Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction Bushy Pondweed taking over

2 acre pond. About 50% is less than 4 feet and has bushy pondweed.
I thought I could remove most of the bushy pondweed but I think I'm fighting a losing battle. I spent about 1.5 hours with a pond rake removed the pile below. The pile below is almost 2 feet tall 8 feet by 5 feet and came from the area with the red lines around it. I removed it with my tractor and used it for mulch.

I'm not sure the juice is worth the squeeze for removing the Southern Naiad but want some advice from some who have been in this situation.

My pond is over 4 feet low so I'm not sure how to battle this.



A few questions.
Is there a faster/easier way to remove it? Would a Jenlis Weed Razer or other tool be better than the rake or more effective in combination with the rake.
Since this will more than likely be a recurring problem, how many TGC should I add. (Or should I) I added 8 last August and obviously that was no where near enough. I've only seen 2 when scouting with my drone and my Secchi disc reading from 5/15 was 5' 2" so would think I can see them, wondering if some died. No high water since then so don't think they left. Recent rains have reduced the visibility to about 2 feet.
The Pondweed makes fishing nearly impossible on half the pond, what negative impact does it have on the fish? I realize it could cause oxygen issues when it dies but not sure how critical/beneficial it would be to remove it. Water temperature is 73 so I suspect it will continue to grow for at least another month.

I realize Nutrient load is probably the root cause. I used to farm the watershed around the pond so it will take a while for the nutrients to be used up but it's all grass now and I have not fertilized for a year.

It is making habitat for some small BG and other things like the bug below. I think it's a dragonfly larvae but not sure.

Weeding a pond can be as or more frustrating than weeding a vegetable garden. I feel your pain.
Our pond, at 1/4 acre, is a considerably smaller project to tackle than yours, but is filled with another plant that spreads from broken fragments.
I've built a couple of "rakes" from materials on hand, after realizing that the elodea was growing faster than we could pull it out with the typical pond rake. My devices are wider. I'm constrained by narrow exit spots between pond bank trees so I cannot pull anything wider than 8'. With your open shoreline, it seems that you could repurpose something from the farm that would make a much wider swath through the junk, and pull it across or parallel to the shore with your tractor. The pile of weeds in one pull could equal what you got out by hand in your 1.5 hours of struggle.
I'm resolved to making a couple or three drags through the middle to open a lane for fish and fishing, letting the muddy water clear, then wetting a line in the opening and catching all kinds of fish that have moved into the open water. That's not immediate gratification, but close to it!
Good luck. The weeds make excellent mulch to smother your garden's weeds, and they are a wonderful soil amendment.

I have seen the movie ... don't let that thing land on your face!

Learnin,

I keep trying to send rain your way to get your pond filled up!

That won't solve your weed problems, but it should make your surface area larger and hopefully will suppress the plant growth in your deeper water.

We got 1.8 inches last night, brought the pond up about a foot, still have a trickle coming in.

Dragonfly Nymph.

Lots of labor, or Aquathol Super K to spot treat areas.

Mother Nature is doing her intended job of aging your pond by making it shallow to grow more plants to eventually make it back into a swamp and then dry land. It is called Aquatic Succession. All the previous years of plant growing nutrient collection and dead weed collections are 'working hard' to filling-in and age your pond. Long tern capital appropriation plans should be to rebuild this pond as deeper and maybe smaller to be easier to manage yet still grow decent sized fish.
1. Your clear water is caused by the abundant rooted plant growth and competing with phytoplankton. Plants clearing the water allows light to the bottom to grow more and better plants. Pond dye will help some at 3ft and deeper to reduce light penetration, however dye also reduces the entire pond food web to cause the pond to grow fewer pounds of fish.

