None of you realize that I'm a Pond Boss addict since I don't post often, but I'm in your site most every day! Love it!

Allen and I have a small pond, about 1/4 acre. We dug it last fall and put in 100 cc (6-8 inches), 100 bg (2-3 inches) and 10 lmb (6-8 inches).

We've continued to feed them floating fish food any time the weather was over 60 degrees and the fish have never disapointed us and so far we have seen no floaters. Now, the water boils with fish when we feed.

My first question is, how old is too old for fish food? We bought a huge bag (50lb?) last fall and still have more than half a bag left. Is it safe to use it all up?

My second question is, if we've never seen a bg or a lmb when fishing or feeding, did they all fall prey to the cc or other preditor,like the walking fishbag blue heron that comes periodically for a free meal? Or are we are not using the right bait or food? What is the right bait to use, anyway? We love to fish and we throw them all back, of course. We catch the cc all the time (stinkbait), but that's all we catch.

Third, our pond is like a thin chocolate milkshake. We're in Texas, so I don't think that's not too unusual. What is best to clear up a small, muddy pond? If gypsum, where do I get it? And are those pond clarifiers worth their money?

We wanted to attend the conference, but a family emergency kept us away. Hopefully, next year!

I look forward to your answers.
Janan

AJ, my 1/8 acre pond had never cleared since it filled in September. Six hundred pounds of superfine ag lime and three 40lb sacks of pelletize gypsum from Home Depot did the trick for me last week. The lime I aquired from a friend who had a pile at his feed store, your local COOP should have bulk lime for pasture spreading (the last I bought in Bryan TX was $25 a ton). I backed the truck up to the bank and slung the lime out with a shovel and just sprinkled the gypsum around the water line.

3 attempted answers

IIRC, if old fish food isn't moldy or foul smelling, it's OK to feed. There may be some nutritional loss from sitting around a long time, however. I kept about 50 lbs of feed in an extra refridgerator all Winter to try and prevent any degradation.

I am not alarmed that you have not seen the LMB or BG while feeding. For your 1/4 acre, those stocking numbers do not pack the water with fish. LMB hardly ever take pellets anyway. My guess is your BG have plenty to eat and have had no inclination to mess with those funny things thrown on the surface with all the CC mobbing around them. The BG in my pond took 2 1/2 years to begin feeding in noticeable numbers.

If all you have fished with is stinkbait, not seeing BG or LMB is no surprise. Have you tries anything else, and if so, what? The LMB should be big enough to take small spinner baits, crankbaits, etc. now (although there are at most 10 of them). The BG would likely take small live bait like earthworms, waxworms, and mealworms.

It's a shame you couldn't make the conference because there were excellent talks on muddy water. Basically, it can be caused by mechanical agitation (things like wave action or lots of bottom-feeding fish constantly stirring up the mud) or from ionically (chemically/electrically) suspended particles. First, see if there is a mechanical cause for your cloudiness by doing a jar test.

Take a mason jar (or small bucket) full of the cloudy water and let it set for a couple of days. If the cloudiness settles, is was mechanically induced. If not, you likely have an ionic cause and need to look into corrective methods such as barley straw, alum, gypsum, etc.

P.S. Don't try gypsum first, it can be tricky to use.

I'll try the jar test first. When you say "barley straw", what do you mean? Sprinkle straw on top of the water? (Don't laugh! :-)

You place (IIRC) whole bales of barley straw (other straw may not work at all) around the edge of the pond. It's decay produces acidity, which neutralizes the ionic charge that suspends the tiny clay particles.

Paul Dorsett from Total Lake Management in Southern TX explained this entire subject really well at the conference - anyone who is interested should get the DVD when it becomes available.

Once you know your jar test results, head over to the muddy water topic and start a thread on clearing your water. That'll make it easier for current and future forum members to teach and learn.