Hello Everyone, My name is Joe and I'm up in NW Washington. I have had a pond in for about 4 years. It is about 100' in diameter, and 10-12 feet deep in the middle. I've added a water feature recently to help add oxygen (it is a cascading waterfall) and I'm working on finding a good pump. My current one is a non-submersible one and the filter is getting clogged frequently (every 2 weeks). I'd also like better flow (about 20K gallon/hr). Any recommendations?
Once that is set up and going, I'm looking at doing bass, as I want to do something different than the trout that everyone else up here does. My thoughts were to add some crawfish and bluegill first to get a food supply going, and then add some bass. Hopefully start this spring/summer as our temps are now in the 30's and the pond is frozen over. So some questions for those of you who have a lot more experience.. 1. Pump recommendations? There's about 15' of rise from the pond to the top of the water feature. I can accommodate 110 or 220 power, and am ok with a pump in or out of the pond. 2. Am I on the right track for adding the bait first? Do I need to feed the bait? 3. Recommendations on how many bass a pond this size can accommodate?
Thanks for any help. I'm sure there will be a learning curve, but I'm hopeful to learn from other's as I'm sure I'll make a few of my own! Joe
Welcome to the forum. You don't need to have a filter on your pump. To correctly size the pump you need to know how wide your waterfall is and how deep you want the water to be as it goes over the waterfall. I can figure out what pump size you need with that information. I would go with a submerged pump. What size pipe do you have running to your waterfall now?
Your pond is approximately 1/5th of an acre.
As for how many bass/bluegill to add, what are your goals for the pond, larger bass (which will be hard to do in that small of a pond) or larger bluegill? Will you be feeding the bass and bluegill a commercial fish food daily? Will you have any live plants in the pond? What kind and how much of fish cover do you have in your pond?
Thank you for your offer to help. I will get measurements and some pics of the water feature. I'll also get the pipe size that is currently in place. In terms of goals, I'd like to get some large bass to have fun catching. It will be primarily catch and release, so not much biomass will be removed. The pond is pretty much natural, no liner. Water comes up through a clay base. I have some cattails for cover, and manage them by pulling some out if they get too thick. I'll get some pics, and that will help a lot. My hope is to not have to feed them too much, as I'm gone a fair amount during the summer. There currently are a lot of frogs and salamanders in it, and in the spring this is what has clogged the filter. Thank you again! Joe
Thank you for your offer to help. I will get measurements and some pics of the water feature. I'll also get the pipe size that is currently in place. In terms of goals, I'd like to get some large bass to have fun catching. It will be primarily catch and release, so not much biomass will be removed. The pond is pretty much natural, no liner. Water comes up through a clay base. I have some cattails for cover, and manage them by pulling some out if they get too thick. I'll get some pics, and that will help a lot. My hope is to not have to feed them too much, as I'm gone a fair amount during the summer. There currently are a lot of frogs and salamanders in it, and in the spring this is what has clogged the filter. Thank you again! Joe
If you want larger bass, you should put in Fathead Minnows and Golden Shiners as a forage base before adding Bluegills. Stock the Bluegills at the rate of 30 per every bass you stock. Since it's a new pond, you can stock 1"-2.5" Bluegill as soon as the water temp is in the upper 50 degree range and then you can stock the bass as 3"-5" fish in June or July. The bluegill will need an area in 1'-3' of water that is relatively flat and has pea gravel or sand to spawn on. After the bass reach 12"-14" and pull off a spawn, you should remove around 5 pounds of bass per year, every year of all different sizes. I wouldn't stock more than 10-12 bass.....
If water comes up through a clay base, then it's a water table pond and you will be subject to pond water level fluctuations depending on the amount of ground water you have.
Well I tried to load some pictures, but I'm having some difficulty. The pipe currently is 3" for the input and outflow on the current pump. The water feature has a V shaped piece of plastic 42" wide with about a 2" opening in it that the water comes out of. It is more of a cascade type feature (imagine a steep creek bed) about 30' long and 4' wide. The water pools up and drops along the feature before eventually dropping into the pond. The current pump does about 5k gallons/hr. I'd like more flow to fill the water feature up more, and to generate more oxygen due to more turbulence. I contacted one company that recommended a PerformancePro Artesian Pro AP 5-HH High Head Waterfall Pump. It is rated at 15K/hr @ 15'. I am open to suggestions on this, as well as the best place to order from.
