Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants 4 weeks after tiliapia

Loop,

Great shots showing BF and AF.

As you may know the algae actually grows on the bottom and what you see on top is stuff released from the bottom. Your Tilapia have been working their magic on that bottom stuff the entire time and now have it to where no "stuff" is available to come to the top.

It just takes time, but they do pay off.

That looks like a miracle to me!

Wow. I always was a believer, but that is great. Wish I could get
them here is GA. Maybe I can get some for a science project.

Wish I could get the tilapia too but can't. I took some pictures today of how my rope dragging process works. I have a pond that is long and thin running north/south. The north end has the best bank access so whenever we get a south wind all my DW and FA is blown to the north bay and I can use the method I've descibed above to remove most of the floating stuff. I don't have a problem with rooted weeds. First picture is before I started, note about 80% water is covered.


Next picture is of the drag in process, you can't see the rope but you can see how it is gathering up the weeds.


Next picture is from same vantage point after the operation which was two drags of the rope. It took me and my oldest daughter 1 hour 20 minutes to complete two drags.


This next picture is the after shot from the other end of bay taken from my bridge so you get a better look at what's left. A third drag would have removed half of what's still there.


The pics show the northern most 120 feet of my pond which is 550 feet long total. The rest of the pond is completely clean of everything because the wind blew it all into the section pictured. I know that you pros out there that manage ponds for others can't take the time for this type approach but for the guy doing it himself I think it beats chemicals. I would have spent who knows how much money and at least as much time if not more spraying and would have been creating lots of dead vegetations and chemicals in the pond. This way I got some excercise and at least have it under control. I will have to do this every two or three weeks in July and August do keep it controlled to this degree.

Obviously as I wrote in an article for my state aquaculture newsletter here is a niche market someone should exploit. (producing talapia for recreational pond meisters to eat up algae).And the kicker is talapia are easy to produce and growout!

People are growing them out for food fish at ridiculously low prices (talapia are considered a lower value fish vs. other species) but not for this purpose!

Wish I had the indoor facilities!

Looptech,

Any possiblity I could use your pics for my next aquaculture newsletter? If you agree I would need your name though. Could you email me at jjbaird@ligtel.com ?

Sorry I couldn't pay you. I do the newsletter for free and the newsletter is also free.

I would be happy for you to use them.. Maybe you could send me a copy of your newletter..I sent you and Email

Looptech,

Got your email. Thanks. I'll let you know when the newsletter is online.

I've been working to perfect my DW removal. I was using a floating rope which I showed worked pretty good above. I found that if I had lots of DW it would eventually be too much for rope to hang on to. So I invented what I'll call a prickly rope. Here is picture of beginning to stretch it across pond by tying to dock. I was working alone.

Here is picture after I started dragging rope.

Here is picture after having cleaned 1/2 of pond and begin working on the rest.

After doing this twice to get each half of pond she's cleaned up. Worked pretty good but still room for improvement.

bz -- could I have permission to use your pictures for a class (fisheries management)? It's a nice example of a mechnical control program.

bz, very nice. An engineers' wheels in the brain are always turning. Quite an option to Sonar in a smaller pond. I am impressed.

I am also impressed. Is it totally DW and no WM? reason for asking was that I couldnt find anything that would gather WM.. I know I read somewhere where you purchased your floating rope but could you refresh my memory? Thanks

How do you get it out of the pond once it is gathered up on the edge?

BZ, I love it!

Dave W., yes you may use the pictures for anything you like.
The rope is nothing more than floating Poly rope that I bought at Home Depot I think, 100 feet for about $6. I put 1000 nylon cable ties on the rope, $15. Took me 4 hours. After I trap all the DW at the edge of the pond I scoop it out with a long handled net. Took my about 2 hours to do the whole pond by myself. Goes twice as fast if you have help. Still involves some work. Trialsguy, we don't have WM in Minnesota. Don't think it would work with WM since there are no hanging roots like DW. This is a viable method for a small pond but will work with a larger pond if you have a small bay that the DW can blow into when the wind it right. My pond is 1/2 acre but the section you see in the pics is only about 1/4 of the whole thing and about 120 feet across. The rest of my pond is some distance away to the south but connected with a 15 foot wide channel. Whenever I get a south wind all DW blows into the small section of pond and once I clean that section the whole pond is done. That's what I did the day I took the pics. The wind brought the DW into the small pond and 2 hours later the whole thing is done. Unfortunately with all the heat we've had this summer I've been doing this every two weeks.

bz :

Good job. Stay ahead of the DW as it grows fast. Some types can double in quantity every 24 hrs.

Ewest, tell me about it. In the heat we've been having I've seen it double every day. I usually have to do this only 3 or 4 times a year and I think I've done it 5 times already. Here's an interesting note. This past spring I began pumping my pond water out into the bog in hopes of filtering nutrients out so that I wouldn't get so much of this stuff. Impossible to tell if it worked at all cause I think the weather plays a large part. But while I do have a bumper crop of DW this year I have almost no FA. Does the heat inhibit FA or could my removal of nutrients helped? I think the only way I'll ever know is to do some nutrient testing periodically for several years. Anyone know of an inexpensive way to do that?

bz :

With the dw cutting off the sunlight from the pond bottom some then that will result in less FA. In addition the dw will use some of the nutrients which means less for the FA. One problem with dw is how to deal with the seed bed (turions) with out systemic herbicide that stays in the water for a while.

http://www.rook.org/earl/bwca/nature/aquatics/spirodela.html

In fall, budding pouches produce smaller, rootless, dark green or brownish daughter plants called turions. These dense, dormant, starch filled structures settle to the bottom to overwinter.
Plants may overwinter as turions, or as seeds, sinking and resting at the bottom of the pond until they germinate.

Guess what I just found. I seine made specially for skimming DW and FA off of ponds. Might work with WM too. Take a look:
http://www.pondsolutions.com/pond-nets.htm