Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat How to anchor trees in a new pond

I have numerous large trees together in a heap in the bottom of a new (dry) pond. What is the best way to anchor the structure down so they will not lift off the bottom? Will earth anchor or fence posts pull out when the pond fills? Terry

Terry, if the trees are large they should stay down especially if they are hardwoods. I had my pond built last year and took a number of the trees and put them in and they've never lifted. Nothing holding them down. One has branches that stick out of the water and they've never moved. Good luck filling up!

BMorris

When building my pond, we removed two large honey locust trees and put them in one corner of the lake. As these trees have large thorns, I didn`t want them to move! I used old cable from a grain leg that had been tornadoed! This was wrapped around the trees and anchored to four holes filled with quickrete. The trees have not moved.

Bill, thanks to your reply about the trees in the pond. I have been worrying lately that I went to alot of extra work putting all the removed trees back in the lake and I was having visions of them all floating to the surface. Why haven't yours come to the surface? Wood floats. Did they have a large root ball on them? The types of trees were oak, locust, hickory, and cottonwood. Are you sure about this? I am really getting nervous because can you imagine the mess trying to get that all cleaned up after they are floating? It would be easy right now with a dozer. Thanks again, Terry

Terry, I wouldn't leave the trees in but for a different reason. I put a huge pile of fresh green oak trees in the bottom of my new 1.5 acre stock tank for fish habitat. It rained, the tanin came out of the oaks, colored the water black and was absolutely lethal. Cows wouldn't drink it and wildlife wouldn't go near it. I tried stocking it and everything was dead within 30 minutes. I tried using huge amounts of chlorine to kill it and talked to a lot of "experts" but nobody had an answer. Tanin is used to cure pelts and is measured in parts per million. Serious stuff. Finally, I bought a pump and pumped until the pump threw a rod. Luckily, Texas summer took care of the remainder of the water. You can test wood by cutting a green piece, putting it in a bucket of rain water or other non chlorinated water and wait a week or so for the results. Put a couple of minnows in for a test. Just hope that it doesn't rain while you are testing. I lost the first year of use on my new pride and joy.

Dave, that's got me curious. Oaks are what are in my pond and my water never did that and fish have grown like crazy. Experts couldn't tell you why it happened? I know that a lot of the power plant lakes in Texas are full of oaks. Couldn't have been something else that caused it? I will be interested to see more responses to this one.

BMorris

Bill, In my case, it was definitely the oaks. They had been down and in the bowl about 2 weeks when the rain hit. The water was so black that visibility was less than 2 inches. I called the NRCS, the County Agent, the State Fisheries guys at Fort Worth, and Texas A&M. A&M wouldn't talk to me. Nobody with a college education had ever heard of the problem. However, some of the local dozer operators knew about it. They had made the mistake before. I tried to fix it myself. I got a jar of it and put a little bleach in it. It cleared immediately. So, I went to a swimming pool supply place and got 10 pounds of chlorine. They told me that it would clear 2 Olympic size swimming pools. That was a lot more water than I had in the pond. However, it didn't do much good. Then I bought 25 pounds. Again almost no effect. Next, I bought 75 pounds. That turned it the color of tea but still killed some fish that I experimented with. At that time, I started pumping. I am told that flooded, standing timber is not a problem and that dried oak is not a problem. I did test it by putting some in a bucket of water. It turned black and I feel proved the problem. I believe my problem was caused by the amount of fresh green oak relative to the size of the pond. It wouldn't have affected a 100 acre lake. Also, had the rain held off for a month, I probably wouldn't have had a problem. Try it. Cut a fresh piece and put it in a bucket of pure water and see what happens. Or put a green oak log in the mud by the side of your pond. Come back in a couple of weeks and move the log. You should see a lot of black gunk under it. Scoop it up, put it in a bucket and add a couple of minnows. They probably won't last long.

Dave, that is great information and I will test the oaks ASAP and hope for the best. Questions: Did you have the water chemically analyzed to see if the problem was indeed tanin? Do you think that maybe the chlorine contibuted to killing the fish after you began putting it in? Did you have any deer hides to cure? What do the folks from A&M know anyway-if you want quality information consult from a reputable school such as the University of Iowa or Iowa State! Thaks again and I will let you know the results. Terry

Mr. Duffie might take offense to the A&M comment. I suppose if the oaks have sufficient time to dry somewhat that the tanin is not a problem. Don't know why it didn't affect my pond. We had water over most of the oaks within 2 weeks of completing the pond.

BMorris

Terry,
I didn't have the water tested. I should have but spent more time trying to fix things. A more analytical approach might have paid off but all of the local guys said the water was ruined for years.

