Pond Boss Forums AERATION Should I aerate? Duckweed and Coontail mess

Have a 5 acre lake with a bad DW, WM, coontail and algae problem. Lake is 12' deep. Due to costs, we have to chose to either aerate first of use sonar first? Would like to use the pond for swimming and fishing. It has been unkept for 10-15 years. It has decent size BG, average BC and small LMB. I was told that since we have a lot of bullfrogs, tadpoles, and small bass(3" to no greater than 10"), we have probably had some fish kills as there is plenty of food for large bass. I am getting conflicting opinions on which way to start would like to know your ideas

If it was mine, I'd go with the aeration first, and spot treat some areas this year with a non-fluridone product. If you nuke the whole pond with Sonar, you might lose all the fish due to all the plants dying at once, and decomposing. Fluridone isn't the best thing to use for spot treating....

Diquat does wonders on spot treatment duckweed.

I have heard very good things about Diquat on duckweed, however I have no experience using it personally. I agree with esshup the decomposing plants may cause an oxygen depletion.

Here is my recommendation for a very good system for a 5 acre lake:

http://www.livingwateraeration.com/1hpgarovapoa.html

By the way Sonar is a fantastic product! However, I would highly recommend only using it in a pond that has aeration.

Duckweed is rearing it's ugly head in my pond and I've been zapping it with a mix of Reward and Cutrine (usually Algae mixed in with the DW) plus a surfactant. So far, it's been quite effective.