Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry Muck remover and aeration

Wallman, copper sulfate won't do a durn thing to the American Pondweed, it only affects algae. Look into using Aquathol Super K granules. Read the label for proper dosage, more is NOT better. There is a relative weight chart in the archives here. Weigh and measure your fish to get an idea on how they are growing. If they aren't 100% RW or heavier, start taking hungry mouths out of the pond. It's like having too many cattle in a pasture, there is only so much food available to them and they will stop growing.

Your bass to bluegill ratio should be 1:30 give or take as it takes a bass "X" amount of food to just survive (could be over well 10# per year depending on the size of the bass) then the bass has to eat roughly 10 more pounds of fish to gain a pound of weight. The fish that it needs to eat should be 1/4 to 1/3 it's body length to get the maximum use of the calories consumed vs. calories expended catching the meal. To give you an idea of how many BG a bass has to eat, a 12" LMB will typically eat 3.5-4.25" BG. Those BG weigh 25-44 pounds per thousand fish. Those 1,000 BG are enough to put 1# of weight on less than 2 and at the most 3 LMB that are now 12" in length.

A homeowner can buy Diquat. Reward or Tribune are the trade names of aquatic Diquat.Do smaller areas at a time. Follow the directions for the Diquat use for coontail and add between 0.6 to 1.8 gallons of Curtine Plus Liquid to the tank mix for every acre foot of water that you will be treating. I am assuming that you would be using a 25 gallon sprayer. You can treat 1/4 to 1/3 of the pond at a time, wait a week or so and treat more of the pond. Without proper aeration you don't want to kill too many plants/too much algae at a time and create an O2 crash due to plant/algal decomposition.

I would just remove the objectionable plants, you need some in the pond for nutrient sequestration, cover for the fish and O2 production (although planktonic algae will produce more O2 than vascular plants).

Yes, you aren't that far away, I will be going to Ligonier most likely next week, and will be making a few trips into Ohio to pick up fish this week and next week. I'm about 10 miles West of Plymouth and 1.5 miles N of Rt. 30.