Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Muddy water Iron Bacteria problems

Good afternoon ladies and gents,

I am having a water issue, I cant seem to find much help with it on Google or from a search on this site, and I'm hoping some of you good folks here may have encountered the same issue and have found a solution for it.

To start, I bought a large property last year and have plans to start construction of a approximately half acre pond in the summer. I am hoping to use the pond as both a fishing hole, and ideally a swimming hole. Conditions are fairly good, the water table is fairly low and there are multiple springs that pop up throughout the property that feed into the spot I have chosen. The area I plan to dig the pond is blue clay at approximately 8-10 feet deep, so water retention shouldn't be an issue, this past summer I dug 8 foot hole with the excavator and it held the water at the same level throughout the summer.

My neighbor constructed a pond a few hundred feet from my designated site approximately 10 years ago and has had great success with raising rainbow trout, and up until this past summer he and his family also regularly same in the pond. This year however, he ran into a problem, iron bacteria. After taking a look at his pond I noticed I have the same bacteria growing where my springs pop up, and in my current ditches that channel the springs water off my property. Does anyone have any experience with iron bacteria or know how to rid such a large body of water of it without harming fish?

I have been looking forward to digging my pond for months now, however if the bacteria issue cannot be fixed I would have to think twice, as I don't want a slimy smelly mess.

Thank you all for your time and advice!

If the spring water is rich in dissolved iron, once oxidized it precipitates as red rust. Perhaps if well aerated, the iron would fall out before supporting bacteria.

I am not aware of any "easy" solutions to your iron problem.

Do you have multiple springs that could provide the source water to your pond? If they all come out of the same rock strata, then they all probably have a similar dissolved iron content. However, if they come out of different strata, I would suggest taking some water samples for chemical analysis. If one of the springs is significantly lower in iron, then you have already won half of your battle.

I would also let "nature" remove the dissolved iron as much as possible. If feasible, I would build the equivalent of silt-settling pond. Make a small pond with a long, serpentine flow path to capture the spring flow near the source. Your goal is the longest "residence" time possible for the water. Let the bacteria and iron deposits flourish in this pond. You want to have lots of nucleation sites for the dissolved iron to drop out. Existing iron oxide precipitates and bacterial films both serve this purpose. If you can aerate your precipitation pond, that could also be a huge benefit. (Your trout will probably benefit from aeration anyway.)

I would then pipe the flow to a splash pile that is above the water surface of your trout pond. Let the water flow through a big pile of gravel before trickling into the pond.

Good luck on your project!