Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hybrid Black Crappie vs Bass in new Pond

I have a 3-acre Pond that is only about 3 years old and last spring I stocked it with about 3 gallons of Fat Head minnows, 300 Yellow Perch, 100 Red Ear, and 40 White Amur. This pond was designed primarily for swimming, so there is no cover or weeds for the fish to hide in. By late summer, the FH minnows had propagated quite heavily. My plan was to wait a year (or maybe 2?) to allow the Perch and Red Ear to propagate before adding some predator fish. I was thinking about either the Hybrid Black Crappie or Small/Large Mouth Bass. I don't want the Crappie to take over, but I also don't mind occasionally inviting some friends over for a fishing party if that will be needed. Or would it be better to add some bass instead? Also, I want to be sure that the Perch and Red Ear have had sufficient time to spawn so they won't be all eaten when I add the predator fish.

Looking for advice on what predator fish to add and when!

LMB will likely over predate YP (and RES). My choice would be SMB, however that depends on your location. (The "Bluffton" location link goes to South Carolina, and I am completely ignorant as to SMB prospects that far South. Someone here should know much better than me. And your pond's particulars - elevation? spring fed? - will have impacts.)

Delaying predator stocking has merit; exact timing will depend on the stocked sizes of your forage and predators.

There are posts here (somewhere) on hybrid Crappie. IIRC they are capable of reproducing.

I'm guessing Indiana, but it's just a SWAG.

You need the proper spawning habitat in the pond for the YP and RES. LMB will overeat those fish and you will have management problems. Without the proper spawning habitat and without the correct cover for those young fish, even the SMB can overeat those fish. Even though the pond is designed for swimming, you can put cover in the pond away from the swimming area for the fish. If you aren't going to fish the pond a lot and take out fish on a frequent basis, I'd skip the HBC completely. Without cover or weeds in the pond you will have to stay ahead of the SMB population to ensure that they don't over eat the YP/RES. I'd only stock 40 per acre and after they get to 14" and spawn, I'd start taking out 50#/year the year after they spawn and keep track of their RW after that. If RW goes below 100%, remove 70#-80# the following two years, and all that time keep track of their RW.

I would not stock any SMB this year and probably not recommend stocking any next year. You are WAY light on stocking RES, that's only 33 per acre. Since they only spawn once a year, it will take a few years to get a viable reproducing self-sustaining population in the pond. With that few per acre, when they go to the shallows to spawn a GBH could easily wipe out over 50% of your population and set the pond back a year or two. What size were the RES when stocked?

Why so many TGC? Usual stocking rate is 7-14 per acre of vegetation in a pond.

Yes, HBC will reproduce in a pond and angling is required, but not to the extent that angling would be required with regular Black Crappie.

[That is a lot of White Amur (grass carp). Did you stock the sterile (triploid) type of carp? Hopefully they are not breeding in your pond. If so, then you may need to come back and start a new post about that potential problem.]

Hybrid black crappie will probably spawn in a 3-acre pond, but much less successfully than either black or white crappie. However, even "poor" crappie spawns can create a lot of fish in the pond in just a few years. Especially without a large predator to eat the brooder crappie.

Lots of people north of you have very nice ponds with the YP/RES combination with SMB (like Theo suggests). However, a quick search of fish suppliers near you did NOT show any that carry SMB, which suggests you may be out of their best geographic range.

You might be able to get by with just a YP/RES pond, since those two species can both be either forage or predator. You will need to catch some YP from your pond as they grow larger. They are quite tasty! You should also deliberately fish for your RES every now and then just to sample their size and health.

With close to zero plants, your FHMs will be eliminated in a few years. Now might be a good time to stock some Gambusia (mosquito fish), they are more elusive than the fatheads, and would reproduce well in your pond if they had suitable habitat. (Some suppliers in your area do carry gambusia.)

You could put in largemouth bass and crappie. However, that is a tough combination to keep in balance in a 3-acre pond. You could go crappie and no larger predator, but I think you would probably gets lots of stunted crappie without a breeding source of abundant minnows in the pond to feed them.

You could try a "bonus" fish like hybrid striped bass. Stock just a few, and they will grow large on your forage fish, but will not reproduce in your pond.

For a really clear swimming pond, you could even stock some tilapia. The eat filamentous algae and should grow very rapidly in your warms waters. They will even eat pellets. They are somewhat catchable with hook and line. In cooler waters they die off over the winter and people re-stock the next spring. Some of the fish suppliers in your area do carry tilapia. You might call them and ask how their life cycle would go in YOUR pond conditions. There is a chance they would survive most or all of the winters in your location?

