I am about to build a small pond in central Indiana using a backhoe. The pond will be fed by an artesian well. I will leave it unstocked for the summer to see if it stays cool enough for trout, but if not, I will try to use for building forage fish populations. I am a novice operator and would like to keep the pond as small as possible while making it functional. I am looking for suggested depths, dimensions and slopes. I think that I know how to make it water tight.
One thing I have found with my tiniest pond is that the Herrons love it. The fish can't get very far away from a bird. The other thing (that is likely only applicable in my situation) is that the pond is so small in volume, and since it is a sediment pond in line where the runoff goes through it before the main pond, it gets huge water exchange levels during a big rain event. It might have complete water exchanges on the order of ten or twenty times in a period of a day or two. The fish grow like crazy in it and do well. Till we have one of those huge rains. Then it is too much for some of the larger fish. Found some dead ones the last big rains and not many fish left. Now with subsequent rains lots of small 2" BG have either swam upstream and repopulated it or the small ones survived the high flow through.
Just one thing to be aware of. If the small pond is in line with a big pond where it gets huge water exchanges, the fish in it may suffer at times. I suspect big temperature and ph changes with high water exchanges.
