Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Heritage Property Ponds

As the new care taker for my family property, which includes an extensive water system, I am happy now to be a part of this excellent pond forum!

The pond system that I am tasked with covers about 80 acres of land in MidMichigan. On that land, we have a defunct tree farm, a natural swath of hardwood forest, a natural ravine about 40ft deep, over two miles of trails, an extensive collection of equipment including a 50ft reach excavator, tree spades, and even our own topsoil screening operation.

The extent of the property was previously designed and managed by my grandfather. Though I was around while he made all his improvements I am only now beginning to understand the true genius of his engineering.

Our primary pond is 4 acres and I am told may be as deep as 20ft in spots. It was converted from a bog, the excavated peat was converted to top soil with the addition of sand (also from our property) until a layer of gravel was uncovered. It was then lined with clay and allowed to fill. Water comes from two springfed sources, mainly from a channel to the southeast that fills then flows over a weir but also from a preexisting pond to the northeast that we have only partial ownership and keep dammed off. After water enters from the channel, it flows across the pond to an exit dam on the northwest corner where it dumps into the first portion of the ravine. Water in the ravine is typically shallow, under 1 foot until the first retention pond where it flows through a second dam, under a trail, then continues to a final retention pond and third dam under another trail. At that point, a 15ft waterfall was created and water continues to a marsh at the northwest edge of our property.

To the west of the pond there is a backup drainage pond, long and narrow, that is connected by another dam under the trail. For the most part, all the dams self manage and consist of culverts partially blocked by concrete slab weirs that we may control if necessary using an excavator or loader.

In recent years I have noticed an increase of muck in our primary pond and have been examining how to mitigate this. Cost estimates for aeration equipment has been over $9k from "The Pond Guy". Though we may have much in terms of property and equipment, cash is in short supply. I was able to uncover one method that my grandfather used when he designed it; a pump system that pulls water from the primary pond and supplied a fountain in the channel. That combined with a small waterfall coming off the channel's weir seems to have been his solution. But since the fountainhead was sunk, most of the piping and electrical are underground, and the electric water pump is missing I have not yet been able to revive this system.

Aside from the water features, I have had my hands full with other tasks; I uncovered a small-ish pontoon boat in the woods and have been making slow progress refurbishing it. It was completely entailed in trees and vines, one log was full of water, the motor is missing and the aluminum top structure had multiple cracks. I have since drained and patched the log, cleared the top structure completely and am working on fitting new railings and a couple electric motors. It should make a fine picnic and fishing platform in the future.

I am also working on replacing the dock. The existing dock is beginning to rot a little and the shore where it meets was undermined by muskrats causing it to erode away. Due to this, the shore end of the dock is partially submerged. The dock is only 12ft long and 4ft wide anyway. Fishing on it can be a little claustrophobic if not fishing alone and tying up the pontoon would prove difficult. The new dock will be 30ft long, 5ft wide and have a T-shaped fishing area at the end I will post a sketch of the plan to give a better understanding.

Also, this past summer I took some steps to revive the tree farm by clearing a few acres and planting some fruit trees.Though the previous tree farm never had fruit trees other than crab apples and what looks like some sort of cherry (not sure), I thought it would be nice to be able to harvest our own fruits for family get-togethers or simply grab an apple after a hard days work. Being that I am also new to farming, this has been a true learning experience and I struggled a little at first to figure out how to make my first trees successful. So far, I have only planted 10 trees (apples, pears and peaches) but I plan on planting another 10 this summer (more apples, plums and cherries) along with some small fruits like strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, grapes and even some rhubarb. If all goes well, I think we may see fruit in just another couple years. Fingers crossed!

Anyhow, I will post an annotated satellite photo of the property for reference. Hopefully those who are more accustomed to managing acreage can lend advice on how to manage it better. Having been a designer and builder for the past few decades, I look forward to giving my own advice to those who need it too. Thanks!

Attached Images

Here are the pictures:

When I right click on one of the images, I get an option to "Copy Image Link." So, left click on that.

Then you will PASTE that in between these... [img] paste here with no spaces [/img]

The "IMG" both need to be capitalized.

GFCI outlets can fail in several ways. At least one of those failure modes could result in the death of you or someone you care about.

Read this article. After you finish you may be motivated to replace those 20yo outlets.


Bad GFCI receptacle: Can a GFCI Outlet Fail?

Two important things are bad for compressors Moisture and HEAT. With your current system you do not have the option of running the aerator only after dark when ambient temperature is cooler. If you want that compressor or any compressor to have a longer life span with no powered fans put it in a larger box. Without powered fans I normally suggest a box bottom with vented screening and louvered vents near the lid to exhaust hot air. Current vents in the box are not arranged well nor large enough for good natural air movement. Set the box off the ground on blocks or legs so cooler air flows in from the bottom. Cool air flows in the bottom and warm air from compressor rises out near the roofline; no fan needed. Excess heat is also IMO not good for other inside box components.

I don't see in this thread what you determined the total pond depth to be?

Duckweed is nature's sign of an old, over nutrient enriched pond. Duckweed is common in local drainage ditches here that receive septic tile drainage. I am not sure that any type of aeration will ever help very much to improve those 'weed' problems and what is causing them. When all that duckweed and coontail die it consumes huge amounts of DO. High plant biomass conditions in that pond are prone to causing summer and winter fish kills. Be prepared. Aeration might help reduce chances of low dissolved oxygen (DO) causing sporadic fish kills but I would not bet any amount of wager on it. IMO you will fight the current weed problems as long as you own the pond. Surrounding tree litter that entered the pond since it was built is a big cause of the weed problems.

One natural helpful benefit to that pond might be to install - build several large floating islands. They sequester quite a few nutrients. Because the pond was built in a peat bog, bogs with good quality water almost always have natural floating islands.


If the goal is producing a quality fishery the pond needs to be rebuilt or dig a completely new one.

Many, if not most all ponds and lakes, behave in this fashion. Ponds are collection basins. What solids enter and those that grow in the pond stay there. There is no flusher for ponds. As they age the materials continue to accumulate and from that, nutrient enrichment of the pond increases to gradually grow more and more plant vegetation. As nutrification, also can be called eutrophication, increases,,,, plant growth increases and often diversity decreases until the pond produces plants as to what it now has. This process continues until the pond is full of dead materials and again becomes a swamp, wetland and then dry land. It is a natural process and is called aquatic succession.

Ecology lesson for today. Nutrificaiton or eutrophication is the gradual increase in the concentration of phosphorus, nitrogen and other plant nutrients in an aging aquatic ecosystem such as ponds and lakes. This can be accelerated by human influences. The excessive growth of algae and larger plants in eutrophic waters is accompanied by the generation of a large biomass of dead algae and submerged plants. These dead plants sink to the bottom of the water body where they are broken down by decomposers primarily bacteria, which consume lots of oxygen in the process. The over production results in over consumption of oxygen that leads to hypoxic conditions (loss of oxygen) in the water. The hypoxic conditions at the lower levels of the water body can spread to the entire water body and lead to the suffocation and eventual death of larger life forms such as fish.

Natural eutrophication refers to the excessive enrichment of water bodies via natural events. For example, the nutrients from the land can be deposited into a lake or a river. These water bodies become overly enriched with nutrients, enabling the excessive growth of algae and plants.