Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Thoughts on a new 2.7 acre pond stocking

? pictures. Sounds like great results!

Great looking pavilion, Heppy.

Let the family fun times begin!

I’m so pleased with my purchase of the Deep Glow green underwear fish light. It’s great for asthestics and allowed me to confirm the threadfin population/reproduction. Fish should get more comfortable around it the longer it is permanently mounted with the vertical bracket 4’ down running on a dusk to dawn timer. Can’t go wrong with this choice.

https://imgur.com/a/mrVeI0Y

https://imgur.com/a/fcqUWP6

We also built a firewood storage from pallets and tin for the roof.

https://imgur.com/a/13k6eRQ

Happy I love the look of your place. Next week we r getting something similar to yours built. Can ya tell us more about your light (solar).

I’m not sure about solar. Ours is hardwired. Here’s the website.
https://www.deepglow.com/

I caught the first Brook Trout the other day from the 50 that were stocked last Fall. It’s pretty amazing the difference in the amount of gain between them and the RBT. According to the hatchery both were started at the same time. The BT was about 6” when stocked and the RBT were 10-12”. Now the BT are 12” and the RBT are well over 3lbs with some pressing 5lbs. Both were fed the same amount at the hatchery yet from increased growth I will only be stocking RBT each fall. The BT have a max temp of 65 degrees and the RBT at 70 degrees. Both are feeding voraciously and still seem to be doing great. Like I mentioned before this is a test to see how long they will last in the big spring filled pond. By August/September I should know whether they could be a year round fish. Not getting my hopes too high just yet.

I thought, probably mistakenly, that RBT are more heat tolerant than BT. But my experience is similar to yours, in that RBT take to feed aggressively & grow very fast. Hope they last the summer for you!

RBT are still feeding but not nearly as well as a month ago. Set the TH feeder back to 5 seconds in the am and pm. I’m still waiting on the septic for the pavilion to arrive, supply chain issues as with many things these days. We also built a 12x16 shed by the cabin with an attached 20x16 lean to in progress. Just need the metal roof to finish it. I took a night picture by the pond a couple of weeks ago. Heading back with the family for the fourth. Life is good!

https://imgur.com/a/HqnPPsx

Wow, Heppy, that's looking very nice!

Thanks Snipe! Now just trying to figure out a plan to control excess underwater weed growth. Headed back down tomorrow evening to try and get pics for identification.

Here is a pic of the submerged weed I need to bring under control. Any help with the identification and what to use in a flow through pond would be greatly appreciated.

https://imgur.com/a/lt6j3w2

After doing some research I believe the previous picture is Widgeon grass. Now for the plan to remove about 60% of it. There is a 6 foot wide drag harrow at the farm. It’s the kind you can hook over a ball on a atv, utv, tractor or truck. The plan is to drop the drag on the inlet side (190 yards) of the pond connected to cable/rope attached to the utv, truck or tractor on the dam side of the pond. Then drive out to the 200 yard shooting target. This will pull the debris to the top of the dam. Next step is to remove debris from drag, unhook clean drag from cable, take drag back to inlet side of pond and repeat until approximately 60% of Widgeon grass has been removed. Has anyone had success using something similar to this?

Heppy, I haven't researched widgeon grass but it is closely related to sago pondweed. With that said, pulling a cable through it "may" fragment and re-root 1,000's of new stems and your 60% coverage may turn into 160% coverage.
I'd check into that before you make the "pull"..

Found this... "Also like most grasses, it can produce new shoots from broken stems and roots but relies more on massive numbers of seeds. The Widgeon seeds small, greenish and pear-shaped are dispersed by water and currents. As a result, this weed can grow in incredible concentration of up to 30,000 shoots in a hectare of water."

Snipe,
Thanks for that. Do you happen to have a suggestion on how I should remove some in my flow through pond. I was thinking it wouldn’t be a one and done operation and that I would periodically use the drag to open up dense areas in the pond. Thoughts anyone?

esshup may have a suggestion that involves "Cat litter".. We'll see if we can get him to elaborate.
If nothing else, there's always aquacide pellets.

I wanted to use a herbicide to get down to the roots of a plant in the pond, so I used a liquid herbicide and a mortar mixing tub. I threw in about 1/2 bag of clay based oil dry, and mixed in the liquid herbicide. Then let it sit for a day, and broadcast it into the pond in the area that I wanted to kill the weeds in. It worked, but it wasn't a permanent fix, I had to re-treat the area in about 4 months.

Having a flow thru pond to treat, that will be difficult.

