Hey guys, I’m new to this as well as to the pond world. But here’s what i got, just finished my slightly under 2 acre pond on April 6th. Right now I’m about a little over half way full. Of course right now i have muddy water, but all my grass is starting to come up. I took out a jar of water yesterday and set it on my porch to see how it clears up. I have ordered fish and i should get them either Thursday or Friday. Am i headed in the right direction?? My goal for my pond is to grow big strippers and large mouth bass. So I’m getting 800 BLuegill and 200 hell i forgot, and 7 pounds of minnows. Then i was advised to go with 100 largemouth and 100 hybrid striped bass in the fall. Any info will be greatly appreciated and i have really learned a lot on this thread. Thanks guys!

I would not put any fish in until the minnows (FHM's) had a year to reproduce (don't forget the structure for them)...then add the predators. The 100/100 LMB and HSB seem high to me, but I'll leafve that for those who have more expereice stocking LMB.

I'd for sure figure out what fish you forgot...it makes a difference.

Welcome to the forums!

Ok, it was shell cracker. I had to go back and check. So what about the muddy water? Should i just wait till it fills then figure that out?

The muddy water should clear on its own but will take awhile. How long? Dunno.
Stock when the water Clears and has some fertility

To grow large bass they need a LOT of food to eat and 800 Bluegill won't nearly be enough. Think more along the lines of 3,000 Bluegill per surface acre.....

Here's some math for you.

A single bass needs to eat 10 pounds of fish to put on one pound of weight.

Then you have those Hybrid Striped Bass you have in there.

Does your wife know you are stocking strippers? LOL

Is there a link where I can get some of those??? LOL

Based upon a ton of research here and elsewhere, in mid-March I stocked my 0.4A pond dug last summer with the following:

200 BG 3-4"
100 HBG 3-4"
100 RES 3-4"
10lb FHM

I'm also supplement feeding Optimal Junior, and catching a few gills seven weeks after stocking, the Optimal is definitely helping growth! Found FHM eggs on the bottom of a floating piece of plywood yesterday, so recruitment is already underway. In the fall, I plan to stock 40 LMB.

You may scale up as you deem appropriate...

My water is also 'chocolate milk' with a lot of suspended clay; a drought last summer caused issues getting grass established but after seeding in early March I've got pretty good coverage all the way around with the exception of my banks. Yesterday I started the process of rip-rapping the bank in hopes that will help improve water clarity in the coming weeks and months.

If you can will you post some pics of your rip rap progress. It's nice to see before and after pics. The eggs are a good thing for sure. They will need bunches n bunches of those to eat
.

How do you know you're dealing with a cheap-arse airline pilot? He gets 22.5 ton of rip-rap delivered, only to load it by hand in a Ranger then set it by hand with slave, er child labor because renting a small skid-steer or tractor with loader would be $250 and tear up his new grass.





Pond level will come up another 12" to the bottom of the drain pipe, so what you see is the first level I plan to put all the way around, and I'll add rock above the initial row. My desire is to have rock from just above full pool' to maybe 18" below.

Off to a good start. Did you put anything under it to keep weeds out? Slave labor is were most of us learned a good work ethics. Which is lacking anymore. Probably the same thing my parents said also.

First row of rip-rap right at the current water line is complete...I think we used just under half of the 22.5T delivered Thursday. Yesterday we rocked from the yellow line right all the way around to the pea gravel just left of the dock.

Given the pond has about another foot to come up to bottom of the drain pipe, the remaining rock should cover a second higher row, and I'll likely get a second triaxle for higher rows nearing full pool.

It could be in my head, but the water seemed to be slightly clearer around the banks yesterday than Thursday, even after just the little we did on Thursday (dock right to yellow line)...despite getting 0.7" of rain on Friday. Will be curious to see if clarity changes any in the coming weeks...

I love the look of a rip rapped pond. Looking very nice already. Makes me want to do it even more now.

In case anybody cares...

Ran up to the property yesterday evening, and while the body of my pond pictured above was still chocolate milk, there was noticeably better visibility around the banks where I had rip-rapped. It still is far from great - I'd say somewhere currently in the 5-6" ballpark - but that's probably close to double what it was before. The fact we'd had some rain this past week, albeit not heavy, and still saw a clarity improvement was nice.

We've got probably 11T of rock left so there's certainly more to do, but hopefully in the coming weeks the turbidity will continue to slowly subside.

I did pull about a gallon of pond water out yesterday in a white bucket; will run up later today and see if it settled itself out.

Like the pics showing the boys lending a hand. Get them started early taking some ownership and they will be onboard later when other maintenance is needed. And of course mix in some line wetting along the way so they can enjoy fruits of their labor. Outdoors and no cellphones. Nice bonding activity, IMHO!

Even though I can visually tell an increase in water clarity along the banks after rip-rapping...this is about 1.5gal of pond water after sitting for forty hours.



I'm about halfway through a second layer of rock around my pond (did probably another 2-3 tons today) but guessing some alum and lime are in my future.

I had very similar concern and anxiety over water clarity when my pond was new. Stock your FHM if you haven't already and keep working on riprap and vegetating the watershed... most likely, it will clear, but certainly will test your patience.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=503681

Thanks for the link, it gives me a little bit of hope for the future...

10lb of FHM went in on 14 March.

I'm struggling to get grass on the clay banks down toward the waterline, but otherwise the rest of the watershed has grown nicely this spring. If it'll stop raining here, I've got four bags of 29-0-4 to put out to hopefully help motivate the grass struggling to come up on the banks.

Update on my pond...

We completed placing the last of the 22.5T of rip-rap by hand two weeks ago...and of course I tweaked my right knee doing it. I think quadriceps tendinitis is the diagnosis; was pretty sore for a few days but has gotten better, walking is fine but bending and squatting is still tentative. After I finished, I hobbled around throwing contractor's mix grass seed on my still-exposed banks, spread a few bags of fertilizer and lime, and then covered thinly with straw. Last weekend we went up and a few shoots were starting; watered everything and let mother nature do its thing. I got a new secchi disk and checked water visibility - it was about 5".

We had 3-4 days of dry weather earlier this past week and I got back from a work trip early Thursday, itching to check water clarity. We're on the 20 minute drive to the property and notice a single summer thunderstorm building which preceded to open up right as we were going through the gate....and it parked itself there and rained for over two hours. I was heartbroken, thinking whatever clarity I might have achieved would be toast.

Let it dry yesterday and then go back up midday today...and lo and behold:





Secchi visibility was 20-22". I was stunned.

Not sure if it was the rip-rap, the newly growing grass on my exposed banks, the 2+ inches of rain on Thursday afternoon or some combination thereof but sure enough the water was the clarity I've been hoping for!

Nice!