Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Building a dam How do Latvians create ponds

That looks entirely too easy. I like the part about learning how much current is available away from the charger. I've never tried to learn that.

Speaking of dancing, my wife tried to help me return a neighbor's dog over an electric fence one time by holding the wire down. "Funky dancing" is pretty accurate, but what followed was hardly music...

BillSD,
I installed an AgriDrain system as my spillway when the pond was dug in 2009. I've had two Minnesota winters now and haven't noticed anything amiss. I've actually seen the Agridrain conducting the heat from 8' down up to the surface and melting the snow.
Your experience has me a little worried though. It looks like you had yours installed in open water, rather than buried within your dam. Is that correct?

Z

Yeah, it's not in the dam but in open water but I don't see any reason why yours could be considered worse. If it does what it's supposed to do then it's OK.
My spillway can be outside the dam because of it's great weight. Plastic AgriDrain has no significant weight and that's why it needs additional weight.

I have a plastic Agridrain flash-board unit on the inlet of my pond's outlet tube and it has been OK through 2 Indiana winters, but I do worry about the ice even though its nothing like MN. I used it to raise the pond level 1 foot. It is under a dock which at least cuts down on UV damage.

Now I've got vacation and I had possibility to visit it more.
Some grass carps and mirror carps are visible on the water surface. Just stay still and don't make much noise and you see them

And 2 herons eliminated (2 more to go).

So, winter is coming but I'm worried about low level of water...I hope to see some rainy days or even weeks. But I found out that perch have had successful spawn - found a lot of small ones near shoreline. I put ~10 of them last autumn and seems like they managed to do this. Hard to say how this will affect the life of other fish but that will be visible in future.



This weekend we almost made another spillway in another pond. As the days now are so short, we didn't finish it but only a little part is left. I hope that my relatives will finish it in a smaller team.
Next year we'll see how many crucian carps are there



A little picture of it.
I hope to get other pictures and then I'll post some pictures of the whole construction.

Your water level is looking like a lot of the ponds in this area.

Looks a lot like Texas.

Hi to all, i do appreciate the work you people are carrying out on the other hand helping nature. The ponds, construction, fencing all things are commendable, this is the thing which every individual should realize his or her duty towards nature. Good work guys keep it up.

You don't have such cold winters as we have here. Last winter ice was even 50 cm thick on the lake!!! That might make some trouble...

Seems like it would be a smart idea to empty the pond which has the newest spillway built. I could get some good fish (if there are any ) and all water would flow to the largest pond, raising its level.
I like this idea only some dirt work has to be done.

Lately they haven't been as cold, but I remember when I was a kid, we had winters where 60 cm of ice was common, and I think one winter there was almost 90 cm of ice on the lake.

Seems like this year winter will be late or there won't be serious winter at all. It isn't very cold - at least the temperature is higher than it should be in the end of November. No snow at all.
Pikes still live in the shoreline (they should be deeper) and every day new molehills appear.
Not bad actually

Grundulis -- very mild start to winter here as well. Today's forecast high is 62 F.

You all were talking about future plans so I wanted to tell more about my future plans.

At first you can take a look at a simple scheme.



You will see 3 ponds:

1) Let's call it Fish pond (it was the first fish pond; it doesn't mean there are no fish in others). Max. depth

~2m. Fish mostly crucian carp (the ancestor of well known goldfish). Otter has done great job here and it's hard to

say how much fish are left. Significant damage is done by beavers too (holes, trees under water and so on).
In the end of the pond is a concrete spillway. It doesn't allow to drain the pond.

PLANS: to rent an excavator and to dig a ditch around this spillway. After connecting Fish pond with Ditch (1),

draining will be possible using the next spillway (between Ditch (1) and Ditch (2)). This is going to happen this

year in April or May. Then we'll see what fish we got there.
Some trees and bushes should be removed but it's not a big deal.


2) Triangle pond. Smaller pond but also a very nice one Max. depth ~2m. Fish mostly crucian carps but not only.

There are also some carps, grass carps (one of them should be quite a big one - 4 or 5 kg) and some other fish.

Almost forgot, perch should be there in significant quantity.

PLANS: at first lots of trees and bushes must be removed. Certain area is already cleared (that map is a bit

outdated) but a lot of work is going to happen this and maybe next year. Ditch (3) now exists as a small brook but

in future it will be a real ditch. Blue circle shows the place where another spillway will be built.

