Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Looking to stock a small spring fed pond

I'm in Northern Utah

I have a pond that's about 75 ft in diameter and about 8 ft deep at the deepest point, most of the pond is shallower.

It is spring fed and the spring flows at about 100 to 200 gpm. I estimate the water is exchanged about once a day. So the temperature remains in the 50s year round, never freezes, but never gets warm either.

Looking for something that could help with algae control, but most importantly will breed in water that never gets very warm. Not crazy about the idea of trout, but if that's my only reasonable choice I might change my views on that. I have tried adding blue gill, but I suspect they will not breed in the pond. Put a few goldfish in, and they looked ok, until the local heron discovered them.

Any advice would be appreciated.

You can use the 4" trash pump to keep the pond dry (dry is a relative term) so the excavator can dig in the dry. It will be wet, but not wet enough that the water sloshes the dirt/muck out of the bucket. Start with the pump above the water line. Pump the pond down as deep as possible since pumps are designed to push vs. suck water. Then once the pond is down, have the excavator dig you a shelf to move the pump down to. That way the pump won't be sucking water up a great distance, it will be pushing it up.

Take the inlet hose with screen and shove it through a truck inner tube that is inflated. Have the screen hanging down about 24" from the inner tube. More if it sucks air and creates a vortex that sucks air. That way the screen isn't sucking the bottom of the pond up and pushing it through the pump. I filled up a 30' long intake hose with sand and couldn't move it. Strapped it to the bucket on the excavator and ripped it in half trying to lift it up to shake the sand out. That's when I learned about the inner tube trick.

If the excavator operator can see what he's doing, he will know when he's gotten all the muck out and started working on the original pond bottom. If he sees that, then it's time to move over and start on another area. He can't dig straight down because the muck will continue to fall into the hole. Go talk to the counties NRCS office and get a list of excavating companies that build ponds. Every county in the USA has their own NRCS office, or they share an office with the county next door. You need an operator that knows what he's doing. Even if they might not have their own equipment, you are talking 2 days max once the water is pumped out.

Don't be afraid of pumping the water out and keeping the pump running 24 hr/day. I could tell you a 6 figure horror story about a company NOT pumping the water out and trying to dig a pond. You HAVE TO keep the water pumped out as he's getting the muck out.

Last time I had a pond quoted for hydraulic dredging they were in the mid $50/cu. yd. range but that was years ago.

Oh, the cattails won't utilize enough of the nutrients to stop the algae from growing and cattails can grow out to 48" deep water or greater.

17K is IMO too much by IMO 2X to dig out your small 0.1 ac pond with a long reach track hoe. Get other estimates, It should only take a good day of slop removal to get the job done. Consider renting a trash pump to keep the water level low,,, so the track hoe operator can better see what he is doing. Ponds are sooner later an expense. IMO that organic bottom muck is the main cause of the large growths of FA.. In cold water i think it could be Stigeoclonium or some other cold water loving species.

The water at usual temp of 50F is too cold for any fish to thrive in there except cold water species such as trout.

Without draining completely and taking an excavator to dig out all the accumulated organic matter, I am afraid you will be fighting the FA for years to come. You could try the products that are on the market to sequester the excess nutrients, or just put that money towards cleaning out the pond. Renting a 2" or 3" trash pump and pumping it as dry as possible, then digging out the organics is the way I'd go if it were my pond.

There are places here that will rent "long stick" excavators that people use to clean out ditches. Maybe only 1/2 to 1 yard bucket, but they have them here that have up to a 72' boom, so a long stick could get to the whole pond as it tracks around the shoreline. Typically the pond will be drained down by a trash pump, a sump dug in the pond, then the pump placed in the sump to keep the water from puddling up in the rest of the pond.

You say 100-200 gpm. inflow from the Spring. That's 6,000-12,000 gph. From the pictures I find that hard to believe, but in any case, a 3" trash pump will pump 14,000-15,000 gph, a 4" trash pump will move around 24,000 gph, which is more than enough to keep the pond dry as it's cleaned out. If it pumps out way more water than comes in, it can be throttled back to pump less gph. You don't want to keep pumping out ALL the water and loosing prime on the pump. That would be a PITA to deal with on a constant basis.

In looking at your pictures, I would recommend that you start controlling the cattails that are growing there now. Aquatic rated glyphosate with surfactant applied according to the label. If you let the cattails go, they will completely take over the pond and you won't be able to access the pond in a few years. Now if you will go the drain/excavate and refill route, then don't kill them because they will be removed when you remove the built up sediment.

Yes, it's not as cheap as just treating the FA and cattails. But at some point in time the aggravation of constantly having to battle the FA will cause you to clean out the pond, and all the $$ spent managing the FA will have been thrown away.

Before you do anything though, I would use the boat and a piece of EMT tubing to try and measure the remaining muck depth in the pond, and see if you can get a clean water sample of the incoming spring water to test it for nutrients. knowing those two things will help you to make an educated decision on what route to take to save the most $$ in the future.

That's a great idea Bill! It could be right next to it if there is room. Maybe close enough that some of the spoils could be moved from new to old by the excavator doing a 180° swing.

The NRCS office will likely not give you any scoring on their list of excavators (certainly no official scoring), but with their contact info you can ask the excavators if any have done similar renovation work. Ask for references of their customers, and check to see how they did. (You most likely won't get any unsatisfied customers, but you should at least have some satisfied ones to talk to.)

IMO your best answer is to not get or find a fish to eat all the continual production of green growth because what will happen to the pond's overall water quality with all the manure produced by however many fish it takes to eat all that algae? More recycled nutrients from all that manure definitely means some form of nutrient surge and then more new plant growth and maybe even more growth that is now present.

Based on all the concerns and problems with the existing pond, it might be cheaper and IMO definitely a MUCH better end benefit to get quotes from some dependable contractors to dig a whole new small 0.1 ac pond and use the spoils dirt to fill in the old pond. This way you eliminate all the old nutrient enriched algae growing sludge and start anew wisely managing a new spring fed cold water pond; providing you still want a pond. IMO you should be able to do it for less than 17K and then have a brand new fresh pond with very minimal nutrient - algae problems.