Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Pondering Curly leaf Pond weed

Here is a question I am wrestling with as far as forage and vegetation. I have a pretty serious infestation of curly leaf pond weed. Right now I probably have about 85% of the 3/4 acre pond with CLPW growing. My pond is also sensitive to periods of low rainfall. Last summer, it got fairly dry and the pond probably dropped two feet. Right now the pond is up full, lots of cover in the cattails and bulrushes, lots of cover in the pond with the CLPW. But then July and August will come along, the rains slack off and the pond begins to drop, reducing shoreline cover. At the same time CLPW enters into the phase where it typically dies back in the summer. Now I am in a situation where all the cover I once had is pretty much gone. All the forage is desperately trying to hide in the few spots where I built structure. I assume some of the forage got a little bit of size while they had cover but now probably only a lucky few survive. Any late season spawn probably has zero chance of survival. Of course, it is possible that rainfall continues to be adequate and I don't have the depth fluctuation I had last year and cattails will continue to expand in the shallows if I do nothing to stop them. So how do I gauge the effect of these cyclical changes in a management scenario regarding chemicals and GC? I am refining my goals based on what I read. I think what I want is to keep an area about 40 ft square clear of weeds via mechanical measures for a little swimming spot that will be used infrequently, and to have a nice healthy BG population, not necessarily lunkers but good size, good numbers, but not overpopulated, fun to catch and good in the pan. I think I might also open up a few lanes with the weed cutter so I have some spots where I have cover edges that I can exploit for fishing from the shore. Bass and CC are kind of secondary, they are there mostly to be predators. I have no idea what I will get from the 6 GC I have in there or how they will be affected by the cycle described above. I will just have to watch as it develops. Maybe I need to toss in some more brush so that the cover in the pond does not bounce between such extremes?

Perhaps if the pond continues to drop you could clear a beach area then spread a lot of sand over it which will minimize future weed growth without the use of grass carp. I am not an expert so someone correct me if I am wrong.

The areas where the pond got low and were exposed to cold weather are the only spots free of CLPW. The GC are already there and will prove to be too few, too many, or a reasonable number for what I want to happen. Anyway, to clarify, my question has more to do with the expected effects of such extreme variation of cover on the forage base. I already have 4 options to control CLPW: mechanical removal from isolated spots, GC, freezing of exposed pond bottom and chemicals should I choose to go that route in the future.

Hopefully others using grass carp for management of CLPW will provide testimony. New sand areas will soon be infested with aggressive growth of new CLPW due to distribution of the turions as the plants die back in summer. In my experience GC are not real fond of CLPW, but high numbers of them could provide some control early season. Once the CLPW forms the winter bud turions, GC eat a lot less of it. Consider using spot treatment or whole pond chemical treatments to get desired control of the CLPW.

I'd wait until the fall, then apply a low dose of Fluridone if the pond doesn't have flow thru water. That will kill any CLPW that sprouts from the turions that were set this summer.

Or, if you want to have some short cover in the pond over winter, apply the fluridone early next spring after ice-off, but that may not be possible if there is significant rainfall or snowmelt.

Part of the formula here is that when the pond drops, shoreline weeds also become unavailable to the GC. From what I can tell there is nothing BUT CLPW in there, although there could be other vegetation in limited amounts that I can't see. How all this affects the forage and the GC is a mystery to me as yet. Just trying to hear what more experienced pond owners think. I have NOT ruled out chemicals at all but probably will put it off this year, and maybe next. Spot treatment interests me though. I would assume some sort of granules that did not disperse throughout the pond? Or am I a fool to even consider letting the CLPW remain? I just hate to do something drastic, I'd rather think of pond management as turning the Titanic. Like someone else here said, beware the swing of the pendulum, slow small swings are better than wild swings.

