I had them out last year to do the shallow end of my swimming pond. We will see if it was worth it this year. Quite expensive.
What ever muck and sludge they removed had to be beneficial to some degree for getting accumulated organic nutrients. How much benefit depends of the total amount of accumulated sludge in the pond. The amount of new plant growth will depend on the amount of remaining nutrient basis still in the pond.
Remember killing submerged or floating plants does nothing to reduce the amount of total nutrients in the pond. It basically just blows ones nose when having a head cold; very temporary relief. The Virus infection has to be eliminated before the runny nose and congestion problems are eliminated. Nutrient level has to be measurably reduced before amount of plant growth is significantly reduced. A 100 year old pond at this point in its life is a good candidate for a complete rebuilding of the pond.
I am still NOT convinced the weed problem is coontail and that the 100yr old pond has an average depth of 7ft and 4 acft of water. Maybe yes this was true as a new pond, but now not after 100 years. Normal ponds without bottom aeration accumulate one inch of bottom muck and slop each year. 100 " = 6ft to 8ft shallower. Before I would be spending good money on herbicides, I would make darn sure of the plant identification AND maximum and average pond depths.
Okay I just called and talked to the project manager of Mucksuckers. He said the pond as he remembered it was only about 0.25 ac, somewhat horseshoe shaped and around 7 ft max depth. By all means this should be fully verified before any chemical calculations and volumes are added to kill the weeds; PLUS verify the weeds are really coontail. If one does not know the structural details of submerged vegetation Coontail (Ceratophyllum) can be easily confused with Chara, the milfoils (Myriophyllum), bladerworts (Utricularia), the naiads (Najas) and even common waterweed Elodea.
If I had an address of the pond I could look the pond up on one of the satellite measuring tools and measure it to verify the pond size. You can send me or esshup a Private Message.
