Greetings.

Looking for some advice.

A few years ago we built a 1.4 acre pond on some land we own near a river that we also decided to put a house on (mid state of South Carolina). The water source for the pond is from a river that our property sits near.

Over the first few years the pond was filled and drained a few times due to leaks in the vertical overflow pipe.

The last time we drained the pond we removed the vertical overflow pipe for a siphon system. The leak issue was finally fixed and we filled the pond one last time.

With the house finished and the pond fixed, we consulted with a local pond company and they installed 3 bottom aerators and did an initial stocking.Since then we have noticed issues that we had not experienced before we put the aerators in or stocked the pond.

First thing we noticed after the stocking was blue green algae forming on the pond. The pond company came out and treated that and the blue/green disappeared. But then we developed a duck weed problem and during this time all the tadpoles we had in the pond died and so did the mosquito minnows and bream we had stocked weeks earlier in the year.

Currently we still have the duckweed issue, see no life in the pond.

In the past we would suck up all sorts of minnows/fish from the river and they thrived in the pond until we drained it. We did not have much if any blue green algae or duckweed. The pond was filled for months (like now) and we did not have the issues we have now.

The only differences from before are the aerators and the stocking. The river is considered fairly healthy though I am sure there is runoff (and all that brings with it) from farms that run its 500 mile length.

Could the aerators be causing the issue? Or maybe the stocking introduced something?

We keep the pond topped off with river water, which we probably do once every couple of weeks. The pond has a solid clay bottom and as mentioned before is about 1.4 acres with depths that run from 2' to 15'.

Pond company is coming out to take a sample and test it.

Thanks!