2. Some of your TGC could have been eaten by big LMB or numerous other types of fish predators. Remember that TGC need to be 2yrs old (>24") before they can annually eat enough of a large weed infestation to make a visually significant plant difference. In your shallow with many years of a nutrient laden system with clear water it could take 8-10/ac TGC to keep the weeds noticably reduced. Then after 4-6 years restock 4-8/ac TGC based on weed amount present or work to remove a few GC if no weeds exist. IMO never add enough TGC to totally eliminate the weeds. Some rooted weeds provide habitat and compete heavily against the FA that will take over due to high amount of years of nutrient basin accumulations when weeds are gone. NUTRIENTS ALWAYS GROW PLANTS OF SOME SORT.

3. The large percentage of shallow water having good light penetration is conducive to growing lots and lots of some type of underwater plant material be a form of algae or submerged rooted plants.

4. Sadly - Killing all the plant growth does nothing to remove nutrients that made it grow. Removal of plants does remove nutrients from the basin but can you remove enough at this late point in time to make a significant reduction of future plant growth?. More growth will reocurr if pond basin nutrient conditions are not dimished. Prior years of nutrient accumulations from farming and added nutrients and resulting of dead slop build up in the pond will never really go away nor be eliminated until the pond is rebuilt. The pond is a big bathtub with no drain. Toilet with no flusher, unless you have a constant overflow or flow through system.

5. You have let the weeds get too big of a head start in Spring. Treat early in Spring with an appropriate herbicide to reduce the weeds enough until the TGC have grown to a size of 24+" to eat a lot of weeds. You can use some removal methods plus spot or whole pond treatment herbicides to reduce weed growth until TGC get to a REAL weed eating size to make a noticable difference. Do good homework for best weed herbicide treatment for your weed specie/s.

6. One good benefit of the weeds is it limits the angling pressure on the fish and gives them a 'rest' so they tend to be less hook smart. Do most of your angling during the year when the weeds are mininal.

Mr. Cody, everyone, thank you for all the valuable information.

The pond was completed in July of 2022 but was literally a swamp before a drought let it dry up enough to have over 28,000 cubic yards of dirt removed to make it what it is now.

Unfortunately I had not looked for resources like this to gain the valuable information needed to prevent some of this mess. I found the pond boss community and Mr. Lusk in July of last year. Since then I have immersed myself in using every resource I can find to assist with my journey. This originally was going to be nothing more than a cow tank, that hopefully I could add some fish into for me and the grandkids to catch. My goals have changed significantly.

The cows have not been in the pond for over a year but obviously added lots of nutrients while they were in there and in combination with the fertilizer I used in the watershed it will take some time to correct.

I started saving for when the next drought naturally draws the pond back down so I can make the needed changes to eliminate the shallow water as well as add more habitat.

I will be using all the other information everyone provided to make the best out of the current situation.

Don't forget that whenever you rework the pond it can be downsized (lower cost) with 15-16 ft deep and steep sides to minimize the headaches of too much plant growth. Get all that old nutrient fertile slop out of the basin and you will be suprised about the lack of plant growing problems.

No more complaining from me for a while about the pond being low.
We got 4 inches of rain last night, which brought it up to at least 1 foot above full pool and put water out the emergency spillway.
I noticed a few first hatch LMB in the waterway but nothing else.

Hopefully the stained water should hinder growth for a while and hopefully the weeds will be deep enough that they won't get sunlight and will die.

All Oklahoma counties are out of drought conditions, which has not happened since 2019!

Thanks, Rod for sending it our way

Yesterday


Today


I almost didn't have my boat far enough up the bank.

Glad you got some rain! We went over normal height this morning for the first time in quite a while.

Mine is 14'-18' from being at spillway , it's been very slowly rising for 5-6 weeks. Until the last 5-6 weeks, we only had one rain since July, 2023 that raised our water measurably, barely 6". Last 5-6 weeks and we've gained at least 6 feet . Early on , we would see a 1 foot rise per inch of rain, now we see 6" per inch of rain , but not nearly the suspended clay and other trash, with very tight grasses , the incoming water is so much cleaner, much less water, but cleaner. I hope cleaner is worth the loss of volume.

I noticed the same thing^^^. When it had been dry for quite a while the pond wouldn't come up much with a good rain, and what it did come up was clean water. Since we've had somewhat consistent events this spring its started coming up more per inch of rain.

The dock this morning.