After hearing and reading about how much cedar trees take up water I'm concerned. Should I remove all cedar trees within so many feet of my pond or will they not affect pond level and only draw from ground water table?

My 2 cents is leave them, for 2 reasons. 1, Cedars are not at the top of the list for water use, and 2., Decaying roots cause more problems than live trees do.

Cdavis, unless the cedar trees are on the dam itself, you can cut with little worry. Keep in mind that a tree's root system extends roughly the same distance underground that the tree's drip line is above ground. Cedars trees generally have very deep roots also.

If there are trees on the dam itself, the general rule of thumb is that you can cut a tree with a trunk under a 4" diameter, and leave larger diameters alone.

Thanks for the input! My dam is clear of all debris being newly built and hope to keep it that way. I am having some water loss and thought the cedars on the other side of dam might have been pulling some of the water from pond.

http://www.dasnr.okstate.edu/Members/sean-hubbard-40okstate.edu/daily-water-use-of-redcedars

One study of how much water cedar trees use.

The only reason I can think of for removing cedars from around the pond (not on the dam) is if your water conditions are on the acidic side and your trees are in the watershed to the pond. I think I have heard that the evergreens will contribute to the acidity of the water which actually helps my pond because is tends to be on the basic side.

Fish FAR prefer hard water over acidic. If you can get high calcium hardness, but have a pH around 7.4, that will stress fish the least, as it matches their blood pH.