Is 1 1/2" of water flow enough?

I have recently renovated a pond and it has a depth of 25 feet.

I have a smaller shallower pond above the the larger pond.

The smaller pond does winterkill, however the outflow from this pond spills down and around to my larger pond and provides about an inch and half worth of flowing water.

The flow is larger enough to keep the outflow drain pipe from the larger pond from freezing.

Do you think this water flow and the depth of the pond will be enough to support around 200 trout over the winter? The larger pond is about a 1/3 to 1/2 acre in size.

I have not yet put any trout in the larger pond just shiners and fathead minnows. No sign of winterkill. But I'm hoping someone with more experience will be able to predict if this situation will prevent winterkill?

Max

Max it's hard to predict winterkill especially with trout, but with some water inflow, and a 25ft. depth the odds are good for trout, but to be safe you might want to start with a smaller number of trout the first year unless your planning on harvesting some to eat.

I'm with ADP. You won't know until you try it unless you have expensive equipment monitoring it one fishless winter.

Do you have power to the pond?

Okay gents.

I'll just have to wait and see. I don't have power to the pond. I will be considering running power out there and buying a surface aerator. I believe this is the real answer to the question.

Thanks for the advice.

Max if you can get power to the pond it can make life a whole lot easier.

If you do get power, I have a 2hp Kasco Aerator, 230v, with a 100' cord that I had to repo from a bad paying customer (never paying customer). It has been serviced by Greg Grimes and I am willing to let it go for $1200.00.

Originally Posted By: Gmax

I have recently renovated a pond and it has a depth of 25 feet.

I have a smaller shallower pond above the the larger pond.

The smaller pond does winterkill, however the outflow from this pond spills down and around to my larger pond and provides about an inch and half worth of flowing water.

The flow is larger enough to keep the outflow drain pipe from the larger pond from freezing.

Do you think this water flow and the depth of the pond will be enough to support around 200 trout over the winter? The larger pond is about a 1/3 to 1/2 acre in size.

I have not yet put any trout in the larger pond just shiners and fathead minnows. No sign of winterkill. But I'm hoping someone with more experience will be able to predict if this situation will prevent winterkill?

Max

It all depends on the disolved oxygen levels in the 1 1/2 " worth of flow and the BOD levels of both ponds. This time of year is a great time to test for oxygen. I tell my customers to purchase a RED Sea brand of disolved oxygen test kit (found on ebay or pet stores) These test kits usualy read about .5 ppm higher than my DO meter but it is accurate enough to have some idea weather your fish will be alive or not. Test the water at the top of the pond, middle and bottom. I use a bottle with a cork and a pull string to get tests from deaper down. Let me know what results you got and I can give you some indication of what thiw means.