Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Fertilization Water clarity in a new northern pond

Knobber asks - " Is this normal infertility of a new pond start up? ".. water is exceptionally clear, about 7 feet with a Secchi disk. Total Alkalinity is 170 ppm..

Some ponds with the "right" soil conditions can start life with clear water. Often low alkalinity soil results in clear water. As nature adds nutrients more fertility gets added via water shed runoff and organic inputs.

What are your goals for the pond? Why the concern with a new clear water pond??? Clear water has many benefits. . These goals should determine how you manage the pond. Many ways to manage a pond; from doing nothing to intensive management.

I like clear water ponds. I do not like to add fertilizer to ponds especially northern ponds as you have already read. I think fertilizer creates more problems than it solves. See later. As the pond ages the water clarity will change quite a bit during the entire year depending on added fertility. What lives in the pond can affect the water clarity. Clarity of 7 ft does have good phytoplankton and zooplankton populations, just not lots of it. There is an ample food chain developing and what develops and how much of it there is depends on amount of fertility. Clear water ponds can grow big fish just not very many - only a few to several / acre. Clear lakes have good fish communities. I work on water samples from some municipal reservoirs with 15 to 18ft of water clarity where there is a very good fishery.

You can still produce lots of fish in a clear water pond by feeding the fish and not needing to add a fertilizer. Feeding fish adds "natural" nutrients to the system via fish manure and the pond soon looses its 7 ft of clarity. How much you feed determines how many fish you can grow. How you manage the numbers of fish determines how big they grow. A fish can grow as long as it lives as long as it has food to excess for more growth.

The main negative of clear water in a pond is light penetrates deep where plants get enough light to grow. This if one reason why many southern ponds are fertilized to limit sunlight penetration and growth of rooted plants. Plants and filamentous algae tend to create clear water by using using and absorbing nutrients and robbing nutrients from the phytoplankton types of plants. Less phytoplankton reduces the food chain for fish. Good and Bad - depending on GOALS. Once plants get introduced into the pond, 7 ft of clarity can result in light penetrating enough so plants / algae can be growing 20ft deep. Good and Bad. Plant introduction can come from lots of pathways. Plant seeds and spores from the dirt. A main pathway for introduction is animals and birds visiting the pond. Waterfowl manure has lots of weed seeds and algae spores. Wind carries algae spores and dust/dirt Water from stocked fish contains algae and zooplankton species sometimes weed fragments.

Basically the more plants of any type that grow in a pond the more plants that will die and the faster the pond ages by dead plants filling up the pond. As soon as you filled that dug pond with water NATURE wants to fill it back up with dead plants that lived and died in the pond and silt from runoff. How fast the pond fills with dead plants is based on it fertility and amounts getting into the pond. Nutrients grow plant. It is called pond / lake succession. Ponds are big earthen collection bowls with no drain.

One more thing about a clear water 7ft of clarity pond. It will grow trout longer without aeration than a cloudy green water pond because oxygen is produced in deep cool water. As soon as clarity is lost, oxygen production in deep water stops. This is why some clear water quarries or clear lakes can grow trout all year - DO production in deep cool water.