Personally, I would want to add some artificial cover to my "swimming pond" to create more habitat for fish, even though they are the secondary goal. After the kids get bigger they may graduate to kayaks and paddle boards around the pond. Adding structure in kayak areas is not a problem, but beginners fall off of paddle boards a lot. Can you designate a few "no go" areas in the pond if people start doing recreation activities outside of the main swimming area?

If so, I would read some of the archive section for cover. It will really help your minnows and also greatly benefit the YP and RES.

Pond Boss - Cover Archives

Have fun improving and enjoying your pond this year!

My click on "Bluffton" came up as South Carolina!

Jadog, your location will substantially change the advice.

Can you please come back and post your state?

"Unfortunately, one of the major obstacles to successful culture and stocking of crappie is that they have an extremely high reproduction rate, which can lead to overcrowding and stunting in commercial aquaculture ponds and in small ponds used for recreational fishing. To overcome this problem in small fishing ponds, hybrid crappie, a cross between the female black crappie and the male white crappie, has been produced and tested. This cross does reproduce but less frequently than the white or black crappie. This hybrid shows promise for aquaculture because it grows faster than the parental species through the first two growing seasons."

Southern regional aquaculture center

My experience over the past 15 years managing HBCP leads me to suspect they don't "spawn less frequently", rather - it's their offspring SLOW growth rate [which I've witnessed] allowing higher predation rates leading to fewer population management issues. I've collected age 1 HBC that were 2" - still quite vulnerable to predation for several months to come. Conversely, an age 1 pure BCP would likely be 3-5". That slow growth makes a significant difference especially when managing limited gape predator fisheries [SMB, WE, YP].

Considering your desire for RES and YP, SMB serving as apex predator would be easier to manage than other species. I advise researching ancillary forage species such as GSH, PK Shrimp, BNM to help alleviate pressure on RES and YP per Esshup above. Also agree some SMB culling may become necessary. Feed trained SMB would be the best option - but they're expensive and hard to source.

Thanks for jumping in with me guys. I live in Bluffton, IN - I updated my signature.

The YP and RES were about 2-4" when stocked. And I think I mispoke - I believe I added 100 YP and 75 YP with the idea that I would give them some time to spawn before adding a predator, since the pond is really only meant for swimming. I don't really understand how to track the RW (I assume Raw Weight?). What would the weight be based on?

Yes, I stocked steril White Amur and with only 40 at about 8", that would still be under the 15 per acre recommendation, right? Is that a concern?

I could add some cover habitat but have avoided doing so as we occasionally use a jetski and I didn't want any injuries. There is a part of the pond that is 15+ feet deep that I could probably add something to. But would that be too deep? Tilapia won't survive our winters.

Please disregard my long 4:36 PM comment. That was for South Carolina!

7-14 per acre of vegetation, not surface acres.

That is one of the good things about Tilapia. When they die in the Fall the scavengers take them out of the pond, removing nutrients that they sequestered in their bodies as they grew.

RW = Relative Weight. Relative Weight Charts at the bottom of the thread

Good to know. So now that I have overstocked my pond with White Amur, will that be a future issue?

Based on the above input, it sounds like I should wait maybe two more years and then add some SMB. Should those be hybrid and what would the suggestion be per acre?

I will also see if I can add some mosquito fish this spring.

I figured there was a good reason you didn't have any cover!

However, going from ZERO cover to 5% cover would be a huge benefit to your fish populations.

For the least interference with your primary recreational activities, I would probably go "too shallow" rather than too deep with the cover.

Is your pond somewhat elongated - such that they mostly make the jetski turns in certain locations? If so, maybe put some cover in the shallow water adjacent to the areas where the riders are usually making the straight portion of their runs.

If you do install cover, I would definitely mark the areas with some floats on ropes to give riders a big visual cue.

There are also all kinds of creative structures you can make that could be designed to be safe. For example, you can easily bend a 10' length of 1/2" PVC pipe such that the "bow" is facing upwards, and would be a safe landing for a falling body. You could then attach soft material to the PVC to create "fluffy" cover for your forage fish.

Now that I have the right location - I think you could definitely have a nice YP/RES pond with SMB.

[I would follow esshup's stocking advice. He is a professional pond manager in your area.]

