Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations a year of ponds

It was a serendipitous chain of events that contributed to the one-acre country pond and its contents. A neighbor was having an existing pond cleaned out and enlarged. The water from that pond would drain across our bit of land into a low hollow that was a pond many decades ago but had been merely a wet area the 10 years we’ve been on it. The excavation contractor called to alert me to the drainage but also gave me an estimate about digging out the low spot and creating a pond for us. It sounded good, we went for it and it worked out ok.

The watershed is 20 acres and the finished pond filled up quickly from the drainage from the neighbor’s emptied pond and later rains. The water was stained the color of nestle’s quik, but there was life, ripples and splashes from fish and turtles rising to the surface early on, lots of bugs, and deer and raccoons left sign. And frogs, many, many frogs of all sizes, a cacaphony of song, at times a tintinitic shriek.

The pondbuilder told me there were shad in the neighbor’s water, that when he breached the dam and that pond emptied, he could see them. The neighbor verified that an acquaintance had emptied a minnow bucket in the pond, and without any predators to control them, the shad took off.

There is a spring feeding the pond at the low end. The pondbuilder uncovered it early in the construction. Luckily, it is at the shallow end with little more than 5 feet of water above it. It ran hard at first, like the cork had been loosened from a bottle of cordon rouge. It slowed down after some weeks, but continued to run after the excavation was finished and contributed to the steady rise in water level. The first rain of the year filled the pond to overflowing, and full it remained with just some fluctuation. It dropped some, maybe as much as 10 inches over several weeks; then the next rain would fill it right back up.

The pond was stocked in April with cats, bluegills, redears, fatheads and crawdads. The day the pond was stocked, I walked down through the weeds to the bottom of the dam for the first time and saw two major streams of water flowing from under the dam. Damn. (apologies to ‘Animals’ for the harsh language)

One catfish and a scoop of fatheads came back to the city and went into the backyard ornamental pond so I could watch them grow and/or reproduce.

That’s the thumbnail history.

Observations.

The fatheads in our backyard ornamental pond (1500 gallons) took off but not exponentially. There are fatheads everywhere but they haven’t overpopulated. Several hundred hide in the plants and in the deep areas. Sizes run the spectrum and they appear healthy. I think there should be many more from even a single successful spawn. There is plenty of habitat, lily pads, anacharis, rock and crevises for hiding places. So, what might be holding them back? Something eating the eggs is my first guess. The catfish goes everywhere and he’s big enough to make a difference. There are around 30 goldfish. If they eat eggs, they could be guilty as well. The goldfish haven’t been as prolific this year either. There are approximately 30 babies of varying sizes and each a different color configuration reflecting the diversity of parentage from gifted, fancy fish. Last year there were nearly a hundred babies, all the same color from only one breeding pair. Now that the catfish in the ornamental pond has reached some size, about a pound, it may be controlling the fish population, though I haven’t witnessed it catching anything. The catfish doesn’t act like he cares about them. I wonder if during the winter when the goldfish go dormant, whether catfish won’t be feeding at will on the torpid biomass. If so, next spring, Mr. Whiskers will go back in a bucket for the trip to the country pond so the fatheads can recover and take off and provide a steady source for the country pond.

It is interesting to see the fatheads and goldfish ‘flash’ on the bottom. They rub themselves along the bottom in a quick, darting motion that is visible as a 'flash.'

I walked behind the country pond last week for the first time since early summer. It isn’t easy getting to the backside of the dam. The weeds are dense and the terrain is rugged. That’s where all the sludge from the wet area was pushed. The reward was worth it; hot damn (sorry, Animals) the leaks have stopped! There was a bloom of filamentous algae over the summer that collected against the face of the dam. FA is my friend if it stopped the leaks. The algae disappeared late in the summer or early fall.

Years ago I planted a vineyard. It was the midwestern drought of 1987-88, an el niño year during which high pressure after high pressure marched across the mid-section of the country driving all traces of precipitation away and not a speck of rain stirred the dust. I had to pay someone with a water truck to drive through and water the plants. Believe me, I know how precious water is and I feel for you folks who haven’t gotten enough to fill your new ponds. Northeastern Kansas has been blessed with abundant rainfall this year. There has been so much overflow from this little lagoon, some of my fish may have washed over the spillway and down to Dudley’s place in St. Mary Parish. If you see Nemo, Dudley, pass along my regards.

I finally saw a shad close up last week, a floater next to shore where we feed the cats. It was 4.5 inches long, silvery, with a deep, flat body and forked tail. It didn’t have any marks on it to indicate why it died. I looked along the lee shore for more dead shad but there were none. The dead one may have been a fluke, pardon the pun.

Someone put four bass in the pond for me last fall. (He had good intentions, told me after the fact, and at least it wasn’t crappie or mudcats.) The bass have spawned. Three to four inch bass cruise the shoreline and I don’t see any fatheads. Without cover, they may have been decimated. After plants get established, I’ll try again with the fatheads, seining them from the backyard ornamental pond as it overpopulates. Since there are young bass cruising, stocking more bass may not be necessary. I’ll let that go for awhile and see what happens. The initial stocking of 700 assorted bream will have to be enough to support the new bass babies as they grow until the fatheads overpopulate the ornamental pond. Thoughts anyone?

