Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Water chemistry Georgia shallow bass pond heating up

So I have a 1 acre pond in Georgia. Nice BG and some skinny LMB up to around 3lbs.
The average depth is 4’.
There is about 75-85% weed growth on the bottom but does not take grow more than say 1 foot off the bottom.
This weekend I measure the water temp and it is 90 degrees. I measured with two different thermometers just to confirm.
I also got in and swam.
The surface water, about 12-18 inches from
Too is nottceably warmer than the bottom.
When I measured I measured below that 18 inches.
I should have measured inside the 18 inches but did not.

Anyhow, how are my fish still alive in the temp?
In fact we caught quite a few.
The lmb hardly fight but look healthy aside from being skinny.
The bg fight pretty good and pretty zesty. Healthy and large as we feed them twice a day from an automatic feeder.

What can I do to ensure my fish endure this heat ok?
There is occasional shade depending on the sun angle from trees around the bank.

I do have an aerator with two diffusers I’m working running every other hour around the clock.

The dissolved oxygen meter is 4.6 in the morning.
Around 5.4 in evenings.

Any ideas on how to improve conditions for the fish or what I can expect in terms of growing good quality fish would be appreciated.

Thx

Jay

Jay, I quit measuring my water temp along time ago. No idea what I did with the 4 thermometers. I decided to pay attention to things that I could control. The air temps in my area, North Texas, occasionally get to 105 or more and I don’t figure it bothered the fish. One of my smaller ponds isn’t over 4 ft deep and the minnows and bluegills didn’t die until the 4 year drought hit and the water levels on all the ponds dropped. One dried completely.

Dave has a great point, my lake was like bath water last summer and all my trout made it here in canada (quite a bit cooler than your area). To cool things down ive started planting trees around the shore of my lake to replace the ones the beavers cut down years ago - instead of hardwoods im planting cedars.

Let us know how it goes!

Jay,

I don't believe it is the water temp itself that stresses your fish. However, warm water holds much less dissolved oxygen, which then leads to problems.

Your average DO of around 5 is probably putting your LMB in the "stressed" range. Further, the larger bodied fish usually suffer more under low DO conditions than the smaller fish. Your skinny bass might have enough food supply for good growth, but the Georgia heat and summer low oxygen may be stressing them during a season when they should be growing rapidly.

IMO, your biggest problem is that your pond is much more shallow than the optimum design. If you ever do have a fish kill (and money in your family budget), you might consider deepening the pond if you ever decide to "start over".

However, right now I think the best you can do is optimize your aeration efficiency.

You might want to start a new thread under aeration, and give a full description of your pond and your system. We do have some aeration experts that might drop into your thread. Or you could read through the archives for old threads on the best way to aerate warm, shallow ponds.

Good luck on your project to make your fish more comfortable! A 1-acre pond in Georgia should easily produce LMB MUCH larger than 3# if you can get their conditions a little bit better.

I appreciate all the good replies.

I agree buyers just not much you can do to control water temperature.
So I’ll focus more on the DO factor to keep that more above 6 round the clock if possible.

I would love to deepen the pond. I have no idea how you’d even do this though.
If under $10k I’d probably have that done right away. As long as the current fish could survive it.
But I guess in reality the pond needs completely draining.

Shifting my focus to aeration.

Thanks all!

Jay