More information - my weed razr arrived today, after assembling I took it down to the pond to start cutting and raking. My homemade cutter had been bringing up what I thought was only CLPW and FA. I knew it was just gliding over the tops of most of the weeds, hence the new cutter. I have now found out that the bulk of my weeds is not CLPW but Southern Naiad or Bushy Pondweed. When I find my camera I will post some pics, pretty sure that's what it is - looks very similar to Sago pondweed and Widgeon Grass, but pretty sure it is the SN. Not sure how this changes anything, it isn't a foreign invasive but it sure has taken over the pond along with the CLPW. Also still pulling up CLPW and FA but I'd say the bulk of the weeds are the new culprit.

Fishy your pond sounds similar to my one acre pond that I have had now for 20 years. Since I seldom use chemicals and I like vegetation I have seen my pond all over the place as high/low level water is the cause of a lot of changes. When the water level is high as it is now I don't see any bull rushes but when it is low they come out around the pond. I have planted eel grass that was doing well but died out when the water level was low and they never came back. As I became somewhat afraid of Curly Leaf Pond Weed then Coontail became dominate over clpw. As Coontail become dominate white wild lilies grew over the top of them and tamed them somewhat. That said my experience was 18 grass carp took out almost every vegetation in my pond in 4 years. So grass carp can be a good tool to use but it depends on the right amount of carp to the size of the pond and the time you allow all of this to take place. So it's all kinda complicated and nature will throw you a curve ball every time. But it's fun.

I put two dump trucks loads of sand for a small beach and 20 years later if I want a beach I just spray it with all vegetation killer and the weeds die and there is the beach.

I had a fishing pond in the early years and now have a nature pond and take photo's of what lives at a vegetated pond.

Really nice photographs John! We have been enjoying our new ecosystem too and I like trying to figure out how to manage it. Wish I had more ducks stick around. I let the grass all grow up in the summer and the Canadian Geese don't like walking through tall grass. I have 6 GC in there, don't think I'll add any more. I love catching big blue gill and hope I can figure out how to juggle all the needs and goals. Interesting to hear about your waves of vegetative dominance. If I can keep a small spot open to jump into in the heat of summer and have a few spots where I can fish the edges of weeds I'll be happy. Hopefully the 4 new GC I put in there have survived and 6 total GC won't be too many. Crazy rain here lately, 5 inches of rain this week has my pond running out the overflow in a steady stream.

I especially like the turtle picture.

Raw I call the turtle Jaws.

Fishy I am currently using 7 grass carp in my pond. I want some control on my vegetation but not too much. The vegetation battle I am watching now is between Spatterdock (a large upright leaf lily) that is very tough and a wild white lily. When I was hiking the mountains in Utah I saw Spatterdock in lakes at 10,000 feet. The wild white lily has always cowered just at the edges of the pond where the Spatterdock seemed to allow it to live. But starting 4 years ago the white lily started to appear sparsely here and there in the Spatterdock. It seems to be winning the battle of the lily's' even though is is still very unequal. The variation of the pond view with both lily's is more pleasing. And the white lily flowers can be quite pretty.

I'll try to be more "well done" next time:)

Isn't the next step rare?

John, how long have you been down to the 7 GC? Is it working as you would like it to? I've had 2 in for over a year, and 4 in for just a couple of months so I'm a ways off from knowing whether my number is good or not. Did you plant any of this vegetation (other than the eelgrass) or are they just showing up naturally?

Better than half baked:-)

Fishy I had the 18 GC for years when nearly every fish in the pond died from a winter kill. It took 4 years for the GC to denude the pond.The winter kill was appreciated because it is really hard to get rid of GC. Especially mine since they were old and in the 20 to 30 lb range. I had speared two of them but they were so big they got away and lived. They seem to tell the others of danger because they never again got close enough to spear, where before the spearing they would come to feed with the other fish making them a good target. So I would rather put in a few and watch the results for a year before adding any more. My pond was choked with Eurasian Milfoil when I put the 18 in and in the first year I could see parts of the milfoil starting to thin out and 4 years later it was all gone and has never returned which is amazing.

If I ever need GC, I will definitely start with just a couple. I have read many times that it takes a few years to see what will happen. It seems like starting with too many can result in beneficial plants being wiped out along with the weeds.

