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Joined: Dec 2014
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I'm using a multi pronged approach I take a trash pump and send the discharge to a pool about 35 feet above the pond and I take the intake with a flexible hose on it and suck up the muck off the bottom.I then let it settle and drain the clear water to my bait fish pond. I also added aeration last year. I will see how good it works.diving down I can feel holes and troughs were I pumped the water down. So it is letting some aerated water get down to the bottom at least for a short time. I can feel the softened areas when I dredge afterwards. Long slow process but I don't have to drain the pond down and kill my fish.

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It will be slow but should work out.


It's not about the fish. It's about the pond. Take care of the pond and the fish will be fine. PB subscriber since before it was in color.

Without a sense of urgency, Nothing ever gets done.

Boy, if I say "sic em", you'd better look for something to bite. Sam Shelley Rancher and Farmer Muleshoe Texas 1892-1985 RIP
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I am new to this forum and new to pond ownership as we purchased a house last year in Southern Arizona with a 1/4 acre pond about 4' deep that was stocked with bass and mosquito minnows. There was a resident duck (Daffy) who found a mate last fall and flew away with her frown (at least there was no sign that predators had gotten them both).

Last summer during monsoon season, we had a flood during a heavy rain in which water from the cattle ranch to the north flooded the pond and left manure stink, some dead fish, and stimulated a lot of underwater plant growth (duckweed). We manually cleaned, added lots of fresh water, and our aeration pump sits on the bottom, pumps the water out a little rivulet up a slight hill to a creek bed that then flows down to the pond, over a water fall. It brings in oxygen but doesn't get the water in the entire pond moving.

The pond developed an algae problem quite recently this year and we have been removing manually. The muck is not too deep, maybe 3" or a little more in the center. In searching for solutions to restore the health of the pond, I have been reading on this site but, as always, there are different opinions and different products. Since our cats drink out of the pond and the creek, and lots of wildlife come by to drink here in the desert, and some people swim in the pond, we only want to consider remedies that are [1] non toxic and [2] can establish a healthy biome that maintains itself with minimal intervention.

Solution A most recommended on this forum seems to be purchasing big tilapia that won'5 become snacks for the bass. If we go this route, how do we figure out the size when our bass range greatly in size? Also, how about numbers? And finally, will we have to eat the tilapia to keep their numbers in balance with the bass, which we do eat?

Solution B we found on a commercial site. It involves purchasing four products that included healthy bacteria and enzymes. The pond is surrounded by mesquite trees, one mulberry, and a butterfly bush, so it's in partial shade most days. It also has about 1/10 of the surface covered by lily pads that produce yellow flowers. The mesquites drop small leaves and flowers onto the surface. The proposed products were supposed to deal with the muck, the algae, and digesting the organic matter. I'd like to hear from anyone who has used this kind of approach with success. I don't mind a one time expense but won't get into a yearly have-to-repurchase to keep it going.

Solution C buy an additional pond aerator, ideally solar, to set in parts of the pond that the existing pump doesn't reach, and continue manually removing the algae.

BTW - we did borrow a backhoe, dug a huge trench near the properly line, and will not have flooding from the cattle ranch again.
JaBe

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should I have started a new thread for this maintenance question? I see now that all the other answers are pretty old, more than 10 years

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You will always have elements enriching your pond with nutrients from leaf litter, wildlife and fish poo. I have a 1/4 acre pond and rake blown leaves out of my pond in the fall and I try to keep waterfowl out. I’ve done algae raking in the past and I would rather not deal with it. I run aeration May to November and put bacteria and aqua shade in as needed. I think you will find there is not a one time fix that’s going to keep your pond enjoyable. The tilapia will add more bio load to your pond too.


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PS You can post on old threads it just brings them to the top again and in my case I received an email telling me there was a new response to a thread that I had once posted on, I haven’t been to the forum in quite a while so I guess using old threads can pay off with more viewership 😄. Welcome to the forum!

Last edited by loretta; 05/30/21 10:01 PM.

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Loretta, glad to see you back!!


www.hoosierpondpros.com


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3/4 to 1 1/4 ac pond LMB, SMB, PS, BG, RES, CC, YP, Bardello BG, (RBT & Blue Tilapia - seasonal).
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Thank you Loretta! I will look at the threads on here, but if you have found a bacteria product that seems better acting and appropriately priced, can you let me know?
The company I contacted was Aquaplankton but they recommended four microbial products instead of their name brand due to the size of our pond (1/4 acre, about 90 ft diameter, 4 ft average depth). You pond must be a pretty blue green after you apply the Aqua Shade. There is so much light here in AZ, it would be hard to block it for long.

Janis

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Wow Loretta, so glad the email reminder came through. Awesome to have you back again! What is the news on your pond? Did your YP have a good amount of ribbons this spring? Seeing baby YP yet in the shallows?

JaBe - I'm with you, would like to learn more about 'healthy' bacteria and muck dissolving pellets but it is one of those things where each has to try in his/her own pond and then it is a little hard to measure results accurately. One factor is it takes a while for the muck pellets to work, so your experiments tend to run a year or longer.

I got into the muck dissolution experiments last year and so looking forward to see how this season goes. I shouldn't give free advertising I guess so I can email you privately about the brand I went with. Being fairly frugal, I found something about half the price of the name brand stuff and also found something that would ship to my door via Amazon. Bonus, they shipped it in a 5 gallon bucket and I get to finally put the packaging to good use too!

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Canyoncreek,
Have you noticed any improvement with the pellets you are using?
I sent you a PM.

I am trying to revive an old pond. It is about 20 years old and was covered
In brush around the edges. I had it partially re dug.
It is 3/4 of an acre. It's a u shape with a large point down the center.
I currently am using 4 double headed aerators on a 3/4 horse pump.
I use a product called pondvive.
I'm looking to get rid of the pond muck. It's pretty thick.

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Hi Dlatulip,
Rapid City is a northern climate probably colder than the GR, MI area as we are shielded by Lake MI. But we have a short summer and warm water works better for the bacteria to dissolve muck.
I am only starting my experiments and it is hard to say how one product does compared to another as you need a controlled environment to really test. But being that the product I tried was easily available on Amazon and about half the price I thought I'd give it a few seasons and see.
I did not take a lot of samples around the pond so I'm judging mainly by the edges where I wade around when checking traps or putting our my turtle floats.

I'm happy so far that in the shallows I see a difference with the leaves and surface muck being mostly gone. Maybe it reduced 1-2" per season in the shallows? I still feel thick muck in the deep but that is colder water, and water that probably doesn't get the oxygen mixed down into the deep as well. I have a single station, dual head vertex aerator that I run about 8-10 hours in the overnight cool temps.

I think I would do way better if I had a trash pump with outflow going down a long pole and blasting it down under the muck to aerate everything. Those deicers which are really a propeller on a long pole that blast underwater currents across the bottom are hugely helpful in cleaning and aerating the bottom in the range of the 'prop-wash'.

A side benefit of the muck pellets is they must have some sort of 'flocking' agent that binds the suspended solids as my water has been much clearer. That is great for clarity but not so good for sun penetration as I seem to have algae growing more deeply on the bottom this year. I don't seem to maintain as good of a bloom this year as in other years.

I'll probably throw some in again and see. By recall I bought a 25 pound supply in a 5 gallon bucket and that worked pretty well for my 1/4 acre pond ( or smaller in the summer).

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