tws3 - With the upground relatively shallow pond finally full of water, watching and monitoring the water level until mid June will tell you how well it is holding water. In late winter at ice melt off,,,,, the water level should be still near the overflow. Usually in stable water ponds little water is lost during winter with cold temps when the ground is usually pretty well saturated with snow melt and rain water, thus usually little water is lost due to evaporation until the weather starts to produce fewer rains and more evaporation occurs in warmer temperatures. Then more water is noticbly lost due to evaporation. In early spring,, find and establish a water high point marker so you can watch the water level as it changes. In my experience, a well sealed clay bottom pond in Ohio will lose only about 12"-13" during a summer due to primarily evaportation and regular rainfall. Water level down more than 13" at the end of summer indicates the amount of leakage. When no sheepsfoot roller is used to interconnect and knit the clay layers together, sometimes years later, the water under some hydraulic pressure will gradually find or work its way between the flat compacted lift layers and then start to move out of the basin. Widths and thicknesses of the flat clay layers has an influence on how fast the water seepage will find its way out of the basin. If the pond holds water well after 8-20 years the construction methods were done well.
Fish stocking.
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I have a fishery a mile away, and the owner said he'll help me stock it in the spring.
Before adding adult fish from a neighbor's or a friend's pond,,,,, Do lots of good homework about the Pros and Cons of using that method to stock a new pond (aka bucket stocking) . There are MORE disadvantages to using this method of bucket stocking than there are benefits. There are numerous posts from members here on the PB Forum for not to and to do the moving fish from one pond to another. I think Bob Lusk has a new video about this topic (below). I will look for some info and add it to this post.
WHAT IS THE REASON OR REASONS FOR STOCKING YOUR NEW POND WITH FISH FROM ANOTHER POND????
One main factor about doing this pond to pond fish movement is what are the goals for having the fishery?. Decide on those goals first,,, which is an important reason/s for stocking the bucket fish, what fish, and how many fish. Stating out with an unbalanced pond can cause significant fish density balance issues and highly impact the future growth rates and BALANCE of predator and prey issues of the fish. First fish stocking densities are important,,, fish density ratios of all species of the moved fish for the pond going forward are important to have a quality fishery. An unbalanced fishery can cause numerous future problems that are hard to change or fix. The larger the pond the more difficult it is to correct issues with predator and prey balance and fish lack of good growth issues.
If you want my opinions for adding new adult fish from another pond provide why you want fish in the pond (GOALS) so the provided advice can be specialized or customized for your new shallow pond conditions.
Listen and Read the entire posts: Population dynamics
Stocking – pay clost attention when 6 minutes into video
