Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Swimming pool discharge into a pond

Hi! I'm from Buenos Aires, Argentina.

I'm new with this, I already did an excavation pond. The shape is like a peanut, size is about 100m length x 20-35m width (300 ft x 60-100ft). Depth is 1,7 m (6 ft) with an angle of 1:3.
I estimate the area in 2.500 square-meters (0.6 acres), and around 1.000.000 gallons.

I have a swimming pool near the pond and I wonder if I could make the discharge of the pool into the pond. I know this is not recommendable, but is the easy option.
The discharge will be basically 2:
1- around 100 gallon a week cleaning the dirt in bottom of the swimming pool during the summer.
2- Empty the whole pool maybe 2 or 3 times during the summer (10.000 gallons).

I pretend to use the pond for recreation (swimming, boat, etc) and some fishes (I hope to barbecue some of those once a while )
Will that discharge be that harmful to the fishes?. I should treat the swimming pool with any chemical right before the discharge to compensate the effect of the Clorox?

I can do it? In that case, which cares I should take?

Sorry for my bad English!
Pablo

Here some photos (2 feet depth, 4 feet to go! )

Welcome to Pondboss Pablo.

Don't worry about the chlorine.

I take care of a 500 gallon aquarium and replace half of the water with regular tap water when we clean it. The fish are just fine after we change the water.

Ola, Pablo.

I doubt the weekly pool discharge into the pond would ever be noticed.

Full pool flushing would result in a chlorine concentration in the pond of about 1% of what is in the pool. I don't think this would be a problem, provided that the pond gets flushed itself (say, by rainwater) periodically. If your climate and watershed will provide enough runoff that the pond overflows occasionally (even only for a month or so once a year), I bet you will be fine.

Does anyone know if the chlorine would dissipate or build up over time if the poond has no flow-through?

P.S. Your English is very good. And thanks for doing metric to english unit conversions ahead of time. COndello take note.

Chlorine breaks down and dissipates quickly. Sunny weather accelerates the breakdown. Small amounts of residual products of the broken down chlorine may remain, and build up in the bottom mud. I doubt they're harmful to fish in tiny quantities.

Free chlorine in the water can combine with DOC's (dissolved organic carbons) to produce volatile organic contaminants such as trihalomethanes, bromoform, chloroform, dibromochloromethane, all of which are fat soluable chemicals. As fat soluables, these are then bioaccumulative and move up the food chain. Trihalomethanes in excess of the MCL (maximum contaminant level) may after many years of accumulation in people they may experience problems with liver, kidney, or central nervous systems. Some trihalomethanes are thought to cause cancer and sterilization of tested rats. Some people may be more sensitive than others to these chemicals at various concentrations. You are probably not adding enough free chlorine to the pond to cause major problems but some trihalomethanes will be produced. Depending on your long term uses for the pond, do a little more research on trihalomethanes and their production so you are more informed.

Thanks for all those info about the built up residual of the chlorine. I would not take a long term risk, I let the swimming pool discharge into the pond for now and I’ll solve that next year.
The fact is that the terrain is dead flat, I don’t have the levels measured by professional equipment and is very hard to find out by a simple look. So I didn’t plan a run-off channel in case the pond fills up to top. I expect to find out were to put a run-off for the pond as soon as I fill it, then I will make a kind of T joining the pool discharge into the same channel of the pond run-off.
Due to flat of the terrain, the lack of severe weather (he don’t have hurricanes nor tornados here), pretty stable rainfall average 4´´/month, very small watershed area and high permeability of the top-soil I don’t expect a flood frequently (maybe once every other year), the run-off wasn’t my priority in the start of the project. In fact I expect to have to add well water frequently; most in the first years until the bottom gets impermeable naturally (experienced in other artificial ponds nearby).
I have 3 possible run-off alternatives/directions and I want to make sure to choose the lower one because I want to have the water level as high as possible.

Again thanks for your feedback.

PD: Is going to be a time to stock the pond, sadly we have a totally different fish species here in Buenos Aires. I saw plenty of good info in this forum about fish/structures.

Have a good weekend!
Pablo

Pablo,
Please keep us updated on what you decide to stock. Even though, it may be different than what we have here, it will still be interesting to know.

heck we could even ship some hybrid bluegills to ya, from iowa
there only 60 cents a piece, how much could aplane ticket be?
what kind of fish do they have in ponds there(peacock bass)?

i wish we had these in the great USA

Most swimming pool chlorine levels are kept a 1-2.5 parts per million, evem if you are dumping your pool water into the pond directly the chlorine level is so small that it should not have any affect on the fishery. Heck in most locations drinking water has a 1.0 ppm chlorine level

Chlorine is added to drinking water after usually many of the organics and some dissolved organics have been removed (processing and filtration) which results in usually minimal creation of contamination with trihalomethanes. Although since UEPA currently requires testing for these contaminants, results from numerous water treatment facilities violate the standards. The biggest problems with creating the contaminants is when adding free or unbound chlorine ions are added to natural unfiltered waters such as rivers lakes, or ponds.

Here in Buenos Aires province due to high temps (and in the case of a closed pond also lack of river with lot of water flowing) I can’t have the “Trucha” (http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trucha ; http://www.argentour.com/es/viajes/pesca_con_mosca_en_el_limay_medio.php )
Thousands from all over the world came to Argentina to catch this wonderful fish, beautiful fights, is a very strong fish. Their habitat is in rivers in the southern provinces, mountains lakes also.You could have a 1 hour fight with a 20 pond one.(Always talking of fishing with the “right” equipment, I mean I prefer to give to the fish a chance to escape. So I fish with “light equipment”, a bad move and nylon breaks)

For my pond, I was thinking of:

-“mojarra” as forage. Commonly 3 inches long and 2 ounces (http://www.pescaeneldelta.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&thold=-1&mode=flat&order=0&sid=345 )

-“pejerrey” lives in lakes, river and also in salty water in the sea. For me is the most delicious fish; usually cook when is ½ pound, can reach 2 pounds. (http://www.pescanet.com/informacion_de_pesca/relevamientos/2007/13_03_07_junin/junin.htm)

-“dientudo” as forage for “tararira” bigger than “mojarra”

-“tararira” a strong fish with good fights. Commonly around 2 to 10 pounds (http://www.pescanet.com/participacion/fotos/tararira/fotos_tararira.htm)

- “mosquito fish –Gambusia” and “Salmon Siberiano – Grass carp” you know those two

"Salmon Siberiano" - what a great name!