Pond and fish seem to be doing well after the winter ice has thawed. Last fall I stocked 25 RBT, 25 YP, and about 200 HSF. This spring I found two dead sunfish floating after the ice melted but that's it so far. During the winter I pulled the diffuser head to about 5' of water (18' max depth) and ran it intermittently through the winter to open up the ice once a week or so. When the hole was open I also fed the trout some floating food. They seemed to gobble it up. Now I am feeding the trout about once every couple days, and will increase once water temps rise. I see them feeding on the surface (insects, etc) sporadically all throughout the day. I have yet to see any of the perch, SF, SMB, or CC. Hopefully once the water warms up more I'll see them up in the shallower water.
This week I added a 2nd diffuser head in the 2nd deepest section, and moved the main diffuser to the deepest point. At first the deeper diffuser did not put out any air, so I pulled the air line up leading to the 2nd diffuser and added a ball valve in-line and adjusted it until I had approximately even flow from both heads. Noticed a LOT of black stinky gunk rising up from the bottom so I'll run it only for an hour today and slowly increase the run time until the sludge/stink goes away to avoid a fish kill. Also added a bit of beneficial bacteria too just in case. Water is still cool, so I'll add more throughout the summer as water temps warm up and the bacteria can work better. . .
I also got a pond rake and have been pulling some of the leaves and debris out of the pond. Upon doing so I found out there are probably thousands of crayfish living in the crap at the bottom. That was a welcome surprise. Now I know how the bass lived last summer before I added some minnows. Speaking of that - there are swarms of hundreds of minnows all around the perimeter in the shallow waters. This time last year I could not see a single live fish anywhere in the water. I also found some little 1-2" SF or rock bass babies, so something must have spawned over the past year
This summer I'm going to work on spawning habitat (rocky bottom) for my large SMB . . .
