New to the forum.

I am currently working on my brother's farm that has a small pond that has been established for what we know of well over 10-15 years. When I say small, I mean small....80 x 60 yrds approximately. We are not sure, but we believe it may be spring fed. A couple have things have led us to believe this. One thing, during the drought we were under at the end of 2010 it sustain relatively stable water levels, even when others around us dried up are dropped severely. Second thing, in the heat of the summer the water is unusually cool and in cold weather, water is consdierably warmer than you might think it would be. The depth of the pond is unknown, I can only guess by fishing it, that is is around 8 ft deep at its deepest point. This pond holds and maintains fish well. The first time i fished, it i caught over 12 bass in about 30 minutes. I see no signs of sunfish, but my brother has transplanted some from Lake Fork. As well as the 2 lbs of minnows we dumpe in every so often. Everything seems to be alive and thriving well.

Last summer he rented a bull dozer and cleared a bunch on old fence lines and underbrush. While he had the dozer the idea of adding on to the existing pond. He dug out on the out side of the pond, making sure not to disturb the existing pond. He added dirt to the dam and made another side a dam as well. The idea is once that rain fills the new section, it will overflow into the existing pond ,with the added hieght to the dams, and make one pond. Thus tripling the size of the pond. The new additon is all but 6" from touching the exhisting pond.

Here is the problem.....the new addition has never cleared up. East texas clay has not alowed it to do so. We are a critical stage now to where we are worried if the new additon does reach the exhisting pond that the clarity in the exhisting pond will deminish. After reading online until my eyes were blurry I cam across the ol' "add a teaspoon of vinegar" trick. I did this and it was a wierd result. The water in the jar did not do what I would call settle. It seemed to only seperate. the website I was reading was very vague, but I figured.. hey, easy test why not? The clay all seemed to go into a cloudy mixture at the bottum of the jar. ANY slight movement of the jar disturbs the bottum layer drastically. Here is my concern. We did this addition to be able to have more fishing area, and to give the fish more room and better structure. but if the bottum layer of water is going to be cloudy then would the fish swimming it it, wind, lures being dragged through it continually keep the water cloudy? We are currently OPEN for suggestion. We have been leaning towards gypsum, but wonder if with the East Texas soil, if lime is not the way to go. Cost is a factor in bad economy, but we dont want to lose any fish over this. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Exhisting pond :




New addition :




Where they meet :



Pic of water sample with vinegar added :

Hey Jeff! Welcome to PB! That picture of the water in the jar is FREAKIN ME OUT..and nothing freaks me out..I don't even like that saying.....However cooler heads will prevail and someone here has seen that before...they always have.....Hang tight

Jeff_G,

First off...Welcome to the forum...It sounds like you have a really neat pond!

It does indeed sound like your pond is spring fed. If there is no inflow, the water has to be coming from the pond basin. Does the pond have any outflow when it hasn't rained recently?

If no outflow is seen, the pool height can't be rasied because the spring will act as a drain if the water level is raised above it's maximum.

As for your clay problems. I suggest you read the thread titled Alum kicks Clay Butt in the Muddy Water section...there is a wealth of information amongst the hyjacks and humor.

In your area, you may need a combined approach to clear the water long term...First get a soil sample test from both inside the pond basin and surrounding soils to see if iit needs Lime...it probably does. You may also want to add a couple tons of Gypsum follwed after that with an Alum treatment.

Odd that the 2 ponds, side by side, are that different. Jeff, anytime you do a jar test and shake it after settling, it will get cloudy again.

Rex, the Rainman, is right about the soil tests. You can send them to A&M.

We actually have a soil test for the hay fields surrounding the pond turned in as we speak. "we are about to fertilize for hay ) That should give us a ball park of what the soil is like in this area. You think that will be enough or take directly from pond. One of the test spots for the soil was only 20 yrds off the pond, in the middle of the watershed to fill it.

Oh,and about the exhisting pond, no no real drainage except when it is over filled by rain it would usually go around damn and pool up in drainage ditch for a parallel right of way driveway. It never did dry up, as small as it is it only dropped about a foot and maintained the level from then on. The large pond that I fish across the street dropped a good 4 ft or so.

