Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Book Recommendation for natural pond building

Hi,

i am looking for the right pond book for me to read, i really hope
you find the time to read trough my situation and give me adivce.

My longterm goal is to establish a series of smaller natural ponds(probably around 1/2 acre to 1 acre total area)
on a property that i am yet to buy.

Natural for me would be to not feed the fish, but only to add
organic matter or let nature add it (fallen leaves).

I don't want to use aeriation, the only technical utitly i would use is a pump
to bring water from the lowest pond to the highest one, so that they can overflow
into each other with beneficial structures like wetland filters in between.
However i still want the system as a whole to be stable without the pump,
optionally sacrifing the uppermost pond.

I would strongly prefer not to use plastic in the construction of pond, but
to build earth ponds. So the book needs to cover earthworks and sealing.

Furthermore i will not use exotic fish and plants, but only what is native to europe.
(espcially the European Crayfish(Astacus astacus) is having a hard time here)

As for the usage of the ponds, i want to use the ponds as a sustainable source of food and
one pond would be dedicated for swimming. Raising trophy fish is of no Priority for me,
i prefer 50 pounds of panfish over 10 pounds of trophy fish.

I started reading the forum and the free articels on the website,
but it seems to me i get lost to deep in detail that only get relevant
for me later down the road after the pond is finished.

I can see there are several books in the pondboss store that sound interresting.

However i am short on time, as i want to buy a property and finish the earthworks
as soon as possible so that i can start planting trees.

Knowing how to desing the pond(s) is crucial for this, so i am looking
for a book that can enable me to select a site and design/build the pond asap.

Thanks in advance!

$ave yourself some time and money and get Mke Otto's book on pond construction. And spend the money for Bob's POND BOSS magazine. And Welcome to this forum, lots of help here.

Hi TGW1, thanks for your feedback.
I'll quote from another thread:

So should i buy and read both books?

Yes. Perfect pond will help you with the management, Otto's book will help with building the ponds.

Another one that is actually a college/university textbook. "Small Impoundment Management in North America" from the America Fisheries Society but compiled by Wes Neal and Dave Willis. It has several chapters on pond building and maintaining. Those are also by Otto. They go beyond Perfect Pond and I find myself referring to it pretty often. The book itself has a lot about the physical characteristics of ponds, considerations and their potential issues and problems.

Don't believe I've ever seen any plastic used.

Download the free USDA pond building manual in the first post and read through the rest of the thread for other good pieces of advice.

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92487#Post92487

All these above are great advice, but mostly for pond building here in the US, My curiosity is in the vastly different soils and soil profiles we have in the US alone, I wonder what different soils they have to work with in other countries. We have huge differences even in this one county in the center of one state, from sandy wind blown Loes soils along the river to chirty, rocky soils to open prairie ground where a person could dig thirty forty ft deep and not find a sign of rock. sometimes you can find nearly opposite soils just within a mile. just thinking out loud, have no constructive advice to give, Good Luck!