Indigenous pond in Grady county Georgia

I'd hesitate to use tractor tires in a closed system like that. A tire contains a LOT of petroleum oil (for a tractor tire, you can think in terms of gallons.....) and even in a rubber tire, it will eventually come out. I'd stick to natural products for any structure such as wood or stone.

Hmm, good point demarkley, thanks.

nativeplanter, I would appreciate any suggestions about aquatic plants to use in this pond. Once the watermeal is gone the pond will be completely without plants.

You're right about future exposure to watermeal from pond hopping birds, but if the fertility of the pond is in balance there is a good chance it won't re-establish. Watermeal requires an overly fertile environment to thrive, so with proper management I can avoid runaway growth. Sonar continues to work for several months assuming the water doesn't flow out excessively. Also if I see it coming back I can re-treat with a low dose of Sonar.

I hesitate to continue addressing adding trees to the pond. It isn't my pond and I don't believe the owner is interested in adding any. I still have doubts that adding trees has no downside. I belong to a forum of pond owners, managers, and builders and the concensus there is that the downsides out weigh the advantages. People there still opt to leave or add trees to their shorelines for aesthetic purposes, but they do so with the understanding that they will have to deal with the disadvantages. If anyone would like to link to some scientific data that confirms the environmental advantage of adding trees I will try to keep an open mind.

You know, I think I'll try to come up with a list of native pond plants and put it in the native plants section.

I'm curious - what are the percieved downsides of having trees by your pond (other than in the dam, if it has one)?

I'm curious - what are the percieved downsides of having trees by your pond (other than in the dam, if it has one)?

This thread addresses the main issues some have about planting trees around a pond. The idea of leaf litter adding to the fertility seems important for this pond because of the nutrient rich runoff it gets. Also the only trees that would probably thrive are the ones that love water. These water loving trees would be likely to draw a fair amount of water from a pond which doesn't get much runoff as it is.

I'm planning on looking into lotus plants to see if there is a native variety that wouldn't be too invasive.

Sorry to be negative but...

It seems to me that this pond is designed to fail. If the only way it gets filled is from runoff and the runoff is nutrient rich which you won't/can't stop, then you are going to be dealing with the outbreak of algae/watermeal/whatever. You will always be addressing the symptoms instead of resolving the problem.

What is going to manage the waste output of your stocked fish?

It seems to me that this pond is designed to fail. If the only way it gets filled is from runoff and the runoff is nutrient rich which you won't/can't stop, then you are going to be dealing with the outbreak of algae/watermeal/whatever. You will always be addressing the symptoms instead of resolving the problem.

What is going to manage the waste output of your stocked fish?

I'm not 100% sure drewish, I'm learning as I go. I've started a thread about this pond at the Pond Boss website for technical advise and so far no one has said that these are insurmountable problems. Nutrients are something that every pond requires so it should just be a matter of balance. I would think the goal is to match the beneficial plants and animals to the available nutrients. My guess is that algae blooms in the right proportion can feed plankton creating a good base for the food chain. Controlling the fish numbers will lessen the effect of fish waste, and leave more forage for each individual. A heavy presence of beneficial plants could utilize most of the available nutrients and create good habitat for invertebrates which in turn feed the fish. Fertile runoff seems to be the rule and not the exception with farm ponds. In fact I have found more people who are looking for ways to increase the fertility of their ponds to keep up with the demand created by a healthy fishery.

I'm also addressing some of the difficulty with this pond by choosing an appropriate apex predator, Warmouth. My understanding is that they can tolerate a wide range of water conditions, so hopefully that will make the goal easier to reach. I'm doing my best to make the plant and animal life match the environment.

I'm just throwing out ideas, most of which I have only read about, but it seems to me that there is always a way to balance these elements if you know how.

Keep in mind that "algae" blooms more often than not are caused by cyanobacteria and, as someone mentioned previsoulsy, most of the organisms in this group produce aflatoxins which are poisonous.