Sounds like I'll need to get some pea gravel for the bluegill, which isn't a problem. I think there are some old logs in the bottom, so there's some structure there as well. Also thanks for the input on baitfish.
I just upload the pictures to imgur, then put them here. It's pretty easy, but then I do everything from a desktop. Guys on another forum like using taptalk to do pictures from their phone. This is what a pic using imgur looks like
O.K. The V shaped opening; the point of the V is where the water comes out and spreads out over the V, correct? How deep (thick) do you want the water across that 42" width? What is your head requirements? (from top of water source to outlet of pipe at the waterfall - the vertical distance is all I need. Then I can calculate how many gph you need.
The AP 5-HH is not a submersible pump, it's a 5 hp pump, not submersible, and has to be hard wired in. It's rated at 17,220 GPH @ 12 ft.
I am using a submersible 1.5 hp, 13,500 gph pump to move water in and out of my fish holding tanks. It's 3" in and out like that one, I have no filter to clean and it's been running 9-10 months per year for the past 5 or 6 years with no issues.
The wide part of the V is where the water comes out. The point of the V has a round attachment point for the inlet hose to connect to. Id like to have 4 to 6 inches of depth to the water as it flows down the creek bed. A babbiling brook effect. There's about 15 feet of elevation from the pond surface to the top of the water feature. I'm good with any type of pump, I'd need to make a box of sorts i imagine to hold the submersible pump, but I'm guessing someone on here has ideas for that as well. Thank you again for the help!
The wide part of the V is where the water comes out. The point of the V has a round attachment point for the inlet hose to connect to. Id like to have 4 to 6 inches of depth to the water as it flows down the creek bed. A babbiling brook effect. There's about 15 feet of elevation from the pond surface to the top of the water feature. I'm good with any type of pump, I'd need to make a box of sorts i imagine to hold the submersible pump, but I'm guessing someone on here has ideas for that as well. Thank you again for the help!
O.K., one last question. How wide is the creek bed? I will come back this evening and answer, a customer wants me to ice fish his pond with him this evening. I'll get pictures.
Checking back in on this. I do have 220/230 power available if needed. Let me know if there is any more info you need. Thank you for your help!
The calcs show you need 8,000 gph at the waterfall, BUT it's better to go oversize and reduce the flow than to spend the $$ on a smaller pump and have it not push the amount of water that you are looking for. (then spend the money and have to replace it with a bigger one.) You have to study the flow vs head pressure curve charts of the pumps to ensure that you have enough flow at the head that you have.
I would say go with a 13,500 gph pump @ 0 head, that is 1.5 hp submersible, 3" out. At the head that you have it pumps 8,500 gph. It's available in either 110v or 220v. I have that exact same pump running water through my fish holding tanks, and it has roughly 44,000 hours of run time on it as of right now without ANY issues. I do NOT have a filter on it, it is inside a 20"x18" plastic mesh screen "bag" that acts as a coarse filter to stop leaves or fish from getting sucked up against the pump impeller.
I'd put a 3" plastic/stainless knife valve or a 3" gate valve on the supply pipe near the waterfall to regulate the flow. I will send you a PM with more details.
Well the water feature is going good. Thank you Esshup! So in reviewing this post from above, it was recommended to get flathead minnows and golden shiners first, then some Bluegill once the water hits 50 degrees. Then bass in July. I'm up in NW Washington, so the pond freezes over in the winter for about 2-3 weeks, and hits mid 70's in the summer. I just want to make sure these fish are good with those temps before tossing them in. I'm also looking at getting some crawdads, as we can catch those locally. I need to dump some structure in as well I think, as it was pretty much a clean slate when built. There are some cattails. I also need to do some pea gravel for the bluegill. I just want to make sure that the fish are likely to survive in my location before dumping them in.
![[Linked Image from i.imgur.com]](https://i.imgur.com/gxbPP0I.jpeg)
