Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Structure in our new pond

A couple of things.

Without aeration the muck will build up quicker than with aeration. The fish will have a much smaller area of the pond that they can utilize during the summer, and a few years down the road once the muck builds up you can be more susceptible to a fish kill with a weather event that causes a rapid turnover in the pond, mixing the anoxic bottom water with the oxygenated surface water. It doesn't take much H2S to mix with the oxygenated water to kill fish. I would add a bottom diffuser aeration system, grid based not windmill. Windmills are too inconsistent in their aeration, and they are a royal PITA to service.

Without aeration and without habitat for the fish in shallower area (away from the swimming area) your fish population will suffer. Your YP won't have a place to spawn, your small fish won't have a place to hide, your bass will be constantly swimming around looking for food and will be more like marathon runners than couch potatoes. Having cover in the pond that the fish can use every month of the year also makes it easier to fish in the pond. You want roughly 20-25 percent of the ponds surface area in cover for the fish. When putting the cover in the shallower water, make a line or two of cover going to the deep water. The fish will use that as a sort of highway when transitioning from deep to shallow water.

I would not continually add Copper Sulfate. The invertebrates on the bottom of the pond don't like copper, and the copper will build up in the bottom sediment over time. Using dye is fine to limit light transmission to cut down on weed and plant growth, but it also partially cuts out the bottom of the food chain. To mitigate that, you should be supplementally feeding the fish. (see my other post about your pond)