Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New Pond - Help!

Hey everyone. We are moving in a month to our new house which comes complete with a pond! Yay. Now if only I knew a single thing about ponds. It is currently stocked with bass for sure and maybe some other smaller fish. It looks overstocked. Everywhere you look there is fish. There are some sort of plants all along the shoreline. Reeds of some sort. The current owners only use an aerator for half the day (in the morning) and only on the south side. And it seems scummy so I was wondering what I need to do to be able to swim in it. According to Google it's 20,000ish sq ft which just under half an acre. But there is also an island in the middle. What do I need to know to look after a pond this size?!? Many many thanks in advance!

Jenna

Welcome to the forum!

Read lots here on PBF, subscribe to Pond Boss magazine, and let us know what your goals are for your pond.

Lots of fish is not necessarily a bad thing. It takes a LMB eating ten pounds of forage fish to add a pound to the bass. So it takes lots of forage fish to feed the bass population.

An early step will be fishing or otherwise testing to see what fish and sizes you already have.

Jenna, Welcome to the PondBoss forum.
We've recently had a few people join from Canada, a beautiful land where some of us will move after the November presidential election in this country. Ha! Great!
You are in the right place to learn everything you need and want to know about managing your pond. BTW 1/2 acre can be just the right size, depending on your goals.
If you like to fish, then spend quite a bit of time and energy catching fish from your pond and recording their sizes and weights. This will get you started. You may have goals right now; you may develop goals for your pond as you get to know it. The more particulars you can observe and pass on to the experienced people on this forum, the more help you will get. Don't be shy. All inquiries are treated with respect here. It's a great forum.

Thanks guys. First thing I'm doing after the moving truck leaves is throwing a line in the pond. Can't wait to see what I pull out. I was told its about 25 ft at its deepest but I'm going to get in my kayak and check the depth in August. They use a surface aerator and from what I noticed it seems to just push all the crap to the north side of the pond so thinking of putting a windmill aerator at that end since there's no power. I really just need a pond for blondes book lol I have no idea where to start. Am I allowed to let it just freeze over this winter? Do I need to feed my fish? They dyed it and it looks horrible I'm scared I will look like a smurf if I set foot in the water. Maybe I just need to hire someone local to show me the ropes until I get a handle on it all?!?

Jenna, windmills depend on constant wind....you don't need electricity at the pond....you can run inexpensive poly tubing 100's of meters to pump air through and put an aeration pump wherever you like. Any idea what brand and style your surface agitator is? Or could it actually be a fountain?

Here is an example of a shallow water agitator....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKEFLFN8S78

PS Congrats on finding such a pretty place!!!

I'm pretty sure it is an aerator, the owner was adamant we call it a aerator in the sale paperwork. we had it listed in the things we wanted to come with the house as fountain and he crossed it out and changed it to aerator. here is the best picture I could find of it. and one of the pond in the fall last year.

Fall shot

Welcome. We can help you with all your pond questions.
1. What you have is an aerator however it is a surface aerator not a bottom aerator. Fountains generally spray water higher than 3ft above the surface. Yours mixes primarily the top 5-6ft of water, assuming the intake is 2-3ft below the surface. Deeper water than 5-6ft remains unmixed with no dissolved oxygen from June to October. Between Oct-Jun during open water season nature mixes the ponds top to bottom in Ontario.

2. There obviously is some sort of electric supply to the pond since there is an existing electric aerator. YOu may need someone with electric knowledge to provide a plug outlet near the pond. However remember a continuous duty air compressor in a building can easily push air 1000ft to put air into the bottom of your pond for bottom aeration. See item5.

3. Your pond outline is close to 0.5 ac but the large island means you do not have 0.5ac of water; maybe closer to 0.25ac. Google measure the island size and subtract it from the total 20000sqft for water area.

4. With the relatively large island in your pond, I very much doubt it is deeper than 10-12ft; maybe only 8ft deep. Make some depth soundings which will help determine the total water volume for any chemical treatments.

5. IMO islands in ponds are a problem because they interfere with water circulation from a bottom aerator. This means circulation from a bubbler cannot get to the back side of the or around the island. This means more bubblers are needed. Bowl shaped ponds are the easiest to mix and circulate. An island does add shoreline if shoreline and shallow water are desired. Most all pond problems are in shallow water not in the middle deep areas. Thus the more shallow water, the more problems - usually weeds. Weeds(plants) can be beneficial or a detriment - depending on goals.

6. Do some fishing with a small hook, some pieces of garden worm under a slender bobber-float. Keep a record of every fish caught and time fished. From posted close-up pictures we can help identify all the fish you catch. I suspect most all the small fish are stunted sunfish which means the pond has way too few bass(predators) and it is out of balance. Too few bass allow too many sunfish to survive and overpopulate and over eat the ecosystem causing slow growth and 'starving' fish. Sampling by angling will tell the rest of the story.

In a balanced pond with the above angling method, you should catch 15-20 sunfish(bluegill) for every bass or predator. More bass/20 sunfish means the panfish are larger and bass mostly smaller. Many more sunfish per bass means smaller panfish and larger too few bass for a proper balance of a "general" fishing pond.

7. We can advise about proper aeration in winter when that time comes around in Oct-Nov.

Again, welcome. Managing your pond will be an adventure and challenge. Keep us advised of your pond progress.

Thanks Bill. You guys are so knowledgeable!

I measured the island it is about 3500 sq ft so about 0.4 acre total water space?

I will do depth measurements as soon as I get in this August. I want to know the total capacity of the pond for sure.

Everyone wants to come fish so I will make sure we are recording everything as soon as we get in.

I know for a fact the past two owners have stocked it with bass. It was in the listing and just walking around the pond you can see a ton of them and they seem huge. Current owner also feeds them every night. So should I continue this since they are used to it or will they be able to survive on the their own?

Feeding the fish increases their poundage in the pond based on the amount of food available. It makes them dependent on an 'outside the pond' food source. More food = more fish weight and/or numbers depending on the balance of prey and predator. If you stop feeding or feed less food, the number of fish should be reduced to achieve a balance of the amount of food available for number/size of fish if you want a healthy, well sized fish community. The proper balance or 'adjustment' of prey to predator has to do with your management style or efforts. Your task is to monitor the balance and adjust it when needed. We can help with the 'when needed' part if you have the angler's catch records.