Fishy - I would advise against adding more GC - it's trying to one's patience allowing the "organic" vegetation management solution to work, but I feel 6 for a .75 ac BOW is sufficient. You don't want a pond denuded of vegetation which turns into a turbid mess then having to deal with GC removal, which by all accounts, is a difficult process.

If you are interested in constructing a beach, staple landscape fabric first and build a 12" ridge around the entire area. The fabric prevents vegetation from growing in your beach area, and the ridge keeps sand in place and prevents it from washing out. Think 12-24" of sand/gravel or whatever substrate feels best to your toes. Several accounts on PB forum which detail this process.

CLPW I have experience with - since it dies out pretty early I have never felt compelled to manage for it. However, I have treated some dense colonies of baby pondweed and coontail this Spring in areas around my dock and feeder with Aquathol Super K granules [based on expert direction from Kelly]. It worked amazingly well and I was astounded by it's prompt effectiveness, but it's pricier than regular Aquathol which the manufacturer states is very effective on CLPW. If you want to clear some areas, I think you could use the lower priced AQTL option and see similarly impressive results. I would advise against using Fluridone as it will indiscriminately nuke all vegetation in your pond, submergent and emergent - beneficial or invasive. Unless that's your goal and you have a runaway issue, I'd recommend allowing the GC to do their thing, or try spot treatment in areas with the cheaper Aquathol product.

TJ I filed the Aquathol information away as I need to clear the Coontail and Curly Leaf Pond Weed around my dock. The one area that needs clearing isn't being touched by the Grass Carp.

Also I appreciate the heads up on the Cannon SX-50 camera. Because of this camera I took a photo class where I run into an old school friend of the late 40's that was in the photo learning class also. Strange how things happen. Part of 6 degrees of separation perhaps.

I won't be adding any more GC for a while, hopefully all 4 I put in this year survived and I really do have 6 GC that are getting fat on all my vegetation. I have been thinking that 6-7 is the right number for a slow gnaw. Could you briefly describe how you are spot treating with the Aquathol-K? I assume you are using some sort of hand spreader. I'd like to treat my dock area and maybe some other small areas where I can use crankbaits and other lures to thin some bass. To some extent the pond razor will do this but it is good to have more than 1 tool. I don't want to get rid of ALL vegetation at this point.

Hey guys, I want to post this from Scott's PM enlightening me on the benefit of partial fluridone treatments for issues like Fishy's. Scott didn't want to correct me on the forum - he's that kind of guy! I have used fluridone before but didn't realize dosage could be alerted to be a selective herbicide - I always believed it to be a indiscriminate treatment. Since I'm learning on the forum every time I log in just like we all are, I never mind a nudge in the right direction - and this information is too valuable not to share:

"TJ, you can kill CLPW with a 10 PPB dose and it won't affect any other plants in the pond with the exception of Eurasian WaterMilfoil. wink

That's one of the good things about Fluridone. Once you figure out what dosage is lethal to what plant you can taylor the dose and not kill everything (unless it's duckweed/Watermeal/cattails or other hard to kill plants)."

John the AQSK nuked my pondweed and coontail into oblivion in under a week - it was pretty amazing. You can spot treat in areas very effectively.

I loved those photos you posted - you have a real knack for photography. Thank you for sharing.

I broadcast minute amounts in areas where coontail and baby pondweed were present just to see the effects. The coontail was obliterated in 3 days without a trace - just some black stems floating around. The pondweed required about a week, but again, it was entirely knocked out. Apply product shallow as it will work outward towards the depths. I learned a little went a long way.

Note about Aquathol K super granules. Applied to pondweed in summer (July) it is not fast acting, took about 2 weeks to have an effect. Of course the pond weed is very thick at the height of summer and probably much harder to kill. I used about 1 pound to clear 25 ft circle around my dock. Put another 4 pounds out to try and enlarge the circle a bit. I think I may have a small swimming hole though by mid August! Work you blasted Grass Carp!

The CLPW will die on it's own by mid august.......