Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Idea for structure

Given that most of the ideas for structure on this board are recycled/throwaways, I was wondering what the resident experts thought of my idea to use the local wine industry byproduct. Specifically, what I am thinking of doing is using 59 gallon oak barrels (retired from wineries and hopefully free) as structure/nest boxes for fish in our neighborhood lakes.

I've got a 30 degree angle concrete apron to contend with out to about 4 feet deep. I am thinking of either knocking the ends out of the barrels and generously coating the inside with rocks/gravel with the bung hole of the barrel being on top to let the air out. If the weight of the rocks / gravel does not sink the barrel, I would anchor it with cement blocks and nylon rope. Either way, I would need to chock the barrel with a block or large rock to keep it from rolling to the deepest part of the lake. To me, it seems like great structure, but I don't know if the bass would nest in it (overhead vision obscured). I also thought of cutting the ends of the barrel off at an angle to approximate the slope of the concrete apron, but then the bedding area would be little larger than a garbage can lid. Maybe a combination of both. Anyway, I hope to try it out and report back. Maybe some of the other California Pond Bosser's could benefit from it, as well.

Other than that, I need to think of a way to compensate for the angle of the concrete if I am just going to spread gravel on the bedding area. Note, the lack of gravel has not been a deterrent to the fish spawing, I would like to encourage more, however, (Bass and Bluegill) for the food chain aspect.

Thoughts gentlemen?

Hey Andy
Just a little caution about the wine barrels we had a pond customer use them in a 2 acre pond and result was severe algae blooms . So we threw some in one of our small ponds we raise perch in and sure enough algae bloom in three days. Do not have answer why we doubled aeration and 60lbs of barlet straw did not phase it thought maybe high mineral content.

Scott
Catskill Pond

our local feed store just got some of those old whiskey barrels...smell pretty good! but that's not the point of this post!! have you priced those things?? they wanted 25 bucks or so for half a barrel, and i didn't even ask how much a whole one was!! unless you got a good deal/ free....might want to check the price before you put much time into it. mark (interestingly, the feed store didn't have to assign many folks to unload those barrels...lots of employees volunteered!!! mark

If anyone is still considering this idea, I'd think the half-barrel approach would probably be better, you could more easily fill it with weighted material, I'd suggest a mixture of pea and egg gravel, and it wouldn't roll around.

Getting closer to implementing my barrels for structure idea. We finally got the Vertex aerators going on both lakes and they are each turning over 1X per day.

I came across a winery looking to offload a bunch of discards (food-grade plastic 55 gallon barrels, steel wine barrel racks (~40#), etc, etc). My buddy brought me 1/2 dozen 59 gallon Oak winebarrels yesterday. I'm going to sink a plastic and oak barrel together on a steel wine rack also putting a good amount of sand / gravel on the side and see how they do over time (side by side comparison). Out here it is not a problem to get the barrels (there are hundreds of wineries within a 1 hour drive), it is just a matter of seeing how much good they will do. The barrel racks are such that you can stack them and I will likely stack 2 and 2 barrels (kind of a PondBoss meets Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window). All will be secured with a nylon rope. Max depth on our lakes is 14' and I will sink singles in the 8-10' depth and double stacks in the 12-14' depths.

We are also looking to cut a number of winebarrels in half and introduce Lilypads to our lakes in about 4' of water. This will be for shade and cover.

I enjoyed the article on creating structure in last month's PondBoss mag. I will be building some of the PVC/drainpipe trees and sinking them.

I'm going back for more winery discards today.