3) The new pond. Look the first posts in this thread to find out more about it. NOw it's only 50% full because it

has two depth levels.

Summary:

The main idea is to create system of 3 ponds connected with ditches. Every pond should have possibility to be drained. If everything goes as planned, then everything could be finished in ~2014.

Approximate schedule:

2012 - improving Ditch (1). Draining Fish pond. Clearing as much area around Ditch (3) as possible;
2013, 2014 - Clearing the rest of area around Ditch (3). Some additional earth works for New pond. Improving Ditch

(3) and building spillway for Triangle pond.

That's all for now. I hope I'll be able to post some pictures from draining Fish pond.

I love it. Ambitious? Yes it is.

What is your annual rainfall/snow melt and how much run off from surrounding areas do you expect?

What will the small brook do for you?

When finished, how will you stock it?

BTW, is the brutal winter that Europe suffered ended in your area?

At first, this winter wasn't brutal at all. It started a month later than the previous one and the average temperature was higher.
Now we still got ice because last 2 weeks somehow weren't as warm as we expected but I hope that it will melt in ~2 weeks. Some sunny days could do a lot.

Average annual rainfall is ~634 mm per year but nobody here calculated possible water amount from rain/snow. Every idea was based on experience. Anyway, first 2 smallest ponds every spring are full. During very hot summer they dry a bit but it isn't that important. I have got no trouts
The largest pond is in a valley and it can get much from meadows around. Every spring/autumn that small brook provides extra water from first two ponds.
In the future this brook (believe me, it isn't a big one) will turn into a wide and deep ditch that will connect Triangle and New pond. Actually it will be be a part of a pond.

About stocking.
Actually none of them is empty. Open the first page and you'll find some pictures from a stocking last autumn (tench, carp, grass carp, some sturgeons - all that in the New pond). Ide is one of the species that certainly will be added this year. I have thought about zander too.
Triangle pond isn't big enough for serious stocking - maybe some carps could be put there.
Fish pond probably will be a pond for some predators. Maybe pike, maybe wels catfish. It has to be partly drained before to see how much fish are there. Predators should have something to eat

I have never heard of anyone in the US stocking sturgeon. Is that common in Latvia/Europe?

Stocking sturgeons is something new for us and such thing is going on only for some years. But even more fishkeepers think about getting some sturgeons.

As far as I know, they don't need much. They can easily live together with carps... Of course, they won't live in a tiny pond or in a swamp with no oxygen but, in general, many ponds can be suitable for sturgeons.
Mostly they are grown for eating. Many of them can be found in ponds for fee - you catch some fish, pay for them and take them home.

I added a video from one such fee pond (that lucky guy isn't me). Usually jigging isn't the right technique (better try corn or a shrimp on the hook) but this guy wanted to do it in a different way

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=gZB35Z4BBbE

All the ice is gone and I could say that annual problems have occured. What kind of problems? Birds, of course.
Yesterday I saw a heron and a nasty cormorant. Lets hope that my relative (he lives there all the time) will find some time to shoot them down. OK, a heron couldn't be that bad but that cormorant isn't an option for this pond.

2 beavers visited traps - too bad for them

That's the hard life of the pondkeeper...

Finally we managed to get ides! It wasn't easy to find any hatchery that would sell them but finally we got lucky.
Actually not much of them were sold - only 19 little ones (if 150-300g sized fish can be called a little one :D) and bigger mom (~1,5 kg) and dad (like a half of mom). This couple has a possibilty to spawn in the pond even this year.
Let's hope that these creatures will eliminate all those annoying minnows...

Some pics:

What are they?

IDE (Leuciscus idus).

Take a look here:

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=22011&Number=279004

As wikipedia says:

The ide (Leuciscus idus), also known as the orfe, is a freshwater fish of the family Cyprinidae found across northern Europe and Asia.

Also a video from youtube. Some German guy fishing these fish:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o5BrUkeYwHY

I'd like to see a full picture of the last fish if you have one. Interesting color pattern on it.

We didn't make much photos because of dark and they had to be released as fast as possible after ~200 km journey from hatchery.
But ide can be found with Google picture finder:

http://www.google.lv/search?q=Leuciscus+idus&um=1&hl=lv&safe=off&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla:lv:official&biw=1920&bih=924&ie=UTF-8&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=nEGzT6qzHqL-4QSe4PDcCQ

Some examples: