I sure would love to see a PB article about pond basics. I need to understand feeding, aeration, and fertilization. How does it effect the plankton bloom. There are many here who mix the water column, there are many others who have heavy fish populations and fear a DO crash. I'm hung up in the middle...and have a thousand questions.

1) With appropriate feeders in place, wouldn't the fish waste provide enough nitrites/ammonia/nitrates for a plankton bloom?
2) Assuming I'm already wrong with #1, what natural combinations cause a bloom? PH, Nitrites, Phosphate levels ???
3) If a person can naturally create the environment for a bloom, what are the water conditions and temps?

I'm sure this info exists somewhere, but pond peeps need the simplified tools to measure the dynamics, we need a measuring tool much like a RW chart. I would like to plug in my pond numbers, and see how healthy I am.

Maybe our mentor Bob Lusk will take this topic to heart and produce a couple feature sections in PBoss Mag around these very good questions. The questions and topics appear simple but good detailed and not the run-of-the-mill generalized answers with helpful, practical, meaty, and insightful suggestions will take lengthy complex answers due to the degree of variability and numerous situations where it "all depends". IN actuality numerous experts should weigh in on these topics to get the best practical answers. Numerous articles have appeared in PBoss mag providing generalized answers to your questions. For those articles see the indexes and contents of past PB issues prepared by Cody and listed in the Archives Section.

Thanks Bill, you have helped me countless times in the past, I appreciate you backing the idea of getting a "printed" detail analysis.

I have a gut feeling that says if you can keep the Phosphate levels down while feeding, you will get a bloom due to natural fertilization.

I completely agree with you Eastland. Basically we need a pond owners manual. "The Complete Idiots Guide to Pond Management." Or "Pond Management for CPAs and Other Dummies."

One complication that I can see is simply the amount of variables to take into account when managing a pond or diagnosing a problem. I hate to admit it and will probably receive a scarlet letter for mentioning this but I haven't (yet) purchased Bob's latest book "Perfect Pond." Does this new book have anything like that in it?

oh and before you all start yelling at me for not buying Perfect Pond, I want to make it publicly known that I do own three other of Bob's books and I have been a magazine subscriber for two years.

"Raising Trophy Bass" (going through it currently in the reading room) goes over basics for fertilization. Do not fertilize if alkalinity is below 20 (whatever the units are), phosphorus is the limiting nutrient in most ponds, etc. I also recall hearing from somewhere else (last year's conference?) that fish feeds provide almost no phosphorus, to prevent unwanted blooms/plant growth in fish farm settings where heavy feeding provides all the food for the fish.