Finally, RW means "relative weight". There is a specific length to weight ratio for each different species of fish. It is a very simple, but VERY useful tool for judging the health of your fish. For example, a LMB that is 14" long should weigh about 1.5#. If all of the ones you are catching are just over 1#, then you do not have enough forage/too many bass, etc. and you need to improve the management of your pond.

Here is the link to the Relative Weight archive post. (Keep scrolling since some of the posts have become dated.)

Relative Weight - Pond Boss

The TGC will be starving in there, and might root around in the bottom to look for things to eat. I bet any grass clippings that make it to the pond will be eaten too. The future issue is if you try to get any underwater weeds established, they will make that impossible. A customer in Illinois with a 4 acre pond tried for years to get some weeds established. Last year we electroshocked 2 TGC, one was a hair over 50#, the other was 39#. He didn't know that they were in there.

Mosquito fish really aren't needed, and without any shoreline cover for the minnows to hide in to escape predation they will be short lived. You can put them in, but just be aware about that.

I would put FHM in there along with a few Mosquito Fish to take some predation pressure off of the Mosquito Fish, and consider stocking some GSH. The GSH WILL grow too big for the predators to eat, but the offspring will feed the YP, RES and SMB. You can stock 100 HSB 6"-8" HSB (33/ac) when you stock the SMB in there in a few years. The HSB will concentrate on eating the GSH and will grow fast, AND will not reproduce in the pond. This Christmas, I'd go to the closest Big Box Store and pick up all the unsold live Christmas Trees you can. Use a single cinderblock for 6 trees. Tie them together and loop the cord through the cinderblock. I like using paracord. Put the trees in 3'-4' water depth. That will be habitat for the YP to spawn on, and it might help keep the smaller fish alive a wee bit longer, giving them some cover to hide in. If placed away from the swimming area, they will be in water that the jet skiis will not be in too.

There are no such thing as Hybrid SMB. I'd add the SMB at 25 per acre. I know in a customers pond where the SMB weren't harvested once they started spawning, they overpopulated and basically ate all the RES and YP that they could. That 1 ac pond was stocked with 50 SMB.

Being in north central IN who is your fishery consultant?
We from your posts are to assume that the main goal of the pond is swimming? Correct?
If that is the case and fishing is a second or maybe a third goal then stocking and management is a significantly different program compared to a primary higher quality fishing pond. If Swimming & Recreation (S&R) are the primary goals with occasional fishing of a few times per year, then stocking what and numbers per acre can and should be focused on the primary S&R goals.

Regardless - IMO stocking 13GC /ac in a brand new pond will in the future result in some water quality issues for IMO good S&R. I would have recommended in a brand new pond with no submerged leafy weed problems only 2 maybe 3 GC per acre. More can always be added later if rooted leafy plants become too abundant. NOTE: some good quality rooted leafy plants tend to promote clear water conditions ideal for S&R. Thus these several GC per acre will tend to keep about all or all the new rooted vegetation from becoming established as aptly noted buy "esshup".

As prior mentioned by PF Members the 35-40 GC will have no rooted vegetation to eat. This means rather than them starving, they revert to searching sediments for invertebrates. After the GC grow to 16"+,,,this almost always eventually results in undue turbid water conditions such as water clarity visibilities of just 10"-24". Undue turbid water conditions IMO for best S&R.

GC do not prefer to eat filamentous string algae(FA). Thus the nutrient fertility that always naturally accumulates in all ponds will eventually cause FA be be a concern and probably a problem for swim goals. Maybe FA is already apparent in the pond??
Tilapia then become the alternative natural FA eaters. However on the plus side, the water turbidity caused by the bottom rooting GC may suppress FA growth due to light limitation reaching the bottom and into the water column. With lack of light from turbid water FA does not grow into deeper water. Turbid water also suppresses ALL the plankton development that feeds fish fry and small fish. Thus the result is less overall pond productivity which is not really a goal in a S&R pond.


What is the current water clarity using an all white coffee cup on a string/cord or Secchi dish lowered into the pond???? This will be your individual pond's baseline clarity measurement moving forward. As the pond ages you will be able to determine if pond clarity is improving or decreasing based on management methods or lack thereof.

When I help manage local S&R pond goals, I strive for water clarities of 4ft to 8ft; as clear, clean looking water. It takes a good understanding of in-depth pond limnology and ecosystems to maintain clear water conditions in a pond for the long term.

