Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Re-working rock ledge

Hello Folks. Good to be here as a new member. Grew up with a pond and also have a 1/4 to a 1/3 acre pond for 15 years now. Hard Clay where I’m at. When we built I had a friend come grade out our site with a dozer before planting grass. I think he worked one 1/4 of the corner near the pond too much and sunk the rock ledge/side of pond. Since my overflow has lifted and this summer I plan to rework that whole corner with my tractor as well as fix the overflow and add more rock around the pond as over the years I have had a lot of spots fall into the pond. As I am doing this. Does anyone know if I can add some sort of crushed stone around the entire rock ledge before I add new rock? My thoughts are maybe the smaller stone will make its way down around the existing rock and prevent as many weeds for us to battle.. thoughts? Is this a good idea and if so what type of stone should I use to accomplish this? Thanks!!

I thought about adding some pea gravel in between my larger rocks around the pond. Just make sure it isn’t crushed limestone….that’ll certainly change the PH of the water and maybe lead to additional issues to deal with

You don't want to fill in all the nooks n crannies as this is survival habitat for fry through advanced fingerlings of many species.
As for the limestone, it depends on your pH and total hardness. In many cases limestone can be a big benefit.

Here is an old thread about rock lining a pond. It might have some ideas and has some links to other threads.

Rock lining a pond

In our area with naturally acidic soils, using crushed limestone mostly tends to be helpful because our ponds need limestone for Ph neutralization anyway. I used various sizes of crushed limestone rock in all my ponds to varying degrees for various purposes.

Personally I would not worry about filling gaps of current larger rocks. Like Snipe said, good habitat for various critters and fish. I would just add any additional adjacent to or in different areas as an addition rather than a topdress of current rocks. As far as weeds, any short term benefit will be short lived. Eventually silt covers up everything and weeds will grow anyway. It might help a year or two, if any.