Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations New Member, need help....Update 8/15

Welcome to Pond Boss, JC! I agree wholeheartedly with Kelly - you have lots of chara!

One of my ponds is very similar to yours - about half an acre, deepest point is 5 - 6 feet and the rest is probably an average of 3 feet. I really like the pond, but the weeds and algae are just crazy.

In my case, I believe one of the major factors has been a large goose population using the pond over many, many years. When we bought the farm almost two years ago, the geese were rampant. It was not uncommon for me to find flocks of literally more than 100 geese floating on the pond in early morning hours when I'd go out early. They have been doing this for a long time and I suspect have pooped more nutrients into the pond than 100 ponds could have used in a lifetime!

Unlike your pond, I do not have a regular inflow and outflow of water, so I only have meaningful water exchange from late winter through mid spring normally. The rest of the year, my water is stable. I have chara, filamentous algae (FA), curly leaf pondweed, and some others in lesser concentrations that I haven't tried to identify yet. I have had serious problems with watermeal the last couple of years, but this year treated early with Whitecap (purchased from Greg Grimes at a great price) and have not seen the watermeal yet.

Whitecap kills everything, though the FA bounces back quickly. Obviously, there are a lot of nutrients left in the water using the chemical route and that is one of the big undesirable side effects. Whitecap may also not be your best solution since you have what appears to be a pretty constant outflow. To be effective, Whitecap needs to maintain a minimum concentration and if the pond flushes, that may be harder to accomplish.

Manual removal is best, but as you've learned, is incredibly time intensive. Excavation could be a huge positive for both of our situations because you end up eliminating much if not all of the organic muck built up on the pond bottom and that eliminates a lot the excessive nutrients so you can have a more balanced shot at maintaining healthy vegetation levels. But, excavation is not an inexpensive proposition.

One thought would be to consider an aeration system. I think aeration is a very cost effective way to make an impact on your pond and, while it doesn't solve all the problems, can go a long way towards moving you to your goals. Aeration will certainly aid in reducing, over time, your organic buildup. It will help clean your water via circulation and aeration that will eliminate some nutrient buildup through allowing the water to "off-gas." It will also allow you to better support the fish population that you plan to develop and will help, to an extent, eliminate some of the shortfalls of a shallow pond.

Aeration systems can be elaborate or fairly straight forward and the costs generally seem to vary with the complexity of the system you install. For my money, I will add aeration as the first thing once I get electric run to my pond.

I've got to run, but thought I'd at least toss out these few thoughts to you. Keep asking questions and be involved! Great to have you here!