Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Are sycamore logs in pond OK?

I am planning on adding some large hollow sycamore logs to a pond as future catfish spawning structures. I know certain tree species can cause fish toxicity and am wondering if anyone knows if this is an issue with sycamore? The logs were recently cut from a live tree. Thank you in advance for your help.

Everything I've found says they're ok. If you want to be super safe, I'd just dry them out a bit before adding them to the pond.

Thanks. I will not add until ground is well frozen to avoid tearing things up when dragging them to the pond.

I cannot vouch for the lack of toxicity , but I can add is...Sycamore wood is on the less dense side of the chart. They are not the worst choice. Cottonwood is a very light wood and has a pretty fast decomposition rate, for example. And, you cannot necessarily judge decomp on density alone. Western Cedar is less dense than Sycamore, but has other attributes that make its decomp rate much longer. I wouldn't give a cottonwood log but a few years in a pond and would not add them to my pond. The sycamore should go twice as long IMO.

Recent storm blew over a bunch of small oaks into my pond. I'm waiting for the fish kill to happen

The pond has low fertility, so some decomposing wood should not do much harm...

If thats the case Im screwed, my pond filled up much faster then planned and I have acres of oak woods, standing timber and a ton of brush piles in my pond, the water does have a slightly tannish color but is reasonably clear, I can see several feet down thru it, the fish seem to be doing wonderful, 100% growth rate and gazillions of baitfish.

What is your alkalinity ? You could , if needed , add some ag lime to offset the tannic acid.

pH is >7 but I don't know the alkalinity.

Water Beech is one of the local nicknames for American Sycamore trees. They are often found in riparian and wetland areas.

If you look at a lake like Table Rock (in Missouri) there are lots of sycamores just above the normal pool elevation. The rest of the slope is then covered with non-riparian species. (This is pretty common in the region, I assume it would also apply in Indiana.)

I used to help with fish habitat management in a large private reservoir in eastern Kansas. We would hinge cut (like deer managers do) the large sycamores on the shore and drop them in the lake perpendicular to the shoreline. We would leave a thick hinge so they would stay anchored to the stump for years.

The sycamores would provide awesome "twiggy" cover for the forage fish for several years. They would then slowly decay to just the trunk and main branches and the LMB would then use them as "ambush" cover.

I actually like the prospect that your sycamore logs will decay over a few years. You can run a test on your CC spawns. If you initially have too much spawning, resulting in CC fry over population, then you should get fewer viable spawning structures moving forward in time.

P.S. We were dropping lots of sycamores in a 600-acre lake. None of my comments are applicable to any water CHEMISTRY changes due to using sycamore wood.

Always good to know baseline water quality metrics - like alkalinity.

I have additional catfish spawning structures already in the pond that will not decay, so I was just planning to add the hollow sycamore logs as additional spawning sites. Will not add catfish till spring (along with a few black crappies and RES). Emergent plants and lotus are only crowing very slowly due to clay soil, so little more structure should help the forage fish (FHM and lake chubsucker). Need to add brush piles too.

Suggest you get simple water and soil tests. Usually inexpensive. Craws do better in water with good calcium levels (higher alkalinity).

See - https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92617#Post92617

Has IN info.

My wife says we tested this area years back and it has high alkalinity and is high in calcium. The water was very blue when the springs filled it up, but now has a green-blue tinge. We need new alkalinity test strips. Our shallow and deep aquifers contain hard water as well. My wife tested a bunch of our soils around the farm when we first started farming it.