So last year I used Aquathol with the lowest side of the recommendations on a single side of my lake - with the expectations that weeds would grow on the other side and leave the beach side clean. However, that killed all the weeds in the lake. So maybe this year I should leave the Aquathol go and just allow the GC to do their job? Or should I try to net some of the GC out of the lake? I would say right now I have an easy 6+ feet of clarity, but I'm getting ready to add some aquashade to darken the water and help prevent the FA. I use the Cutrine Plus for the FA as well.

Granular or liquid? I have seen that trying to spot treat more than about 10-15 percent of a pond with a herbicide typically doesn't turn out well, and it typically kills more weeds than what was expected.

What species of weeds were you treating, did you use liquid or granular, and was the wind blowing towards the area that you treated from across the pond or was it blowing from the treated area to the other side of the pond? How many acre feet of water did you treat at once?

Again who is your fishery consultant?
The water clarity should be actually measured and recorded at least a few times during each open water season for best resulting information for long term pond management esp swim ponds. Water clarity trends will definitely occur.

Do you know the specific type of weeds (specie) that were killed? This will help a lot to determine how well the GC will eat them. Those GC are like you when you go to the salad bar. Some items are not eaten probably due mostly to flavor and texture. From my experiences with many GC I am convinced not all GC have the same weed eating preferences. Some will even prefer eating fish pellets. Most delicate weeds are always eaten first. GC will do their job, however you may not like the end results esp in a pond mainly for swim / recreation.

Trying to net out GC will give you a real good education as to how difficult they are to remove from a pond. Easy to put in very difficult to remove. They quickly become smart at avoidance for the attempts used against them. GC you bought had been previously exposed and educated to netting and nets. They also are very good jumpers at leaping over nets. I doubt you will ever catch one with a net. The clearer the water the harder it is to get the GC out.

FYI - FA grows and thrives on only the excess nutrients not being used by any other plants. Generally the more other plants there are in the pond the less FA will be present and the clearer the water becomes. The amount of FA growing tells anyone with the right knowledge there are excess and relatively the amount of nutrients present not being used by some other type of plant competitor.

If it was my pond with my youngsters swimming in a pond, regardless of the product label, I would not be using herbicides and algaecides in the pond and thus frequently exposing their thin tissue mucus permeable membranes to undue chemicals. We get plenty of chemical / pesticide exposure in our daily lives which is a good reason to avoid creating undue more chemical exposure in an active swim pond.
Cutrine products are a copper based algaecide. Copper is a heavy metal. It does not rot up nor deteriorate in the ecosystem. Look it up. Every ounce applied will be in the pond sediments in one form or another until those sediments are removed. Copper can build up in the sediments depending on how much has been applied. They neglect to tell that on the label. When sediments are saturated with copper, the copper ions will stay up in the water column that results in other eco-problems. Been there dealt with that problem which is where I learned it. IMO Tilapia are a much better ecofriendly algae FA management tool. Plus each fish removed at the end of the year REMOVES from the pond all the incorporated nutrients esp Phos and nitrogen present in that fish. Nutrient removal is key to lower plant production.

Yes you post about hybrid crappie. Where do you plan on buying them? They are not a common fish at fish farms. Very difficult find. If you want a long term clear water pond I suggest that you learn about top down and bottom up fishery management involving concepts of trophic cascades.

Thanks guys, I certainly appreciate the feedback. I used the liquid form of Aquathol. I can try to treat only the beach and dock area of the lake this year and see what the difference is. However, when the weeds die off at the end of the season, won't that decompose into muck? As opposed to treating it before it can grow? Good thought on wind direction as well. I really enjoyed not seeing the underwater weeds in our pond last year, as the previous year they were abundant. We have many swimming ponds in our area that are 40+ years old and the owners treat for so there are no weeds. After talking with a number of them, most informed me they only use copper sulfate and Diuron - both of which seem quite harsh (after researching, I've decided not to use). So I've only introduced fish to my pond to help balance the eco-system as my desire has been to keep it primarily a swimming pond. Remlinger Fish Farms in my area have been my supplier, and I followed the recommendations on their chart for stocking (https://www.remlingerfishfarm.com/recom.html). I did stock slightly lower amounts of perch and red ear with the idea that they could propogate a few years before adding a predator such as bass. But I am certainly open to advice and want to be sure I do as much as I can to prevent issues in the future - without this becoming a full-time hobby.

Stocking Tilapia on an annual basis I was told would cost me about $2000-$3000 by Remlinger. While the idea of not having to treat the pond with algeacide is certainly attractive, I'm simply not positioned to spend that each year. Are there other effective ways to remove nutrients - besides weeds and Tilapia? I am also planning to add several aerators to the pond - hopefully this year.

