Hi Cam:
How did you get that little box with my post to you inside your post to me?
"Treachery is something you learn well in old age however so I'm usually successful..." I'm 55 so I'm getting there.
I'm not one of the smart people on here. So I know nothing about aeration, except I have never needed to and if I ever did need to I would conclude I had way too many fish and let nature take its course. Too much trouble and expense for me to even think about. But I think they have fountain kinds too that squirts the water up into the air. But really you need to do a search because I know there is a lot of information here about aeration but I not the one to ask advise. In fact I am pretty much a novice about everything. I was naive enough to think you dig a hole in the ground, it rains, water comes in, you stock the water hole with fish and then you dont do anything but catch an eat them. Yeah right! But have hope I've only been on this for about 2 weeks or so and I have learned a lot. I spend hours reading old posts. But I experience a similar situation as you are the last three years, with last summer being the worst.
Last three years my pond went down 8 or 9 feet. It looses about a foot a month without rain on average, parial evaporation and seepage I guess. I have been told in Texas in the summer evaporation is about an inch a week. I got lots, and lots of willows and I think they cause a bunch of water loss. I went about 6 to 8 months without any run off to speak of in each of those years. Just light showers that soaked into the ground. My pond was just a little over half it's normal size by the time it got to ground water level and then just stayed there until we finally got a good rain. The thing is it only take a good bar ditch running rain for a day to fill it up even when it is that low. And that is about all I got is one a year. The first few years I had it it trickled an overflow 8 or 9 months a year.
I had a whole lot of fish in a little area. I didn't feed or fertilize or anything but put more brush where my fathead minnows and other little fish would have some spawning area's and cover. All the other stuff I had put in was high and dry. I still had about 10 or 11 feet of water in that area because it is pretty much a pit that was dug out with an excavator because they hit ground water at about 3 or 4 feet when they built the pond and then they just rounded it out around the pit and built the dam. The water stay a nice clear green (nicer, clearer and prettier than when it is full because the base of where it hits ground water is sugar sand).
I never had a fish kill. But I sure have a heck of a lot of stunned BG or GSF or whatever they are now. Still lots of big catfish, I think they all made it. I had no bass and that was lucky I think. I have pictures of my pond and a description of it under Family Pond Talk or something like that the name of the post is Pond in a Bog if you care to learn more. The think is every pond is differnt and maybe you should aerate. I just know that feeding could effect water quality so be careful.
Is your pond still an 3/4 an acre in area? How deep is it. Is what is left pretty steep?
When I read your posts it seemed you had a name for each fish and didn't expect you to have that large of a pond.
Well sorry I couldn't help more, but sometimes when I read about other peoples experiences it helps me to get an idea on what is similar to my situation, what is different, and what I should do.
Hope to hear more from you, and good luck.
