Thanks for prompting a follow-up on this pond, snrub. I enlarged it a bit, and it seems that it has held water better than a lot of stock tanks because of its shape: long, narrow and deep. It is positioned so that as much runoff as possible is captured, and it has less evaporative potential than a similar sized bowl shape.
I'm very proud of its success. Yeah, it'd be more aesthetically pleasing if the water was clearer, but it is a brown instead of the red clay that was suspended for so long.
I stocked 100 CC, 100 HBG, and FHM in 2009. Those CC are at the 5# size, and very healthy. In 2010, I stocked 50 CC and 100 RES, and those CC are around 3.5#. The BG and RES are hand-sized.
I give them just a half of a coffee can of feed each day. It's kind of like feeding hogs, and always good to watch.
My grandkids and I swim in it some each summer, but my wife won't dare get into "that dirty water". It has been a fun place to spend time with them, and fishing is much better from the dock.
I've got a lot of things left that I want to do, and the most immediate will be to pipe the water from the new shop roof into this pond. Just 1800 sq ft on this phase, what size pipe do you think will handle a decent rainfall?
