Pond Boss Forums GENERAL QUESTIONS Property Projects & Construction We bought a pond -Year 2

The title is only partly a joke. The pond is approx ⅛ of my whole property and has become a HUGE part of my life.

Before we bought the house I posted here about possibly becoming a pond owner. Everyone here was super helpful and I can’t thank you enough.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=506613

In the fall I put in some aeration and again this forum really helped me a lot!
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=512954

Here are my year one experiences, as well as my thoughts, observations, and some questions as I move into the second season of pond ownership.

Nobody said there’d be spiders!

When you think about it, it’s obvious. Of course there would be spiders around a pond. I just wasn’t mentally prepared for it. I purchased a little boat to help cleanup vegetation along the banks, scoop out algae, and pull up lily pads. At first I was just dumping this stuff in the boat with me. I was really focusing on the task at hand. Then I suddenly realized the boat was crawling with spiders. I almost jumped overboard. What I do now is take a bunch of 5 gal buckets with me and dump stuff into them. I drilled a dozen or so ½” holes in the bottom of each bucket for water to drain, and the buckets somewhat localize the spider activity within the boat. Ugh. Spiders.

Algae, Algae, Algae,

Last summer and fall, I scooped algae by hand. A lot of algae, all the algae. Because I’m now scooping it into 5 gal buckets I can say that I scooped about 80gal of packed algae last year. It would grow into a thick carpet on top of the water. That’s where the spiders like to party. I actually prefer the carpet growth to how it’s growing this year. Last year I could start scooping and it would just keep coming up out of the water, strongly connected mats of the stuff. This year it just sort of collects on things like ropes and plants. When I try to scoop it, it’s not really connected to anything. I’ll get some in the net and the rest just disperses in the water making it turbid and gross.


What the hell, algae. Pull it together! I’ve done some stuff to try and combat algae, so I’m wondering if this isn’t somehow my fault. Maybe instead of getting rid of the algea I’ve just made it more difficult to handle. For example, In addition to putting in aeration (starting last fall), and removing actual truck loads of dead/dying vegetation from in and around the pond,




I used a very minimal amount of copper sulfate that the previous owners had left behind. This is the first chemical I’ve used since taking ownership last August. I don’t know what I’m going to do about this stuff now, since I can’t really scoop it. I don’t want to add more chemicals if I don’t have to.



Super Phragmites

By the end of the season last year you couldn’t even see the shallow end of the pond due to the Phragmites. I physically removed all of it and hit it twice this year with glyphosate. This is the second chemical I’ve used in the pond. Is it supposed to look, I dunno, “dead”, after you poison it? Because the stuff that’s growing doesn’t seem fazed at all. I hit it the first time w/ the minimum recommended dilution and hit it the second time w/ the maximum. I went through the whole gallon bottle on this little pond. It hasn’t really gotten any taller since I sprayed it a week ago, but it also doesn’t look dead. I’m worried about this stuff.

Leaves, my new enemy.

I’m in the middle of the woods with mature trees right up to the banks of this pond. Just a fact, nothing I can do about it. I can just picture the last 30 years of leaves rotting on the bottom of this pond. I’m sure it’s a big contributor to my algae problem. I spent a week, raking leaves from where the banks meet the edge vegetation of the pond. It’s been years since this has been done, if ever. I didn’t do anything last fall as the leaves fell into the pond. I’d like to say I didn’t know any better, but that’s not really true. I just hadn’t quite stepped up to the challenge. I’m really trying hard to believe that this fall I’ll be a better person and keep them raked/scooped out as they fall. How long does your average dead leaf float? A week? I’m hoping that a weekly cleanup will work so I’m not out there every night.


Fishies.

We’ve got LMB. They seemed to be more active last fall than they are right now. Truthfully I’m not much of a fisherman so my assessment here isn’t worth much. The other day I was working along the bank when the sun caught the surface of the pond just right and could see down into the pond a few feet. I was FLOORED by how many fish I saw. I had to look them up to know now that they are Bluegill. Standing in one spot I easily counted 60+.

It’s probably normal to have this many fish. I just didn’t expect it. A good friend of mine said that mid-sized BG compete with the LMB for food and i t would be smart to get rid of some of them. It’s ridiculous how quickly you can catch them w/ a live worm. They don’t seem to be interested in anything else. I tried hot dogs, bread and powerbait. So far I’ve removed 16 of them.

Also, in the interest of providing more LMB food, adding forage fish to help with algae (maybe?), and keep mosquitoes at bay, I plan to order 5lbs of Golden Shiners.

Well, that’s been my experience thus far. If anyone has any questions, I’d love to answer them, and if anyone has any tips, I’d love to read them!