Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Jar & 5 gal bucket test results with alum

A little bird told me that you were whining about getting too much rain.......

Thanks, everyone for your responses!

TJ, I decided to do just that, to wait it out and see what happens. Which gets you off the hook as I was going to see if you wanted to assist in an alum/lime treatment .

I did fill the 5 gal bucket yesterday without alum, leaving it in the fish house so I'll see if and/or how quickly it clears.

The fish are feeding so yes, very encouraging! During feeding this morning I did catch 3 BG, and none with sores. Again, very encouraging!

Bocomo, it seems like I've thrown everything at them! Plastics, chatterbaits, spinnerbaits, topwater, bright colors and dark, jig-n-pig, crawlers, etc. The only thing I haven't tried is live bait but I'll toss the cast net out and see if I can get some small BG and try that.

Anthropic, again thanks for the encouragement, patience not being my greatest virtue! But I've gotten better since managing a pond .

Shorty, Rex said the same thing as far as once a bloom gets established, it will help with the settling. I'd love to go from a brown to green!

Dave, it seems like you all go from one extreme to the other. But man I really loved being in Texas! And what the heck are you doing up at 4am!?!

Maybe one additional question; would there be any advantage to turning the well on and letting it run for a few, or several days?

I agree with waiting it out! Here are some pics of the Norman/Noble OK pond and upgrades I made to the barge after the steering helm dissolved on me at Cisco's pond...lol

I used cam-lock fittings, without a seal, to create a spinning agitator to keep the chemicals in a good slurry. There is a screened pick-up under the stainless steel shield (I got griped at for such an ingenious use of a mixing bowl). Using these chemical totes, chemical tends to gum up into paste in the corners...not anymore!

I also built a new boom, with 4 left side, 4 right side, and 8 wide area flat boomless sprayer nozzles drilled out to 4 GPM flow@60psi and mounted on a stiffened a 1" PVC delivery boom.

At nearly 70 GPM chemical delivery flow, I needed to be able to supply a constant inflow of water to the mixing tote, so I put valves on the intake side of the mixing/supply pump. Once the valves on the mixing pump are balanced to match the output of the pressure/delivery pump, all I do is steer and pour bags of chemical into the tote as it is applied. I sprayed 2500# of Hydrated Lime and 6000# of Alum on this customers 3 acre pond in just under 4 hours...I started spraying at 10:30am and was finished at 5:30pm. The extra time was loading 50# bags onto the barge and taking some breaks from lugging the 8500# of chemical around.

Scott, I wouldn't have a clue who the little birdie is, but I'm willing to bet he's as sick of it as DD1 is. There's just something wrong about wearing PJ's and Mucks just to take the trash out.

Quite the change in the before and after pictures Rex. I bet your clients are happy with those results.

Shorty and Lovnlivin, if there is a way to add a decent size sediment pond ahead of your main runoff water source, it sure has helped keep my main pond cleaner after these big rain events.

For it to work, it needs to be able to capture the muddy water and hold it or slow the velocity for a while. My runoff from farm land goes through a tiny 20x50 pre-sediment pond then into a 1/10th acre sediment pond then into the main 3 acre pond.

Helps a lot.

I have drain tile feeding mine and the neighbors field is close by so a sediment pond wouldn't be practical. I am usually OK unless we have a very heavy fast rain which has happened twice in the last month, even with a sediment pond its likely it would have gotten muddy.

Secchi disk readings this morning were 2-1/2" in the pond, and 5" in the bucket.

OK, I think you're fine as long as they're still feeding. If you catch BCP with lesions get us photos ASAP so some of the experts can troubleshoot.

Once I start getting some clarity back I'm sure they'll be on fire again so I'll keep you posted if they have lesions!

Rex, thanks for all the photos and descriptions! There's just no substitute for creative ingenuity, and you sir appear to have nailed it with that operation! Congrats to you!

I can't help but think if you were to advertise the before and after's of treating muddy ponds, you'd be doing that full time with more work than you can handle.

But if it were me, just one job hauling 8000 lbs, or over 150 50lb bags of material would do me in for the year!

PS - Thanks again for your time!

Keith, try a small jig with a piece of night crawler on it under a bobber, keep it shallow and move it slowly close to the bank. Secchi disk reading here this evening are just 3" but I managed to catch 5 RES in about 35 minutes, three very gravid females and two males.

Shorty, It was getting dark but I tried it and got a small BG on the second cast! I'll try again in the morning. Thanks!

Nice RES BTW, and 5 in 35 minutes, that's encouraging! Oh, and my secchi disk shows I gained another 1 1/2".

BTW, I really like how you have your pliers on your dock board, great idea!

After looking @ the Pics Rex posted, I will double down and say again, "looks like Rex has it figured out" Great Job Rainman and I bet your Client is Happy, Happy, Happy

Tracy

Clarity is up to 6" so I'm gaining little by little and there appears to be a bloom as well.

It's still tough on the LMB bite but the BG are eating and hitting well.

Caught this nice one today on a crawler.

Came in at 9" and .92 lb. And I'm guessing male due to the long ear tab and scale tipping?

Male

+1 M CSBG