Also, yes trees do consume water, but they also maintain moisture in the soil column by drawing up the water table due to the osmotic gradient inherent in the trees drawing up water through their roots. A group of trees planted adjacent to the pond, as opposed to a ring of trees around the pond may actually help maintain a higher water table. This relationship is fairly dependent on the topography and soil type of the area.

The shade provided by trees will also limit the available photo energy available to algae blooms and can aid some aquatic vegetation also, by moderating the temperature and keeping alge from growing on it directly. Keep in mind also that aquaitc vegetation will grow, and accumulate biomass (as it seems you are intending) but that vegetative material will take up space and will ultimatley require removal and also will consume available O2 as it decomposes. Most non deciduous trees actually drop more leaves over the course of a year than deciduous, but they are spread out as opposeed to a "surge" of detritus.

One way to possibly reduce the nutrient load of the linfluent would be to box out a trence upstream of the pond, line it with a geotextile and fill the trench with 3" washed stone. The geotextile will keep soil from filling the void space of the stone. The stone will provide a surface-area-rich flowpath that will help to consume nutrients. At some point it would have to be maintenanced, however. This could be 20 years if properly sized and would depend of anticipated flowrates, temperature, etc. The trench could be fully wrapped with the geotextile and covered and can help reduce the temperature also.

That's my 3 cents...

I was working on a reply, but thank you Scott for putting it much better than I would have.

Basically, you need to do some work to prevent the problems from re-occurring and limiting your maintenance.

Also, just because warmouth can tolerate a wide range of water conditions, doesn't mean they should. You mentioned trophy sized fish in a previous post and without healthy water and food, they won't be growing that large. Trophy sized fish grow in large water systems with clean water and lots of forage.

Basically, you need to do some work to prevent the problems from re-occurring and limiting your maintenance.

Also, just because warmouth can tolerate a wide range of water conditions, doesn't mean they should. You mentioned trophy sized fish in a previous post and without healthy water and food, they won't be growing that large. Trophy sized fish grow in large water systems with clean water and lots of forage.

Thank you for that great advice drewish.

Thank you scottefontay for your suggestions.



About trees: It's not likely that any will be planted. I will still try to create a thriving population of native plants and animals.

About fertility: It was too high at some point in the past and a watermeal bloom occurred. Most likely there was no attempt to manage the available nutrients in the past. There is no hard evidence that this pond tends to be too fertile when properly managed.

Shade: I will look into using lily pads for shade, the main concern being containment.

Water quality: I'm not choosing WM because I expect them to live in a toxic environment, but instead because they are more apt to thrive in a small warm pond than larger or more delicate species. The owner has already invested in an aeration system so it should be apparent that more efforts to main good water quality can be expected.

Algae blooms: I will try to encourage balanced and well timed phytoplankton blooms and try to avoid the poisonous algae.

slow growing plantswould help keep down alage blooms for in tanks the best way to get rid of alage is to get plants
for your apex pred. I think bowfin would be cool but maybe a bit big or how about chain pickeral? with some good plants to keep alage down oxygen up and the water clearer I think you could go for some of the more delicate species and also how I would keep water levels up is to get a smaller pond/hole to collect runoff and then pump what you need of it into the larger pond plus the smaller pond would be cool for drawf sunnies
if I made some vast mistakes in pond keeping please forgive a beginner

killier, everything you said seems logical to me. I've thought about chain pickerel and would love to stock them, but I think I would try to stock only one sex so that I can control their numbers. Since my goal is big WM I don't want a bunch of pickerel preying on the WM to excess. I know almost nothing about bowfin and I will check into them.

I think that I should be able to crowd the aquatic plants somewhat since there's an aerator running 24/7.

