Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - What to Test For: Old/New strip mine pond

BLUF: I located a local water environmental test lab, they charge by the 'test' - I have no idea what to ask them to test?

Background:
I have a 70 y/o 1.75 SA strip mine pond located in East Central Ohio that had great fish in it. It drained, I fixed it, in so doing I 'opened' up about 75% of the strip mine spoil, shales clays etc. that was covered by decades of muck. That spoil is now exposed to direct contact with the pond water.




Prior to any stocking in the 'new' pond I want to ensure safe for vertebrates and if possible dialed in and the stocking will thrive.

There maybe a post somewhere on PB but my searches didn't uncover any.

The Lab charges by the "test" I.e., Alkalinity = $10, Phosphorous = $10, Heavy Metals $17.50 etc etc

What list of "water" tests would you/should I get?

What are acceptable bounds in those tests?

What remediation practices are available for the test - not the amounts just what can be done if anything?

Thanks in advance for any guidance. A link to somewhere that details this would be fine or discussion.
Stressless

The lime is inthe water and i wish I hadn't gotten the high cal Hydrated lime. Tried to getrdone mixing prior to entering the water via 5 gallon buckets in the old rowboat.

That lasted 150# - horrible stuff to work with. I had a 3m respirator and it was required. Wound up spreading the last 850# by spreading on the water and rowing it in - very little wind so it pretty much just dissolved. I was in MOPP after trying to jut do the respirator and light clothing.



Made a holder for the spreader that did a good job once I figured out the weight balance sequence- had a few hairy almost catastrophic issues but got the 2 Tons out in the pond spread (the others got spread from the edge but the throw was only about 14'-16'





I put 320#, eight 40# bags of pelletized in this lil' rowboat and me... plus the spreader and battery.... and it worked like a champ. Did that 320# 11 times... nice easy row and then a lil' excitement as I loaded 2 bags into the spreader and got back sitting down.

scrubbed it down afterward and washed it off with much fresh water.

Dang, that was a LOT of work.

Dang! That was a load of arduous work you performed for your pond.

You might have to retire "Stressless" as your profile name for a week or so until you recover!

Ag or pelleted lime is much easier than hydrated lime and a lot less risky.

Have the soil tested as water always reflects the dirt composition.

Stressless,

Here is a link for a study on strip pit ponds in Oklahoma. They calculated acceptable ranges for a huge number of water quality variables.

Even if it doesn't help you on the first step of raising your pH, it might provide you some useful information in the future.

Strip Pit Ponds - Oklahoma

Good luck on creating waters for happy fish!

Some light reading for you. http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/SRAC-Publication-No.-4100-Liming-Ponds-for-Aquaculture.pdf

Correct. SA = Surface Acre which is the same as an acre of dirt. In agriculture ponds, they typically aren't as deep as the recreational ponds, so more lime might be needed but it's a lot easier to add more than to take some out.

1ppm = 1 mg/l. 40 ppm/mg/l is minimum, I'd recommend anything over 50, but the higher the better. 100 would be nice! Our ponds in this area are naturally around 150+.

Think of the alkalinity in a pond like pH in soil. Too low and the organisms can't utilize the nutrients that are in the water. So if the alkalinity is low, don't fertilize - raise the alkalinity instead. If you fertilize THEN raise the alkalinity, you might have too much of a bloom.

The reason why I say 50 is because the minimum is 40. So you apply enough to reach the 40 mark. Then a few weeks later you test and find that it's in the mid 30's. So you have to get all the stuff together to apply it again. PITA right?? While it might be more work to apply enough to hit the 50 mark, (or higher) it's less work in the long run, especially if you have a flow thru condition.

A battery and an electric trolling motor would save a lot of work..........

Ya -- I'm actually gonna shoot for something like 75-80 for just that reason. May reapply in '23 to try for 100 after a couple months and see where is settles out.

Just went and hand tossed 200# of Ultra fine I had in the barn. PITA. I 'm gonna noodle how to make a slurry pan with the the 4.5GPM pump I have to try pulverized gypsom... hang a intake off the rowboat, pump me and battery with 6-7 bags and a stern board to dump out a 50# bag and wash it in with the pump spray.

A "standard" test that we do is typically required because the pond owner is fighting excess nutrients and possibly a cyanobacteria bloom has triggered the call to us. The testing that we have done (and the rest result range that we are looking for) is as follows:
NH3 = Ammonia 0-2mg/l
CL = chloride 10:1 CL to NO2
SO4 = Sulfate 0-1,000 (500 if watering cattle)
NO2 = Nitrite 0-1
NO3 = Nitrate 0.005 - 0.5 mg/l (but can be up to 90 mg/l without harming the fish for a short length of time). Ideal is <0.10mg/L
SiO2 = Silica 5-25 mg/l
SRP = Soluble Reactive Phosphorous this is what feeds plants and algae should not exceed 0.020 mg/L
TP = Total Phosphorous 0.01 - 0.075 mg/l
TKN = Total Kjeldahl Nitrogen 2-6 mg/l
COND = Conductivity 100-2,000
SS = Suspended Solids There is no widely acceptable max reading, but you want a secchi disc reading to be in the 12”-36” range.

For Alkalinity and pH we just use cheap test strips that are commonly used for testing aquarium water or swimming pools. Since the exact number isn't critical and we just need a ballpark, those are good enough for what we need. When talking to the testing lab, make sure that they can test amounts low enough to make a difference (see ranges of results needed listed above). We send out a sample to be tested for nutrients and the test results came back as TP <1.0 mg/l, TKN <10 mg/l which didn't help us at all. That company's test needed a chain of custody letter, the sample packed in a cooler with cold packs, and shipped overnight. For the roughly $300 test cost of packaging and shipping it gave us 0 usable data for what we needed the data for. (baseline for reduction of nutrients)

For pH, we need a result NOW, when it's tested as we don't want the sample to change during shipment. We charge $150 to get those test results, and that is collecting and shipping the sample if we are at a customers pond for another reason. We can have tests run for 23 other metals, that runs another $100.

My guess from results from my experience (different type of test kit) is when it goes from blue/green to full light red. Looks like 30-40 ppm. But that is from pics and as we all know color is based on available light.

If that is what "pond pros" do, then it is almost certainly good advice for amateurs.

What are the components you most commonly get analyzed? What is the ball park cost for that level of testing?

If an amateur does have a pond that is going to require a lot of testing, then I think it would be an excellent idea to confirm that your personal tests closely match with the lab results.

There is an old engineering saying that applies. "The only thing worse than no data, is bad data!"