1&2. Often one has to help the new small GC the first few years. IMO it is good to have 1/3 weeds manually removed. 1/3 eaten by the GC and 1/3 left in place to compete against filamentous algae. At 10 GC per acre and if all survive they might denude the pond of vegetation when the GC are 28"-30". Time will tell the rest of the story. GC are ALWAYS much easier to add than remove.
3. Clarity of 40" with a white cup will allow enough surface light to penetrate to around 8-10ft and allow vegetation & FA to grow at these depths. Be prepared and aware of this. Ideally for southern shallow ponds to minimize weed production water clarity should be in the 12"-18" range where the submerged weeds would grow down to around 3-4.5ft deep.
4. Lots of shallow water will allow lots of plants to grow. Maybe 10 GC per acre will work okay for your situation. You can always add more GC if more plants need to be consumed. Remember you always want some submerged plants to persist for fish habitat, insect production as fish food, and competition to FA.
In later years return to this thread to let us know how the pond is progressing.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/14/20 09:16 PM.