Jadog, what species of weeds were/are in your pond that you treated with Aquathol?

My pond weed has been identified as Potamogeton Pusillus. Cat tail shoots were also previously present the year prior but I treated that with round up. There may be others that I haven't noticed.

COMMENTARY

Muck accumulation is based on the amount of organic matter blown or washed into the pond PLUS all living material that grew and died in the pond. HOW those dead organic materials decompose determines the rate of muck accumulation. Generally in about all ponds on the average, dead plankton by itself in the water column will create around 1” of bottom muck each year. Killed, dead weeds add to the accumulation. How well that muck is biodigested depends on how well the beneficial decomposing bacteria are able to thrive in the sediments. Many algaecides and herbicides KILL all sorts of beneficial bacteria in the water column plus those in the surface sediments. Thus that impacted bacterial community will often benefit from good bacterial strains being reseeded into the pond ecosystem after the pond has received “chemical war” imposed on it based on the type and degree or amount of chemicalization. A Univ. affiliated company in Wisconsin (Natural Lake Biosciences) promotes their science based bacterial products after "weed & algae " killing 'herbicides' have been used.

When the pond is continually receiving and accumulating more plant growing nutrients, one is naïve when they think that preventing all plant growth will significantly eliminate or reduce the bottom muck because they do not understand how nature and ecosystems truly function. Bottom muck accumulates because the sediments are NOT well oxygenated and are unhealthy usually because the sediments are ANAEROBIC (no infused oxygen). Anaerobic decay is a very, very slow process and produces IMO numerous bad things in the pond sediment such as methane, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulfide, ammonia, and acidic conditions, that all result in black sediments and no presence of good invertebrates. Hydrogen sulfide is toxic to fish and probably all invertebrates that live in the sediments.

Conversely AEROBIC decay with ample oxygen is fast, ‘clean’, lacks the biogas products, and has a good community of invertebrates who are quickly composting the organic materials. Well oxygenated sediments usually lack muck accumulations which is why public beaches usually have no muck accumulations due mainly to good periodic wave action that thrashes, mixes and oxygenate the beach sediments. Mixing bottom sediments oxygenates them and promotes rapid decay of organic materials. This is why agricultural organic residue relatively quickly disappears from farm fields - healthy dirt with a diverse community of decomposers in aerobic conditions.

Firstly one should understand the benefit and function of good types of underwater weeds. They naturally compete against other more ‘problematic’ types of plants. There are good types of aquatic plants and problematic types of invasive, rampant growing plants.

Potomegoton pusillus aka slender or small pondweed.
I consider it a primary invader similar to Chara that technically is a ‘stem’ form of algae. Some species of pond weeds are very beneficial, too much is problematic. Beneficial because they use / consume nutrients and competes with FA and provides good habitat for fish and invertebrates. GC relish small pondweed and tilapia will eat it when the filamentous is gone. When a pond has ample amounts of most forms of pondweed,,, usually almost no FA is present. When both are abundant this means the pond has too many nutrients and is a sign the pond is trending toward over eutrophication (too many nutrients) and the nutrient composition is not in balance. Too much of one thing and not enough of something else for a proper balance within the ecosystem. Knowing what creates a natural balance is key to properly managing a high quality pond.

Ponds each day, week, month, and year accumulate and also recycle in one way or another more nutrient fertilizers. It is what they do. Those nutrients and organic materials once in the pond are entrapped within the pond system or basin. Ponds are nutrient traps. Nature is always, always adding more nutrients to the pond basin..

More nutrients stimulate more plant growth of some sort. Some pond owners even intentionally fertilize the pond to make it to ultimately grow more fish. Adding more nutrients (fertilizer) to water with sunlight demands the pond grows more plants. Thinking more nutrients does not grow more plants is like fertilizing the land and trying to keep ALL grass and all weeds from growing in the dirt surrounding the house. Unreasonable and impractical, plus it’s unwise always using chemicals to keep no plants growing in the dirt surrounding the house. Best practice is to maintain a good stand of grass to hopefully minimize growths of the unwanted weeds. IMO this concept should be used for managing a pond. More natural pond management with few if any chemicals.

Nature eventually demands some sort of growth will happen when sunlight, nutrients and water are present. Nature’s law. When using repetitive frequent chemicals,,,,,, then eventually nature does manage to grow a form of resistant and tolerant type of plant to tolerate the frequent chemicalizations. These tolerant plants in chemicalized ponds are very difficult to stop from growing in that repetitively chemical infused habitat. Examples of this concept are development antibiotic resistant bacteria such as MRAS infections, and variations of COVID. There are very resistant types of algae that develop in ponds that have been routinely chemicalized. It is impossible to stop nature from doing what it has been doing for millions of years. In the end, nature always finds a way. Regrowth does happen even after nuclear contamination.

