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Well I just put grass shrimp in my minnow pond that just has fhm and a few very small RES acclimated them for an extended time( five hours) released them and they swam out of the bucket. The next day I checked the shallow water but didn't see any dead ones. Hopefully they will survive and procreate

Today I filled the feeder with Optimal. Thanks to Chris for ordering and delivering it to me.
Then 4 wheeler ride to the back of the place. Wife tossed feed to the green sunfish in our 1/4 acre pond.

Then 4 wheeler Ride to a place where I dismounted
and looked for pigs. Appears that they have left my place. I won’t miss them.

Next to the power line area and picked/ate some wild black berries. Back to the house for a nap. Then back to home in the Fort Worth area.

This is a koi pond question I know it's not the norm for this forum. My parents have a koi pond in their backyard it has four large koi 6-9# and probably twenty six to eight inch assorted goldfish. The yard is fenced but backs up to some open land. They have seen a gbh come around but run it off when seen. The pond is about three feet deep over the last few days all of the goldfish have disappeared no sign of fish remains or scales. I don't think the gbh could have caught all of them without being seen. The koi are fine it's not in a path that an otter would follow and by my experience they would have killed the larger fish. Too deep for raccoons to do any damage. Does anyone have an idea what else might be the cause

Well done 97! It's great to read this good report. All of your efforts are yielding rewards.

Just a question. Could something like Gypsum or Alum work to inhibit the suspension of sediment from the carp foraging activities?

Well said

Thank you!

I included gypsum in my initial jar tests.
Thanks for the reminder; I will add it to the list of possibilities.
Kathy

Hey, @Paul252013. If you're still on this journey, I hope you've made progress with your business! If you have any updates or further questions, feel free to share - it's always exciting to hear about entrepreneurial journeys, even if they're a couple of years in.

What is the longest time that you let your pond water set in a gallon jug to watch for settling of solids?

All sounds great to me!

Especially the good looking hybrid speckle-bellies.

As regards sealing your pond, the liner option from a reliable company should serve your purpose.

A pond that is 100'x125' is about 0.29 surface acres. Your evaporation losses in Michigan would not be that great over the course of a year. If you already have a water well on the property, you could grade the land around the pond to exclude all surface ground water from entering the pond. That would keep the pond cleaner, regardless of whether you installed the pond liner or tried to compact clay blankets around your pond leak levels. Your pond would then have to operate on well water, plus the very small amount of direct rain or snow that fell into the pond.

If that is going to be too expensive from either electrical costs or water usage restrictions, then you could do some re-grading (while you have equipment on site for the other work) to direct water into the pond through a wide, evenly-graded area that has good ground cover vegetation in place to "filter" the incoming rain/snow water.

Finally, if you (or one of your neighbor's) knows a good pond builder in the area, you might also get a bid to disc or rip your existing leaky banks and then build a compacted clay blanket over those pond banks in several 6" lifts. You might be able to do that for less than the liner bid, but the liner would probably be closer to a "sure thing". (There are no 100% sure things when building a pond.)

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I’ve been doing this stuff for a long time and still make idiot mistakes. That’s an understatement.

That can be frustrating, but hopefully, the issue gets resolved soon!

nvcdl, crappie typically spawn first so their YOY eat later YOY BG and LMB. Thus, you will likely have greater LMB YOY survival once crappie are knocked down. Harvest!

LOL, the thread did take a few twists and turns. Mostly I just wanted to share the paper which demonstrated how LMB use energy. They just happened to use GAM for the source of energy but I have found if you adjust for BG energy content ... the results are consistent with generally accepted numbers for maintenance and conversion. I wasn't aware that LMB could assimilate 73%-80% of what they eat for metabolism and growth when what they eat is fish. Opened my eyes....