The small pond you suggested is something I've already talked with the owner about. As a matter of fact the runoff has created a depression that's about 3 feet deep and 8 feet wide just before it enters the pipe that carries it to pond. I pictured this little tank as a grow out pond for minnows that would release the fish during runoff events. Of course I could net them and add them at other times as well. This is the same general area that I could use to make the trench that scottefontay mentioned which is also interesting. The problem with the trench might be that the runoff comes all at once during heavy rains.

killier, everything you said seems logical to me. I've thought about chain pickerel and would love to stock them, but I think I would try to stock only one sex so that I can control their numbers. Since my goal is big WM I don't want a bunch of pickerel preying on the WM to excess. I know almost nothing about bowfin and I will check into them.

I think that I should be able to crowd the aquatic plants somewhat since there's an aerator running 24/7.

The small pond you suggested is something I've already talked with the owner about. As a matter of fact the runoff has created a depression that's about 3 feet deep and 8 feet wide just before it enters the pipe that carries it to pond. I pictured this little tank as a grow out pond for minnows that would release the fish during runoff events. Of course I could net them and add them at other times as well. This is the same general area that I could use to make the trench that scottefontay mentioned which is also interesting. The problem with the trench might be that the runoff comes all at once during heavy rains.

bowfin are a native fish that looks alot like a snakehead the colors are much different but the body shape is about the same a fewpeople fish for them for they fight well and get big even in small ponds when I was in florida last week I pulled in a good 10-15lbs one an several people close by managed to get some even larger they are hardy once they get about 4-5 inches and will eat almost anything for population control the fry bunch up so a big dipnet could take a chunk out of the population
get a good wall a few bricks or even some sand bags would be good or just an earthern mound but it realy depends on the terrian for you dont want to block of the drains coming in can you post a pic of this depression?

I'll get a pic of the ditch in the next few days. I think I'm going to rule out bowfin because I assume they would become the dominant fish pretty easily and I want to give the WM every advantage for growth. I also want to be very cautious about the biomass of the pond and I would rather have 5 or 6 good size WM instead of one very large bowfin. Thanks for the suggestion though...

I'm thinking about stocking some fatheads in this pond initially even though they aren't native. If I understand correctly they will not last more than a few seasons at most after adding the WM due to predation. This seems like an economical way to quickly establish forage for the WM while I take the time to collect small native fish. Of course I could just add Gambusia right now, but I'm trying to avoid them if possible.

I'm thinking about stocking some fatheads in this pond initially even though they aren't native. If I understand correctly they will not last more than a few seasons at most after adding the WM due to predation. This seems like an economical way to quickly establish forage for the WM while I take the time to collect small native fish. Of course I could just add Gambusia right now, but I'm trying to avoid them if possible.

get some native topminnows it gets to hot for fatheads and a few topminnows will live even after you stock it

get some native topminnows it gets to hot for fatheads and a few topminnows will live even after you stock it

Thing is I'm looking for a small species that I can purchase, preferably that will reproduce, so that I can get started faster. It might be different if I had experience and gear for collecting but I'm starting from scratch.

I suppose I could just stock the WM and count on them taking fish pellets, but I would rather build up some minnows if possible.

Thing is I'm looking for a small species that I can purchase, preferably that will reproduce, so that I can get started faster. It might be different if I had experience and gear for collecting but I'm starting from scratch.

I suppose I could just stock the WM and count on them taking fish pellets, but I would rather build up some minnows if possible.

well your right it would be too costly to get 300 topminnows from SAS or jonahs
least killifish would be better than monsquito fish they are livebearers but smaller and have some color to them
do you live near a large airport?

I live 45 minutes from the Tallahassee Airport. I wouldn't call it big, but I think big planes land there.

How much would 300 cost? Will they breed in hot weather? What if I get less and give them a few months alone in the pond before adding the WM?

Edit: What about Golden Shiners? I assume that they would manage to survive WM predation enough to grow large. Would they take over the pond without a large predator like LMB to control them?

How about putting a pond cypress in your pond?

How about putting a pond cypress in your pond?

That's a great idea Gambusia. I'll suggest it to the owner.