Bill, Maybe East Texas oaks don't have as much tanin as west Texas oaks. Mine are mostly scrub oaks with some blackjack. Or maybe I had more oaks relative to the amount of water.

Dave

Dave, I put a branch from an oak into a bucket of clear pond water and two days later it was black. I didn't check to see if fish could live in it. I am going to get all my Oaks out of my pond even though they will probably not be under water until at least a year. Thanks for the tip. Terry

Terry, In a year you would probably be ok. But why take a chance? You might get a couple of inches tomorrow. Thats what happened to me. Good luck.

Terry and others:

I read about this problem awhile back but I don't remember where (maybe the old board before it got hacked?). Pretty much everything Dave is saying is accurate. The main problem is putting in too much green wood at one time for the amount of water you have. Any green wood can cause this problem and there were even warnings about putting in too many christmas trees in one year. Dry wood should be OK because as the trees dry the tanins evaporate along with the water, alcohol and other liquids in the wood. I also remember it mentioning the testing that Dave is talking about as the only way to know if the wood is dry enough that you don't have to worry about it. If the water doesn't discolor noticably you should be fine - you shouldn't have to worry about actually putting some fish in the sample, just watch the color. If you aren't sure, get some pH strips and test the pH in the water sample and check that against the pH your local experts say you should have. If I remember right, the tanins throw the pH way off so you should be able to have a more scientific reassurance if you want to go that way.

This also applies to adding wood later on. I have been putting in some christmas trees each winter, but I try to limit it to about 10 or less average sized trees per acre per year. You might get away with more, but as Dave has testified, I wouldn't push it - it's basically irreversible if the water turns tanic. I've also pulled lots of old dry wood into the shallows in the summers and I don't worry much about that since it has always been really really dry wood.

Hope this helps.

What a great exchange. I've been away from this board too long. You guys are great. Here's some thoughts about oaks, tannins, green wood, etc.
Tannins leach into water. Tannins are acids. If your water has no buffering capacity, pH changes dramatically. For example, where Dave's ponds are, the soils are rocky, sandy loam, with red clay underneath. No buffering capacity. Look at it this way, tannins are similar to indigestion. Rolaids solve the indigestion. Acids, even mild ones like tannic acid, can wreak havoc in water that isn't buffered. But, add a few rolaids to acidic water, and the problem dissolves. (please forgive the pun). So, if you want to use green oaks, have your water tested for buffering capacity. Check pH. A pH of 7 is neutral. Lower than 7, water is acidic, higher than 7 is basic. Look at calcium carbonate, or lime, levels. If you have levels high in lime, green oaks cause less problems, because lime buffers acid. If lime levels are low (less than100ppm), plan to add lime to your pond, preferably before it fills.
Here's the bottom line....aglime "kills" tannic acid, renders it harmless. So, I would be tempted to treat the water rather than remove the trees.

Bob, what unbeleivably great information. Where the heck were you 4 weeks ago. I have spent numerous hours pulling the oaks out. Anyway thanks for the knowledge and it still may come in very usefull. Thanks, Terry

Post pictures of your pond project so we can all see how it turned out in the end.

Terry I suppose it could always depend on the size and type of tree, but I recently sunk some cedar trees in my pond and anchored them down with 2-6 cinder blocks depending on the size of the tree. So far so good.

Guys a 2002 post

This is great, where did we find this post hanging out?

I had more hair...but I didnt have a pond!

Just read this reply. I was planning on building minnow cribs out of fresh cut trees. The ones that look like a log cabin type with no roof and center loaded with branches. Only 2-3 of them maybe 6x6x6. Yay or nay on this for a 2 acre pond after a renovation and a .25 full

buck-man,
I built a similar one out of old pallets (4'x 4'x 4') and loaded it with cedar tree saplings and branches...I read where it was advantageous to get it up off the bottom of the pond a couple of feet, as the fish have the opportunity to swim and hide beneath it. So I built 2' rail legs on it. I left the ends open horizontally before loading it up with cedars and sinking in ~12' of water. It was buoyant and floated until I could get it weighted down enough to be waterlogged. If you are at .25 full pool, now ' s the time to do it. It will be much easier to handle in shallow water.

I am planning on putting in some Ash tree stumps upside down in the bottom of my new pond, would I need to anchor them or will they stay put?

You shouldn't need to anchor big stumps. I moved about ten stumps left over from building one of my other ponds into my well-established pond. They are in 4-6 feet of water. That was over three years ago. They haven't moved one bit, nor do they show any deterioration. They've made great fish magnets.

Like with Catmandoo well over 90% of the large trees I have placed did not need anchoring. I have even pushed piles up when clearing land in bottom of ponds only to have just a small amount of floaters.