That said, it is pretty remarkable that one can grow 2" LMB to ~2 lbs in a year on GAM. For grow outs with young fish I see a lot of promise with them. For example, I used to think about how to grow LMB fingerling maximally in a 1 year grow out by changing up the mix of prey being careful of timing. But why make it complicated? 1 lb/acre of GAM, fertilizer, and 100 LMB/acre is all that is needed. That said, I think a nice 2 year grow out could be accomplished adding adult BG to the mix possibly in the fall (say maybe 40-60 pairs/acre in the fall).

Heck we never went here ... but what if you used dehydrated (or mostly dehydrated) fish as feed? Estimates of growth at 2% body weight is just so insane that I don't trust an adult LMB's metabolism could handle it. What percent of an adult LMB's body weight could it eat of a feed made almost entirely of dried fish? I have to wonder if growing too fast would be very harmful or possible kill it. At 1% dry weight consumption of dried fish it would be like consuming 5% of wet BG. Nothing for 4" LMB but 12"? Maybe too much?

I'm not really looking to make it a trophy fishery or anything. Just a pond where I can go and kill an hour and catch a few fish. Of course, if they are 5 pounders it's a bonus.

More water depth for free? I think EVERYONE on Pond Boss would take that deal!

Is he still digging in good clay? You might check in the deepest couple of spots and confirm that you have not reached a sand or gravel layer.

There is some debate on Pond Boss, but I think aerating in summer from the deepest part of the pond results in a higher average pond temperature. Maybe aerate from 12' deep? Or the depth of your deepest structure? That way, your pond stays cooler, but the fish located on or near the deepest structure will be in the column of aerated water.

Definitely have not shot too many turkeys this year, but definitely did not shoot enough deer last winter!

That pic was from 4/23 and the bucks were just getting bumps on their skulls at that time. I will have to grab more game cam cards to see the current status of the antlers.

Also, not yet seeing fawns on the cameras here, but I am also not close to the current date.

Glad to hear your deer are doing well!

I looked up my creek an appear to be upstream of the part designated as navigable.

I followed the directions in the other post, this one https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=213587#Post213587

Thank you! I need to get better pictures and I'm watching for blooms of whatever kind. I just know our pond is full of them!

When you are measuring rock chuck elevation, dont forget to add in for angle of the slope of the mower deck, if you are mowing along the back or front of a dam that could tilt your rock chuking blades at a reasonably elevated angle.

Well ... don't make wait! What are they?

I am a Pond Boss subscriber. Into my 2nd year now! I have learned a lot but figured I'd get something even deeper from a book. Am I wrong about that? Do I just need to go back and read my old issues more closely?

I used my aquarium test strips to see general values on the pond. GH was 180, KH was 240. PH 7.5, and both NO2 and NO3 were 0. I've googled, but can't seem to find information outside of "koi ponds" on hardness and such. I've seen fish between 1 and 2 inches in the pond and tadpoles. The frogs are crazy loud at night and so wonderful to listen to. I've seen and heard cardinals and wrens, plus 2 other sounds that might be squirrels, might be something else. We've gotten a great blue heron on the game camera once, and we've seen ducks come through.

I know my first step is to learn all I can about my pond. And I'm trying, I just feel like I might not know all the questions to ask. And as a bibliophile, books are what I turn to since I don't know anyone personally who knows more than me about my pond!

We are in Waco, so central Texas.

Thanks.

Yes. I will go check Secchi depth and two More jars of water; I will place one in Indirect light and one in total darkness. I will also collect a sample for tests.

I don’t think there are more grass carp, but could be.

I think there is still one channel catfish.
And, I occasionally see what may be a mud turtle.

I have not stocked bullhead catfish but some
Folks say they could be introduced via eggs on bird legs.
I don’t get many traveling water birds though.

I still suspect it is colloidal clay and can’t help but wonder if it has something to do with the underground water supply.

Thanks for catalyzing a renewed effort. I have to admit that it is rather disappointing given how much time, effort and money has already gone into this project.

But it sounds like that is usually the name of the game.
I’ve just been incredibly lucky all of these years.

Do you know how I could attach photos here?

The only option seems to be to attach an URL link - but I don’t have one for my photos.

Thanks.

Kathy