Personally, I would be happy with the hayfield test...then double or even triple the tonnage suggested and brodcast it directly into the pond/and immediately surrounding areas..You really can't over-lime a pond. The lime may be enough to clear your water, but do NOT try the vinegar!!!. Don't expect the ime to clear anything for several months though and you may still waish to use the Alum?HYDRATED lime combo for near instant clearing. Nothing will keep the pond clear if you have mechanical mixing issues or if there are exposed clay areas near the pond in your watershed.

Busted....yes we have exposed clay around the addition. I knew this would come up, lol. All the vegitation around the exhisting pond has stayed in tacked and for the most part is doing its job. However the additon has not faired so well. It is hard to unearth that much clay and have new growth immediately. There are spots of the additon that are in fact about 12 ft deep. With the exception of one hole about as wide as the bull dozer the floor of the addition in compacted clay.
What would you suggest for ground cover around the pond and dam for a low cost? Sod is not an option, there is just to much area, and with the longhorns on the property, they would just tear it up and eat it. (they eat just about anything). My suggestion to my brother was possibly seeding it??? As long as we keep it watered, it should in fact take off pretty fast. I would not think the longhorns would hassle with new grass growth when there was 4" standing hay 20 feet away.

Couple more questions....I put 5 small bass in the new additon. ( they lady across the street has asked us to take several small fish out of here pond as a sort of management) Will they live? It has been about a week and I have been dilligant checking for floaters....nothing. The new addition is full of baby frogs, and also seem to be minnows or some sort of baitfish already (we have not added anything to it). You can see swimming, v-line manuvers all across the pond...something is in there. How did it get there? Birds? We are scratching our heads on this one.

Birds don't bring fish any more than storks bring babies. Mysteries like this are usually solved by talking to well meaning friends. At this time I wouldn't bring in any more bass. You need bluegill first to establish a forage base.

As to grass, I think I would scratch the ground, not plow, and put out way too much bermuda seed. Not sure that it will grow in solid clay. Check around with the NRCS guys and see what they recommend.

If all you put in the addition is bass...I would first suspect the "minnows" are from a spawn. The tadpoles are likely toads and yor bass will eat them, but with that much sediment suspended in your water, and being a sight feeder, the bass would be hurting for food even with tons of forage.

Plant whatever will grow in your area as soon as you can.

I'm betting since the dozer was a rental, the topsoil wasn't saved to be re-pread over the top of the clay. If not, it may be a very long time before anything will grow on it.

The majority of the clay is still on the bottum. ( he stopped digging about the time he hit clay) the mojority that is exposed now is sandy loam that the area is known for. I unfortunately have alot of time on my hands. If it takes me baby sitting it, spreading seed and watering it daily, thats what I can do to promote and sustain plant growth. I am guessing that trying to clear water before this would be as affective as flushing a couple hundred bucks down the crapper.

Jeff_G, Good you have the time to baby some grass seedlings. It's getting close to warm enough here in Texas to seed Bermuda. Night-time temps need to stay at 60 degrees & above for it to grow. Like already said, a slight amount of raking(like a small harrow behind a four wheeler) to break up the crust. Then use Common Bermuda seed at 3-4x whats recommended. The key is to plant the seed a no deeper than 1/4 inch. I typically just lightly hand rake. Then water. Seed germinates in 5-7 days. Water lightly and frequently. Looking at your pictures, you may need some erosion control. See if you can find some old hay square bales & situate them to minimize runoff. Some rebar makes good stakes..Good luck..du

LOL....Im sure the longhorns would love the idea of hay at the pond.....I might need another option for erosion control.

Do you have cattle? That could be a problem later too.

Or am i just too dumb to catch that joke? lol

You may need to fence off the seeded areas for a while and only allow the those things access to a small area of the pond...or better yet, a different water source entirely as they will keep the pond perpetually muddy and overloaded with nutrients. Perhaps a simple small siphon pipe with a float valve to a water trough below the dam would be possible....a fairly cheap and easy solution.

Jeff_G, Successful grass germination & growth will be very difficult with livestock using the same area. Like Rainman suggested, fencing off will be essential. If not, then your original problem of muddy water will most likely be a continuing issue..du

There are 3 longhorns, 1 cow, 1 small heifer and one small bull as well as 3 donkeys .We have an electric fence we could set up, we would probably do that just too keep them off. We have a 100 gallon water trough, for the animals, in the pasture also they just like to mill around the pond sometimes.