Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Help Intake Bay for 1 acre pond (skimming bay)

One acre pond ended up being built on rock that fortunately makes for a more naturally clear pond, which is good since I promised my wife a clean, recreational pond when she wanted a pool.
It’s half full 6mon after being built with another 10’ to go. Organic debris, clay, etc causing muck build up from early run off, banks, and dam is being mostly mitigated with chemicals. Nice, pretty clear pond so far.

With Fall approaching and having cleared three acres of woods to build the pond, there’s going to inevitably be a lot of leaves falling and blowing from the neighboring woods and trees into the pond, which may be quite challenging in helping keep the pond clear. I think I’ve convinced myself that the best way to keep the pond clean from a surplus of leaves falling and blowing from Sep-Nov is going to be a method of regular skimming. Manual skimming a whole acre pond however is impractical/impossible. From research I’ve discovered where an INTAKE BAY can be used. It uses a bay-like rock construction to help trap floating debris that is pulled into the bay by a pump that creates current to the bay and through ideally aquablox that promotes the water flow.

The principle seems easy enough but I haven’t yet figured out the pump size and bay configuration that will work to be strong enough to pull debris in with possible competition with aeration but not suck curious fish into the pump. Help?

I know nothing of intake bays, but it sounds like a cool idea. My pond is at the edge of my woods and leaves are an issue as well. My saving grace is my pond is tiny, but my leaf management plan could be upscaled. In the fall, I run a bag on my zero turn and regularly collect leaves. I have found ground leaves blowing account for the majority of the leaves that end up on my pond. For the leaves that end up on my pond, they typically float for 2-3 days. With this happening, my over night aeration tends to push those leaves to the pond edge where I can walk around the pond and easily net out the leaves. If you had an aeration system expansive enough that the ripples reach the pond edges, this would be doable as well. But walking the perimeter of a 3ac pond 2+ times per week is a lot different than a quarter ac or less in my instance.

Thanks for the blowing leaf info. I do have a leaf sweeper so I’ll make sure to employ that technique regularly. I was thinking of putting up a low garden fence just inside the perimeter of the wood line to help minimize blowing leaves but my guess is there’s a natural fence with the underbrush and my issue will be what falls free of the wood line.

On any project like that, you need to know where the wind is most likely to push the floating leaves at the time of leaf drop.

I would throw some objects that barely float into your pond when the leaves start falling. Observe where they end up on the shoreline. Do that for a few days, and then hopefully you will determine the best location for any leaf skimming bay.

Why not put up a short 18" all or so temporary snow fence to catch the leaves that blow towards the pond? Easy to step over, although not aesthetically pleasing. Suck or blow the leaves off of the fence to an area where they can be burned away from the pond.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure!

That is a good idea from esshup.

I have considered some trees "close" to my ponds and then having a few strips of tallgrass prairie to intercept the leaves. I don't see any way for leaves to traverse that stuff since it has a variable height top.

We have big bluestem, little bluestem, and switch grass for our tall grasses and many species of understory grasses. I bet you could find a seed blend mixture that would do well in your location.