Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Type of Stone Along Bottom of Stream

I have dug (but not yet filled) a 2.5 acre pond with a 0.5 acre island in the middle. I am now digging a 500 foot long stream that will be used to circulate water from one side of the pond back around to the other side. I would appreciate any advice on what type of stone to put in the stream.

The goals of the stream are to 1) help with filtration and circulation, 2) give walleye a place to potentially spawn, and 3) be fun for kids.

I will be using a series of airlift pumps to pull water into the start of the stream. The stream will be roughly 12 feet wide and 1.5 feet deep. There will be no “head”, just high volume horizontal flow. Together the airlift pumps should move about 120,000 GPH resulting in a flow rate of just over 1 ft/second through the stream.

Right now I am thinking of putting a one foot layer of 0.5” to 1” washed round stone along the bottom, which would sit on top of landscaping cloth, which would sit on top of solid clay. My thinking is that this stone will be nicest for kids to walk on barefoot, but I’m wondering if it might not create big enough gaps for walleye eggs to spawn.

What do you all think? Anything I could be doing differently?

The air lift powered stream flow idea will move water through the stream channel. However for natural streams to stay relatively "clean" or healthy they absolutely need periodic flushing or spates from flooding events to discharge lots of the accumulated materials that will want to collect in a rocky bottom areas of a stream including FA, plants, dead stuff, and lots of incoming terrestrial produced materials including silt, muck. Without periodic spates or scouring from strong flows and some needed good maintenance, even with some air lift powered flows, I foresee this long 500ft stream after several several years trending towards vegetation clogged, slower flowing and moving towards conditions in an oxbow. The shorter length of stream the better the flow from air lifts would help scour the stream sides and bottom areas especially any of those with depressions. Observe what happens in good quality trout streams when even small flooding events occur that flush excess materials out of the channel. It takes good strong flow to do that flushing.

In lakes successful walleye spawning occurs on windswept shorelines with 5"-12" cobble sized rocks. WE eggs are adhesive and fall into rock crevices where good oxygenated clean conditions occur and eggs survive to hatching and fry swim up. Crayfish and small fish among the rocky habitat eat a lot of the walleye eggs. Siltation keeps a lot of the eggs from surviving until hatch. Walleye can have egg hatching in streams with good water flow. I think that promoting successful walleye spawning in ponds can easily result in way too many stunted starving walleye just as it does with LMB and many other fish species. Successful reproduction and lots of recruitment are not always beneficial.

I don't completely understand the air lift design or implementation but maybe someone shares a youtube video or diagram and I'll understand. It sounds like a great idea and trying it at a smaller scale and then scaling it up later would be the way to go.

I'm curious how you got to the unusual number of 27 PVC pipes (since that isn't a multiple of any number)?