Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? New to a larger dug pond - smattering of questions

Hello all! I am new to having "a real pond." I have a small koi pond at my house that I've had for several years and overall that one has been easy peasy. I recently purchased this land and restored this pond. When I bought it it was all choked out by grass and willow and you could barely even tell there was once a pond here. I hired someone to dig it out and this was the natural color of the pond after he dug it out this spring:

[img]https://ibb.co/dk7Hn8c[/img]

The contractor let it fill up to see how it would hold, then we waited for it to drain and he "fine tuned" it by grading it and smearing some of the blue clay that we found here along the sides. He built a runoff using boulders that were once here. Pond is from an artesian well/spring and is constantly running.

Since the contractor has done the fine tuning, the pond has been muddy and is no longer thel aqua color. It's probably been about 2 or 3 weeks since it was finished. We had to wait a bit for it to fill back up and start flowing. Now it has been flowing for 2 weeks. This is what it looks like now (sorry only photo I have is of a mule shoe I found with the water behind it:

[img]https://ibb.co/T0BpLNW[/img]

Some of my questions are:

1) will it eventually return to the aqua color from the winter or is this only going to happen in winter/spring?

2) I read pond dye can help, but I worry about whether or not it is safe for frogs and fish. Currently there's frogs and newts that have quickly made themselves at home and I plan to stock it with some fish. This also is a flowing pond that I am assuming at some point meets up with a creek or something (I haven't followed it but either way it is part of the water cycle and isn't just "enclosed" like my city pond. So I would like to be as considerate of the environment as possible.

3) f it is cloudy/muddy, are fish able to live in it? I have been dying to stock it and there's a place locally that has stock fish but I haven't gone til the pond was finished and I want to make sure I am putting them in a good environment

4) I am working with a few local people to plant around it (native species, native nursery, native design plan) so no doubt once THAT happens and things get planted and growing it will help. I do plan to plant the sh*t out of it as I own a nursery myself and am obsessed with plants.

Anyways I'd appreciate any insight and help. Thanks in advance!

Welcome to the forum! You can stock minnows now and let them multiply while you are developing a stocking plan for the fishery.

How many GPM does the artesian well produce?

Pond dye won't harm fish - basically it is like food coloring. As for it helping, other than changing the color it won't "help". You will have to be constantly adding a wee bit more weekly as it gets diluted by the incoming water.

As for the aqua color, that is a big unknown. I'm guessing that once the initial clay turbidity from construction and filling with water settles out, and plants get established, that the color will return.

This spring/winter it was producing 32GPM. I am guessing a bit less now that we haven't has as much rain/snow. My contractor says it is the most productive spring he's seen yet.

Good to know it won't harm. I will try adding some. Though I am hoping it returns to the crystal clear prettiness of winter!

I am going to stock a bunch of minnows. Smith Creek Fish Farm isn't too far from me and I've talked to them about stocking it with mostly minnows as I would like to encourage kingfishers. We talked about some bluegill and catfish

If you are encouraging any type of waterfowl or herons/kingfishers, you will need Redear Sunfish or Pumpkinseed Sunfish to deal with the parasites. Black Spot disease, white and yellow grubs. All use snails as part of their life cycle, and the RES/PSK eat snails.