It now seems like I have two options.
1. Drag area of pond and add grass carp this fall to keep Widgeon grass under control in following years.
2. Use “cat litter” or oil dry with an herbicide and add grass carp this fall to keep Widgeon grass under control.
The concerns I have with option 2 are possibly killing off too much/too little vegetation, lack of DO, fish kill because it is a flow thru pond with 180-220 gallons/minute.

I am also inclined to believe that the drag will bring additional sediment/seeds towards the bottom drain where I can open it to discharge from the pond. What do y’all think?

If you are getting 180-220 gpm I'd be tempted to drag and open the drain. Only downside to dragging is twofold. 1) grab too much material and can't get enough traction to pull the harrow. 2) pop the cable instead of losing traction.

esshup, I have a utv, tractor and 4wd truck. It is downhill from the dam to the 100 yard target and flat to 250 yards so traction is not much concern. However, popping the cable is something I would like to avoid. What size cable do you recommend? 3/8 inch X 1000 foot, 7x19, Galvanized Cable has a working load limit of 2880lbs and a minimum breaking strength of 14,400lbs. Would this be too little, just right or overkill? Thanks for your help!

Cable scares me. If it breaks it's a whip and you have no idea where it will end up. Some years I work with trees in the winter, cutting down some bigger Oaks and have to direct which way they fall sometimes with a 65 hp tractor. I bought a 150' long piece of 1/2" Amsteel rope https://www.samsonrope.com/utility/amsteel. It is light enough to float on water, and has a breaking strength of 26,500 pounds with a min breaking strength of 23,200 pounds. It has minimal stretch, so it won't whip around if it breaks.

I can carry the 150' long piece with the heavy clevis pins and the associated attachment hardware in a 5 gal bucket with one hand.

I forget where I purchased it, but the color that I purchased was red and it was 50% off because after it was out in the sun for a while it turned pink and it wasn't selling as good as the other colors. I don't care if it's purple. The downside to it is that it cannot take any type of heat, so you cannot use it on a capstan type winch.

esshup,
Thanks for that information. I really like the fact it floats and especially no whipping if it snaps. Reading the website it seems they offer a coated version as well which I think would to be better for my application running the length of the rope across the dam when pulling the drag. The only thing I didn’t like is the price for 600 foot of 1/2 inch rope. It’s about $4.20 per foot. Here’s a chart on the breaking strength for each size of rope.

https://imgur.com/a/xsd91Es

Which size do you think would be necessary for me to accomplish my objective?
Thanks!

Edit: I could also attach a pulley to the utv to run the rope through so there’s no contact with the ground.

I'm a big fan of overkill. The way I look at it, if you take care of it the rope will last for many, many years. I had the company put thimbles in the ends of mine, so I didn't have to tie knots. They also put a 6' anti chafe sleeve over one end for me and used heat shrink tube to hold it in place. I got a pulley where the sides rotate so I can put it around the rope with the thimbles on the ends. The pulley is rated for around 10K pounds I think and it is stainless steel - no corrosion. I've had the rope for probably 10 years and have used it for many things. I think I paid around $3/foot for the whole thing and it is well worth it.

I don't know if I'd go smaller than 3/8" of that amsteel rope for your application, and wouldn't feel bad going 1/2".

I believe I found the pulley on an arborist supply site. I use it to tie off to a tree so I can direct the way the tree falls if I can't get a straight pull with the tractor. 65 hp, 4wd tractor can put a lot of tension on it when you have the FEL bucket full of dirt and in low gear!!

I wanted to add a few things I have tried since my last post. We took an old metal box spring and drug about 1/3 of the pond. It was a long arduous process using 600ft of the floating 1/4 inch nylon yellow rope that I already had on hand(Harbor Freight $20), a 650lb pulley, shackle, 4x4 truck and atv. This seemed to work well for cutting the submerged weeds but would be more practical in a 3/4 acre pond or smaller. I did use the 6 ft wide drag with a tow chain to clear about 1/2 of the shoreline around the pond and it worked very well removing all plant life completely. This experience led me to the conclusion that I need something much wider than 6ft. My next try will be with a 20 foot length of rebar in 1/2 or 5/8 inch tied at both ends and every 5 foot connecting to the shackle and then to the pull rope which goes through the pulley attached to the truck then to the atv or utv. If this doesn’t give satisfactory results I will incorporate a hog panel. On a separate note, hoping Augie reads this, my oldest son was able to remove about 250 BG hanging the z trap off the dock ladder baited with old bread.