Chemically sterilizing a pond for many years using harsh, unwise and / or illegal chemicals can eventually over many years of use,,,,,, turn that pond into a chemical dump which can turn it into a chemical problem or biohazard. ALL chemicals added to a pond ecosystem have to be somehow processed and hopefully degraded within the pond basin. Those that are not biodegraded then accumulate. Chemical accumulations from constant and unwise treatments make that pond a financial liability. Who would buy that property knowing its unwise chemical history? Will the fish living in the frequent chemically infused water be really safe to eat and will health sensitive swimmers be really safe in the water especially when the contaminated sediments are getting redistributed by the many activities that influence and disrupt some bottom sediments of a pond? What is the value of having good health? IMO a time will come when all pond systems, before being sold, will be required to be tested for contaminants.

That was very well written and enlightening. Thanks for the detailed explanation. I especially like how you related it to fertilizing a yard so that the good grass would prevent the weeds. How about this plan?

Apply Aquathol granuals around beach only to prevent weeds in that surrounding area
Install 4-5 aerator pads to cover entire water column
Continue use of Aquashade

Will it be counterproductive to apply aquashade a little more heavily rather than using the Cutrine? Meaning, will that block too much sun and prevent the growth of underwater weeds?

If I could eliminate treating the pond with Cutrine every 4-6 weeks during the growing season, I would be ecstatic too.

There's no downside to using the dye providing your main focus isn't on growing fish. If it was, then you have to feed them an artificial food because the dye knocks out the majority of the bottom of the food chain.

A customer has a 1/4 ac pond that they just have for fish. They use so much dye in it that if any water splashes up, it's blue too. Think of a dark Tidy Bowl blue. They feed the LMB and BG in there. Both are feed trained.

Slightly off topic:

esshup,

Do you know HOW they fish that pond? I was just wondering if only certain angling techniques work when the fish are always in water with very low visibility.

(Or is it a brooder pond for a main pond?)

IMO in the near future, you should not need to use Aquathol granules even in the beach to control the 'small / narrow leaf pondweed' because with 13 grass carp /ac the pond should be or will soon be completely denuded of submerged vegetation edible by GC. The activity of even 8-10 adult GC per acre will eat all small pondweed. However over time the continual build up of nutrients in the pond will eventually result after the introduction of some form of "plant" / algae growth that the GC will not eat and not effectively control. The good thing of too many GC is the pond will eventually very likely have a high concentration of suspended sediment as muddy 'murky' water that also with the pond dye prevent "almost" all current forms of underwater "plant" types of growths. In my experience, all of nature's natural activities, such as waterfowl, will eventually introduce some form of plant/algae that will tolerate the current murky, blue water conditions. Nature abhors a vacuum when fertility, water and lack of competition are present.

Pond Dye Stain
Pond dye / stain even when used as relatively dark hues can still have 'good' light penetration. Why???? Pond dye was designed to limit or reduce primarily the RED and Orange wavelengths of sunlight and the dye allows other light wave lengths to penetrate such as yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. Usually if you can see something in the clear water 4 ft deep, you should still be able to see that object 3-4ft deep. Pond dye does not really function the same as does suspended detritus and plankton that tend to reduce all light wavelengths penetration.

Developers of Aquashade colorant "claim" that using the dye at a higher concentration than 1 ppm (1gal/million gal) is not much more effective at reducing vegetation. However some pond management companies "claim" dye concentrations more than 1ppm produces better overall plant control results and they have to return to treat the pond less frequently. The "jury" is still out on this topic. I find that some plant / algae species are less effected by the shade of the colorant - mainly blue. The good thing about the dye is it naturally dissipates over time by 1. evaporation, 2. chemical decomposition of the organic dye, 3. fading from UV exposure,, and 4. dilution. Basically no chemical residue from its usage.

Bottom aeration is very good, important and useful for a pond's overall health - as "happy water". IMO and experiences with bottom aeration and pond water circulation and black sediments testing is,,,, - the aerator water currents do not mix oxygenated sediment surface water down below the surface layer of the sediment. Mixing of the pond's top layer surface sediments is very important for getting the quickest decomposition of the organic sediments and minimizing the muck accumulations.