Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Cold or warm water pond in mid Michigan

The caveat to having a pond with steep sides is that you have to make durn sure that the sides will stay stable at that slope when covered with water. A casein point: A customer in Northern Indiana has a 1/2 ac pond, pottery making like clay is what the soil surrounding the pond is made of. It holds water VERY well. He had an excavator come in and dig the pond deeper - how's 28' deep in a 1/2 acre pond that also has a good sized island on one side? We fiddled with the aeration system and were able to get trout to oversummer for one summer. Then he started using enzymes and beneficial bacteria. With him overdosing the pond with it, the sides of the pond started collapsing and sliding down to the bottom of the pond. 4-5 years later (2024) I took a depth reading of his pond. 16' deep at the deepest part. Hmmm. What happened? Looking at satellite images, the sides of the pond collapsed back about 5 feet horizontally. Where did that material go? It is the 12 feet of "sediment" in the bottom of the pond.

Part of his previously buried lawn irrigation system was showing in the pond, the horizontal overflow pipe 90° vertical turn is now about 7 feet out from the shore instead of 2 feet.

So now the next time I am there I will have to take depth measurements around the edge of the pond along with horizontal measurements to see what the slope now is and document it so we can check again in late October to see if it has stabilized or if it is still sloughing off. If it is, he's going to pull the plug on the pond, drain it and bring in many truckloads of reclaimed concrete. Re-contour the pond banks and use the re-claimed concrete to stabilize the banks, refill and re-stock.