A tree fell over into the water after a storm. Cattails volunteered around the shallow shoreline (warning-warning will robinson, aliens taking root!) and I transplanted two lilies from the backyard pond to the country pond. Beyond that, there isn’t much cover. This winter, should the surface freeze thick enough, I will drag onto the ice seven chimney tiles, 40 weathered cement blocks and two 22 inch tires arranged into a reef on the southeast side. When the ice melts the channel cats will have some structure to spawn in and the bottom will no longer be a featureless basin. I haven’t decided yet about sinking cedar or hedge trees.

The color/clarity of the water evolved from Nestle’sQuik to greenish clear. Ground cover growing over the wounded areas from the excavation helped to control runoff. The spring feeding the pond contributes to the clarity also. The water was tested last spring. The results didn’t mean much to me, but it sounded good; ph 7.5-7.95, nitrate 15.4 mg NO3/L, hardness 0.1548mg CaCO2/L, turb 28-38 JTU.

Late this summer the water quality received a seal of approval from several housemates of my college-age daughter who all drove out for a swim to celebrate a birthday. One gal said she’d never been in water so sweet. A middle-age dude takes compliments from college girls where he can get them.

The biggest joy of pond ownership so far, besides just sitting and gazing at it, is swimming. Paddling around the pond at eye level with the odonata skimming along the surface is a cool perspective, and not just because of the thermocline. There is a lot of life in the 2 feet just above the surface. It’s bugs mostly, but they are interesting, colorful and dramatic. They put on aerial displays, mating, predating, dying, on the wing.

Swimming in the pond is different than in a pool in a couple of ways. Pool water is treated, obviously, and has that quality about it; smelly, bathing in processed, astringent filth. Pond water is soft, and it may be my imagination, but it feels slippery, and more bouyant. Then, there is the taste. I’m not taking in great quaffs of untreated pondwater. My affair with this tank doesn’t go that far. But one does taste droplets while swimming, and the squirm factor is less with the pond than a public pool where grossout is one fecal accident away.

Projects for next year include a sand beach so college girls don’t get muddy toes, a dock to launch a small boat from, some stonework around the spillway to control erosion and help to hold in the fish, and more plants, water iris and anacharis.

It’s been a good year; interesting, informative, busy. Thanks, PondBoss Mag and people, for access to so much information, and to forum participants for sharing experience and expertise. This website, a competent pond builder, and plenty of rain and luck, have taken a lot of trial and error out of pond ownership and make me look like a pond management genius.

Nice story. You are "good with words".

1. Keep a real close watch on the cattails. BE diligent in pulling them. They can quickly get out of control. I recommend keeping them confined to one small area or repladce them with iris which will be much easier to manage. The larger the cattail mass becomes the more work it will be to control them. It becomes exponential.

2. The value for hardness is off. Decimal is in wrong spot.

3. I do not recommend introducing Anacharis (Elodea) into the big pond. Use another plant. Elodea will cause you lots of weed infestations and can choke the open water to a point swimming is almost impossible. Dense beds of Elodea also result in thick layers of black muck below the plant beds or masses.

4. Dead shad could have been a "fluke" or the largest bass ate many of the others as they were slowly dying.

5. Currently with only a few large bass in the pond the shad and maybe bgill may get ahead of the predators. Keep a watch on the ratio of forage to predator.

Thanks for the advise, Bill.

No Anacharis (Elodea).

Something is eating on the cattail, but I'll grub it out and plant some iris.

Thanks, Joe. You have captured not only the objectively good things about a pond, but also the sheer joy of being around one. An additional source of pleasure to me is the moodiness of my pond. In the winter, when the skies are dark at noon, the pond is sullen and looks like molten lead. In the quiet summer twilights, it seems to glow with peace and even appears as if it were brighter than the sky. I could go on, but all of you know what I am saying.

My wife loves all the pond's faces except one. She keeps after me to keep it from turning pea-soup green in the summer. I tell her that I agree with her (always a safe thing to do except on the "Isn't my butt getting big?" type of questions). I assure her that I will keep adding bags of those high-phosphate crystals to see if they will bleach the color out. Heh-heh!

Someday, she is going to find out, but someday is soon enough for me.
Lowdown Lou

Lou,

I'm glad I wasn't about to take a drink when I read your comment about butts.
Its been a couple of minutes and I'm still laughing over that one.

Russ

Wow Joe , it would have taken me a week to type your great pond story. sounds like you love the pond just like we all love ours , all the girls at my pond are a little young to Google at , but it sure is fun to here them giggle and laugh while paddaling and fishing in the rubber inflatable boat . you can't beat just sitting on the dock with your favorite beverage and forgetting the outside world. were the lucky ones . POND OWNERS !