Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water South Carolina BLACK water pond...NEED HELP

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Gentleman and Ladies,

I just rebuilt a dam on a 2.5 - 3 acre 84 year old pond. My great grandfather dug this pond orginaly for his cattle. After 10k in repair due to beavers, muskrats, turtles and other animals, I have a dilema. This pond is fed by a creek created by I think runoff from about a thousand acres of agricultural land. The creek flows throughout our 150 acres. My Great Grandfather simply dug out a low spot in a field and built a dam with a spillway. The water is almost black. The pond is about 8'-10' in the deep end and as shallow as 2' in the upperend. The water level depends on rainfall. The pond is hour glass shaped. It has substantial lilly pad growth and the green floating pill like algae where the creek feeds into the pond. The bottom of the pond is the slimy, stinky black muck stuff. I'm sure the DO is low, so I plan to pump fresh water in from an old well on the property and make an aerator or fountain. The pond has black bass, bream, some crappie, and maybe some catish. The pond was overcrowded about four years ago so we pulled out at least a hundred bass and about 500 bream over four years. I continue to cull the thin long bass and throw back anything over three pounds. I harvest bass 1- 2.5 pound bass. The pond has produced two 10lb bass back in the early 80's and a 7.5 lb last year. Ok enough history, what next???? I want a trophy Bass pond.

Would the lay of your land allow for a sediment nutrient dike?

How about a silt dam?

It sounds like your number one problem would be to control sediment and nutrient inflows. This will dictate dissolved oxygen numbers, clarity for sight feeders such as BG and LMB, and your ability to capture your fish.

SC BASSMAN,

Just recently finished a similar project to renovate a 2 acre pond...nutria and beaver damage from years and years of neglect.

A couple of observations, based on your post:

1) removing 500 BG does not seem consistent with your objectives for large bass
2) well water is very low on DO and if you are adding it to raise DO you may actually be defeating your purpose. Several suggestions on here about how to add DO to well water if you search for them. Basically you need to run the water over multiple layers of materials which will "aerate" the well water.

One last thing that I did that may or may not be of interest to you. In order to minimize the damage, i.e, deposites of sediments and stuff, from runoff, I dug a trench the length of the area facing the runoff to absorb such sediment without entering the main pond body. Used my backhoe and it didn't take especially long to accomplish that, but I'm hoping it will add considerably to the life expectancy of the new pond.

In regards to the bream, they were extremely overcrowded. I could catch 50 palm size bream in probably two to three hours. I admit I should have consulted someone, but mainly what i did was remove a fin from the smaller bream so they would be easy prey for the LMB. This made since to me, but again I'm pretty green around the ears when it comes to proper pond management.
Another reason for the well water would be to add fresh water to the pond. Without rain, I feel like the pond becomes polluted with decaying matter and fish excrement.

The smelly black muck on the bottoms does suggest low DO, right?

I plan to either add a fountain or an aerator connected to the well so I would be pumping in fresh water. I would love a constant flow of water from the main creek through the pond, and out my drainage system. Is this ideal?

Should I add gypsum and clear the water? This concerns me because I think the lily pads would take over the pond. But, I could always add grass carp.

Thanks for your reply!! Keep them coming!!!

SC BASSMAN,

The smelly black muck is common in most all ponds that have a few years on them. Aeration would help your pond with that situation. There's lots of info on here about aeration. It works and is worthwhile. It just makes a pond seem to come alive. You will need to start gradually once you get a system running. Again, there are post on that also.

You might also want to consider a soil test. Take several samples around the bottom of the pond. The test results will tell you what you need to do, but in all probability you need to add ag. lime. Several tons may be required. If that is the case, I suggest you contact a local feed/fertilizer store. They generally have the equipment to spread "pasture" lime. Just have them back up the truck at various spots around the pond and let it rip. Also, spread lime in your watershed. Its cheap, long lasting, and very good for your fish.

You mentioned that you have cattle that use or did use the pond. You need to be careful about fertilization. Once the lime is in place your water will clear. There are differences of opinion on this, but as your water clears, you would like to reach about 2 feet visibility...place an object on a stick and measure when it goes out of sight is a crude way. Some folks say 14 inches, some 18 inches, but I believe in margins and think 2 to 3 feet is better. If your water clears beyond 2 feet or so, you may want to consider adding fertilizer. That's another controversial topic and you can find lots of posts on that pro vs con. I'm basically a con man myself on fert. no pun intended.

Watch your weed/algae growth carefully. Grass carp should be added before you get a problem. In your size pond, I would add three or four this fall or as soon as you can get them, for insurance if nothing else. My advice is to ignore those stocking rates of 10 to 15 per acre that are pushed sometimes. It is far easier to add GC then take away. You should check your spillways because GC like to leave the pond when water is flowing out spillways. You may need to add a fish gate to keep them in.

As far as a constant inflow of water is concerned, from a creek you may get all kinds of unwanted hitchhickers. From your well, it really is not necessary unless your pond would dry up otherwise.

My advice to you is based on my experiences only as a fellow pond meister. One thing we all have learned is that what works for one pond may not necessarily work for anothers pond, especially when separated by significant geo distances.

When you really get going, we can talk about your forage fish and Tilapia, shad, and good stuff...maybe even tell you about hybrid striped bass, if you haven't already considered them as a predator. Enjoy.

Thanks for the info!!

I will test the water and make plans for an aerator!!

SC BASSMAN

You said your pond had "runoff from about a tousand acres of agricultural land. " Are yousaying that your watershed is 1000 acres? That is a lot of water for a 3 acre pond. What kind of drain system do you have? You should have an emergency spillway to handle a heavy rain.

I ask because I have a 3 acre pond in Georgia that drains about 250 acres. I have tried fertilizer and could not keep a bloom due to excessive flow. The water never stays in the pond long enough to "bloom".

The creek that feeds the pond does flows through at least a thousand acres of agricultural land. I think it starts off as a spring, but then it goes through a dairy farm, then corn fields, soybean fields, and finally through a forest and into my pond. When I rebuilt the dam we added three 15" pipes as the spillway and graded the dirt so that in case extreme rainfall occurred, water would still flow into the drainage ditch. I spoke to my contracor and mentioned lime, but we both agreed we need to add grass carp first, due to lily pad growth in any water three feet or less. The pond is black, with visiblity only at about 8-10."