch some fish for the table and have kids catch fish at random. Doesnt have to be every cast. Pretty low goals i think compared to some of you experts on here. The pond is all around enjoyment. Swimming, watching fish, catching fish etc. Not focused on any one particular thing.

I was planning on putting in 50 Hybrid Bluegill or RES spring of 2014, and when I start seeing fish spawning I was going to put in 20 walleye. Possibly spring of 2015. Any hints or tips or suggestions on anything will be greatly appreciated.

also is chara in any way advantageous? Only greenish thing growing a little in the pond so far.

How/is it possible to get other more beneficial weeds to grow in clay?

Thanks in advance and this is an awesome site for pond owners.

Again, I'm not an expert, but do have one pond that I renovated that was clay and the water was very low visibility. Did not notice much of a green cast to the water to indicate a healthy plankton bloom.

I had a spot in the pasture where cattle had been fed for years that I pushed up the hay and manure into a pile and let compost. The pile was probably two years old. I dumped a loader bucket full of this compost near the shore where the wave action would work it in slowly (did not spread it all over the pond). It wasn't but a few days I had a nice plankton bloom where the water was now a greenish clay color instead of just the clay color.

Plankton is the first food to start the food chain for everything else, as I understand it. So you might consider fertilization if your pond bottom does not have other sources of nutrients or run off nutrients.

I also put larger sized crushed rock around the shore line to keep the wave action from siring up the clay, but that is another story.