Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Big Red's Pond Project "About Half Full"

Starting to fill in early February.


About half full in March


Didn't hardly rain in June or July, so in comes the well man. Note the water level drop.



The next several are after pumping 19 days with just two garden hoses. A pvc pipe from the well to pond will be installed (buried) later.

So that's where the projects at in water level. I'll leave it to Big Red to talk about fish in it currently, future stocking, and his other plans.

so big red what kind of fish do you have in it now and what are you plans?

Big Red,

Looking at the picture from the dam with the light pole and you new well in the background, how far up to the grass line will the water be when you have it full?

We have added 12 lbs of fatheads, 600 coppernose, 300 red ear and 100 catfish.
The bream were 1 to 3 in and the catfish were 4 to 5 in when they went the pond.
I stocked the FH in 2 releases. Later I stocked the CN, RE and catfish at different intervals. I feed regularly. At the first when there were only FHs in the pond I fed a
mixture of 50% rabbit pellets and 50% catfish food. I had read on the internet the FHs were plant eaters. However they have really done good. When the food hits the water the little pink minnows get busy. After todays feeding I saw some catfish that
I thought might be 8 in. I ll do a catch and measure soon. This fall I plan to stock Largemouth. Probably 100, keeping in mind they must be large enough so the CF won't eat them. Big Red

When full the pond will be 2 acre.
CW

gonna be awesome.....thanks for sharing big red. bet its a pretty penny to fill w/ the well....the power co. loves you and i wish i had a well that would do that!!

He's going to just maintain at half full with the well as required. It was so dry this summer that he'd lost at least 18 inches to evaporation and was getting concerned about the fish and temp of the water etc. So he drilled a well and 19 days of using just the two garden hose hook ups had it back to the 1/2 full level which is about one surface acre. The plan is for the thing to finish filling over the fall and winter rains. One Hurricane should fill him right up. If he’d had it dug when Katrina ran over the top of him…it would have filled in three days.

This well's electric is hooked up to his shop (which is on its own service so he knows how much power was used those 19 days and the Kw cost. It was right at $90. With that tank, the pump doesn't run continuously.

A buddy of mine has a brother with a couple of ponds and a lake. So he’s always working with his water situation on the ponds. He put in a 5hp motor/Pump on an existing well because he wanted to keep that pond full. He ran that setup for a month and liked to have croaked (no tank that I’m aware of…just pumping and running continuous) when the electric bill came in. No telling how much water he sent over the spillway.