Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Weekly Observations

No thermocline forming in your pond. Optimum growth period for the fish with those water qualities.

Hey Doc Dave; this is textbook quality stuff.

Hey DD -- Dwight and I might just have a little connection here. Stay tuned for the next issue of Pond Boss magazine and Bremer Pond II. Dwight's a worker bee. If you hadn't already spilled the beans about the quality of his work, I would have been trying to recruit him back to grad school. Wink.

No offense to DD and Doc Dave, but textbooks and I have never had much in common.

We finally got some rain during the last 36 hours. The rain along with the winds that came with it caused at least some of the reduction in clarity this week. Temperatures and D.O. have converged top to bottom due to the winds and cloud cover for the same period.

Weekly Update

Dwight do you know the temp of the rain ? If colder than the surface it will sink carrying its increased DO down with it. Thus moving everything toward equilibrium but possibly reducing visibility.

Rain temperature? Air temperature plus or minus 5 degrees?

Interesting question... How close to the air temp does the rain temp end up being when it hits the water?

I think the answer to that is "it depends". Depending on how high in the clouds the rain originates, it's temperature could be close to air temp down to below freezing (hail). A friend has pics from South Dakota a few weeks ago of hail that was baseball sized. The hail stuck around on the ground for almost 2 hours before it all melted, even with the rain that accompanied it. The air temp was in the high 80's before the storm.

I suppose now I will need to build a falling rain temperature monitor that takes continuous readings with per minute averages sampled at a distance of 1 inch above the pond water surface.

I can visualize such a device.

No you can just send Tan out in the rain to check on the dock and when he comes back to the door check the water on his fur.

I haven't told anyone, but Tan likes to swim in the pond.

A cat that likes to swim in the pond... WOW!

Our cat Conan (that passed away a couple of years ago) loved water. I had an indoor fountain in my office. One day while working in my office I heard a strange noise and peered around the file cabinets only to see Conan sitting in the bottom pool of the fountain and batting at the water as it cascaded down the fountain. He was all wet as was the wall behind the fountain. The indoor fountain became an outdoor fountain the next day.

I was barraged by Sweat Bees while taking my D.O. ETC. readings this afternoon. I probably killed 50 of the little beestards in that ½ hour period. I have never seen so many out here. There are always a few, but this is new to me! If you swat one dead and toss it in the water BG are ready an willing to cleanup the mess. I hope they don't get stomach aches.

Updated Weekly

Wow look at the top DO pattern and its correlation with your plankton bloom's phasing (clarity). Another neat aspect of the graph. Thanks Dwight.

This is very interesting stuff Dwight... Thanks for continuing to share it.

It looks like water temperatures are on the down slope for this year.

Updated Weekly

Updated Weekly

Not much change this week though the bottom D.O is lower. I am supposing that this is caused by aquatic plants that are dying off and decomposing at or near the bottom.

Gone fishin' up nort until next D.O. reading day!

Looks like another smaller spike in plankton bloom to me in a few days as reflected by the reduction in clarity curve and temps.

You could be right. I sample two reservoirs in Central Iowa weekly and in the last 2 weeks there has been a large shift in algae community composition from being dominated by green algaes to mostly diatoms. The cool weather could have also caused the same change in Bremer pond. This shift in algae usually causes a noticeable color change in the water to more of a brown appearance. I wonder if Dwight observed this?

I can't help but look at the graph and wonder when Dwight will get a truckload of trout to feed Darlene.

So THAT'S why the water changes from green to brownish in the Fall!!! Gotta file that away for next year.

That is interesting. As I track the water temps on my lake I have noticed that a fluctuation in water temp, even down lower, seems to make for less clarity, more types of algae. I always assumed in the past it was just the warm/hotter water would cause more algae, but that is not the case is it?

There are many types of plankton and algae, Some are cooler water varieties. Dwight has an obvious pattern of peaks and troughs in plankton production during the warm water period that are positively related to temp spikes and causing O2 to go up.

Updated Weekly

While I was out there I placed the geese-repeller in the center of the pond.

Thanks for buying the repeller on the auction, Dwight. Let us know how it works.

Tell Gail once more how glad we were to meet her at PBIII. It was our pleasure!!