Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Pond restore advice needed

OK guys, here is my lake and here is my plan. Let me know what you think. This is an existing like in the middle of a call village in Cochrane WI. Not sure how long but guessing 50 years ago it was a swamp converted to a pond and park. It is made up of 2 bodies of water connected together and totals about 3 acres. We are putting riprap around the edge and digging out what can be reached with an excavator. That is about 50% done and the rest will be finished this fall. We have removed most of the over grown trees at the edge of the lake that have been contributing large amount of leaves for many years. Where it has not been dug out it is safe to say there is about 2 feet of muck. I would guess the deepest part to be about 6-8’. Occasionally there is a dead bluegill found and a 3’ bullhead washed up this spring. I am assuming there is not much fish left. The bottom is leaf covered and has looked that way as long as I can remember with no vegetation. Like any municipality there is not a lot of money available but we are putting to some fund raisers together after we build an official plan.

Here is my plan. I have a Kasco circulation pump that I will mount on flotation to point down begin to circulate the pond. I realize it will likely kill everything left in the lake but that will not be much of a loss. My though is to aggressively get the circulation going to help get the leave and muck going in the right direction. Since I have the equipment it only cost electricity and that is not an issue. I am anticipating running it 24/7 through the summer. Then in fall turn it facing up to keep a portion of the surface clear of ice during the winter. Next would be to install some floating fountains. One fountain on each side of the lake. Aeration with diffusers might be more efficient, but if I am going to raise fund for the fountains there needs to be something to show for it. Of course these would be removed in the fall. If I could get that accomplished this year it would be great.

Next spring after ice out the fountains would go out and the circulator would be turned point down again. At this time I would also like to have raised funds to stock the pond with bluegills. Almost forgot during the winter we would put some structure in the lake with the leftover Christmas trees from around town. By fall of 2010 I would like to have raised funds or budgeted for a nice aerations system. This would then replace the circulation pump that should be at the end of life by that time. I would also like to see a circulator of some kind but that might get a little overkill.

If I could figure out how to beg, borrow or steel a mini dredge I would really like to dredge the middle where the excavator cannot reach.

The goal is to improve the lake to support the local kids fishing and make it look very nice.

For those wondering I am long standing board member of this town and everybody is in favor and support of improving the lake.

As fare as I can tell the is the place to get the best advice. I am all ears.

Thanks

Sauman:

Welcome! Yo me it sounds like a good plan, but I'm no means an expert. Someone should be along shortly that is, and give you some very good advice.

I'm not an aeration whiz but have to ask why you are pointing the air flow downward. Or am I misunderstanding?

Good question. Pointing the circulator down takes rich DO water from the surface and pushes it down to the bottom. Getting oxygen down to the muck will help it through the decaying process. The bottom is traditionally where there is very low DO making the process very slow. The pump is also aggressive enough to effectively circulate water in the entire pond.

I would like to hear the aeration pros discuss whether or not this would make any difference on turnover in the pond. It's past me.

P.S. Welcome to the Fourm, Sauman!

Sauman, first off welcome to Pond Boss, we're glad you found us.

So the Kasco pump is pumping water correct? And you are going to aim the water stream down at the bottom of the pond to intenionally stir up the muck and suspend it in the water?

(I hope I restated that correctly, this is an interesting application and I'm looking forward to a response by an expert).

Anyone?

The Kasco is a circulation/deicer pump. Yes it will initially stir up the bottom until it equalizes. There are a couple of key point behind this logic. First the pump is free and can be put to use with additional cost. Second if it kills the lake with the turn over there is nothing worth loosing and starting from scratch with stocking is preferable. With no fish to try and keep alive, aggressive measures like aggressively circulating the lake with help it get back in it feet faster. Seeing how hair-brained this idea is is why I am here.

Thanks,

Bump.

Paging experts. Can we get some comments on Sauman's idea here?



Yep, you're gonna fit in just fine here.

On Saturday buddy and I will do some measurements so we have an accurate starting point. With a row boat, GPS and a portable depth find we will measure the pond. Not sure if that is high-tech or low tech. Since I have not heard anybody say “don’t do that!” we will probably set the circulation pump out tomorrow afternoon. If it is a mistake it will not be the first in my life. The maintenance department already knows our plans and that it may kill any fish left in lake. We really don’t think there is much of anything in there anyway.

If you can find your pond on this LINK You may be able to measure the size of your pond fairly accurate using it... Its what I use to measure food plots, ponds, all those good things.

Aeration would certainley be better with the ciculation for rapid decay. Perhaps Rid-X might donate some product to increase the decay process as well.? Raking the bottom once or twice a month would really speed things along too. If you could do all this stuff together you may well be able to get rid of a couple feet of muck in one season. Or with the deepening of the edges, raking the muck could let it re-settle in the new areas, deepening the middle and altogether spreading/thinning the entire remaining muck layer to allow a more rapid decomosition?.?.

Just thinkin out loud!

Sauman, look on the User List and contact Ted Lea Forever Green and Sue Cruz. They are good resources regarding aeration systems, pumps, etc.

Thanks! Using that, the old pond at full pool was 1/2 ac. It'll be interesting to see when it's updated.

Thanks for the link. It showed the lake is 2.5 acres and we took a few measurements to confirm. The pond is in worse shape than any of us had guessed. The deepest was 4’ and the average depth is 3’. If the lake is going to support any real fish population we will have to make it deeper.

Unfortunately raising the water level is not an option. The lake is feed by ground water and the level of the lake is basically the water table. There is no stream feeding it and no dam. It does catch a lot of runoff but equalizes in 2-3 days.

So my next question. It has been mentioned that with aeration and circulation, muck can be reduced and there for making it deeper. How much success and I expect with good aeration?

Also I started doing calculations on how much sediment there is to remove. I think I found in another post indicating 3:1 bank slope is a good stable number to work with. What have you found that works well?

3:1 is USUALLY a safe slope. However, in a public area with small children, it shouldn't be any steeper than that. There was an entire Pond Boss mag issue that dealt with aeration and would be worth ordering. I'll see if I can find out which one. Anybody else have a quick answer to which issue?

Mar-Apr 2008

Thanks Theo.

I dug through some old issues of the mag and found an article about the successful renovation of a community pond that was loaded with silt. Lots of pros and cons in it. The article is by Ralph Manns in the January/February 2007 issue. Contact the Pond Boss office to order these back copies.

And don't forget Bill Cody's handy year-at-a-time summaries of what articles were in PBMag in the past.