My very personal opinion is to go for one pond. It’s kinda like having 4 girl friends with similar but different personalities. I would go nuts trying to manage 4 ponds. And also go broke.
I only have the one girlfriend (that I married), but she does have four different personalities. This constantly drives me nuts, so I see your point!
The proposed pond(s) will not have adequate runoff water, but I have a live creek for supplemental water. I do not have any appropriate topography to build an embankment-type pond. I will have to spend more money to create excavation-type ponds. However, I do have a large area above the floodplain with excellent clay.
This makes my project a "blank slate" because I can create almost any configuration of ponds.
If I elect to create multiple ponds, then they will definitely have different fish and different goals. I am currently liking the idea of side-by-side 0.5 acre ponds. It was very easy to transfer fish from snrub's forage pond to his adjacent pond.
If I can't manage the two smaller ponds satisfactorily, then I could breach the shared bank and create a 1.0 acre pond.
Based on some of your old comments, I believe that you managed to get your little 0.25 acre all of the way up to 100% carrying capacity. I am NOT going to be able to manage that intensely - due to both time and budget constraints.
What size pond would you personally select to "moderately" manage now - based on your knowledge of how you did on both your 0.25 acre pond, and your 1.0 acre pond?I also like your idea of a forage pond to raise groceries for the other fish! It appears that others have been successful using that strategy, especially when the ponds are close together. Snrub even managed to grow groceries and stocking fish in his forage mini pond.
