2.5 Acre Pond Gone!!! Ideas, tale, and restoral thread

[Stressless]

Gotcha George - The thing here is this pond, prior to the bit of excavating, produced 7+# LMB without care or stocking. I get that I'll prolly have to amend once more in my lifetime (I'll be checking pH yearly) but with the OM coming in from the trees and water column I think it'll be on auto pilot w/o need of touch-up on chems after 5-10 years. LoL - about when I age out of this kinda labor.

Also, I did keep the forms I made as adding lime that way is 1,000,000 x better then fkn with that Hydrated lime.

 

[Sgt Fury]

Yup, just adding my two cents as I’d hate to see a set back after all of that work. Mining for sand is BIG business here in south jersey and almost all of the deep water quarries are loaded with large mouth bass and sun fish. Other types of fish require a better PH and don’t do well in the same quarry as LMB.

 

[Stressless]

@GoetsTalon - most definitely -

The Holy Trinity of my ol'broken ass working like that....

Oh and ya that's the Ranger Candy from the VA on the left... 800mg Motrin.

Ya doc I hydrated and changed my socks as well.

 

[GoetsTalon]

I figured lol! Looks like my pain management. Voltaren gel works pretty good also.

 

[Stressless]

I figured lol! Looks like my pain management. Voltaren gel works pretty good also.

LoL. Yupper! In my kit.

 

[Stressless]

Okay back to the pond, one of the ideas is to get some growth on the waterline slope to help firm up the shoreline. We got the 34 3'-4' bald cypress planted along the disturbed edge and will prolly put another 20 or so in next spring. As asked my son where he'd like shade in 20 years and to go ahead and mark where where he wanted them... as I'll most likely be gone by then.

View attachment 151204

 

[Stressless]

Should hit the overflow with the next appreciable rain. Then I'm in the restore and restock phase not 'did it work?' phase.

Checking the pH and alkalinity in a few weeks to see about forage stocking.

Watching the turbidity since I limed it via pics and it appears the mico critters are blooming nicely.

 

[GoetsTalon]

Looks like you got a guest looking for dinner already.

 

[Stressless]

Okay one month has passed - the water reached the overflow and the obvious turbidity (if I am using that term right) has increased with the rise in pH.

I'll be pulling a water sample to send off next week and post the results upwith any remaining remediation required before stocking. On another issue I'll be waging genocide on the @**@& Jap Knotweed as well next week.

Here's the before and after.

Applying the pelletized from where could reach the shore.

One month later.

 

[Stressless]

Stressful.

Had Mose come back out to fix a couple places he cut too much bank out, well...

He was one more try from losing it below the fuel intake and finnaly called it a recovery.


Couple hours later they got it out and he finished up.

Rough tested the pH and it had come up to 6.0-6.5 by the hatchery guy. I'm testing it throughly tomorrow. Put initial fathead minnows and shellcrackers in today.

Plan to add Ag gypsum @5# / surface acre foot to bump alkalinity as well after a solid test tomorrow.

 

[Clay Showalter]

Wow that is as almost bad

 

[Stressless]

Got to the overflow and had Mose into get some light work now that the pond level was known...



This is what it looked like prior to him coming in and getting into a bit of a pickle...



he kept trying to get that behemoth out and only got it deeper and deeper...



I finally got him to call it a recovery and he got another track in with a winch on it and got it out.



At the end of the day he left some deep gouges after a 3-4 hour delay from getting the dozer about swamped.



He came back in and backed out all the ruts and finished up real nice.



The pH had come up to 6.3 or so but that was prior to the new work so I'll have to add about 1000#or so to the new areas but once that's done I'm 97.5% sure that the excavator work on the pond is complete and all I have to do is dial in the chemistry and stock.

Right now it's a a little lime to hit the 7.0 pH and gypsum to raise the alkalinity to the right level.

 

[Jackalope]

How long will the lyme and gypsum keep it where you want it. Won't the pond eventually revert back to what it wants to be?

 

[Stressless]

How long will the lyme and gypsum keep it where you want it. Won't the pond eventually revert back to what it wants to be?

In reading up on the pond water maintenance and quality, the "treatment" is actually very close to treatment of a plot or field. The gypsum acts as a 'buffer' for the pH by raising alkalinity. I'll look for the published links i read- I'm not a expert or authority by any measure but find the chemistry of the living environment interesting.

As for going back, reverting to an original state as George mentioned, I'm unsure. I do know that there is no or very little turnover, certainly no drainage or large watershed runoff from highly acidic soils other than what got turned up during the excavation.

I got a semi pro pond water testing kit which I be testing with at least twice a year to keep a log of what's happening, and restoration measures with results.

This is the test kit..

Fresh Water Aquaculture Outfit Model AQ-2

A complete outfit for pond fish culture, ideal for fresh water analysis. Unit is supplied complete with labware, accessories, sampling bottle, and reagents for 50 tests of 9 important test factors.

lamotte.com

http://fisheries.tamu.edu/files/2013/09/SRAC-Publication-No.-4100-Liming-Ponds-for-Aquaculture.pdf

https://srac.tamu.edu/fact-sheets/serve/262

 

[Stressless]

LoL many 1,000's of words in this capture...

http://imgur.com/a/UZ9ry8e

 

[Stressless]

There a been a good couple 'validation' points along Crescent Pond renovation and this one is specific to the evaporation / seepage.

Aug '21 - late May '22 - the pond filled up to the overflow, 11' deep, 65' wide, 1100' long = 5,875,155.00 us gallons.

Since the material I used to make the "dam" aka causeway at the property line is porous I have to figure the other surface area into as well, which comes to 2.5 SA.

We've had a drought in this part of Ohio for about 3 weeks now and I have a rain gauge at the farm so I have the data to correlate.



In June, .24"+.56"+.64"+.08"+.04" = 1.56" total rainfall for the month. The watershed I calculated is 1" of rain in the ponds watershed would produce (531,000 sqft x .62) = 329,220 gallons or in June we should have added 513,583 gallons.

NCRS and others have "average" evaporation rates by month - so for June - that's 4.5" of loss per PAN for the month of June.



So, if I do Simple (KISS)

1.56" of rainfall (-) 4.5" of avg PAN evaporation loss 'should' indicate a drop in the overall pond average level by -2.94" (roughly)

Last day of June capture.


this last pic is zoom on pond level indicator. There is a mark right at the current water level which is ~ 3" low, or below the overflow. The validation is that the pond's renovations and patch (Aug '21) are all holding really well based on the correlation of the Avg PAN loss and the current pond level.



Lots of SMILES over here!!!

 

[Stressless]

Good news and Bad news on the Crescent Pond project.

-June'22, Tested pH and it came to 7.0 pH
-July'22, Tested pH it came in at 7.0 pH
-July '22, Stocked 15# of Fathead minnows(FHM) and 40 Redear Sunfish(RES)
-Aug'22, Tested Alkalinity - Hellaoff at 23ppm... < 20ppm fish can't live.

With the pH dialed in I needed to get Alkalinity ppm up above 50, really above 100 ppm if possible. I looked around and found powered gypsum was the just the ticket I needed. Did the math on surface arce foot etc ordered enough to bring, in a lab environment, the Alkalinity up to 150ppm, the lower limit the pros at PondBoss told was 80. IF I get it to 100 ppm I'll be real happy.

-Aug'22, amended with 6000# of ultrafine gypsum to meet the 150ppm of Alkalinity. Did this off the venerable old rowboat with a modified sluice and 4.0GPM pump.

pH and Alkalinity 'should be good' for bit but now the seep.

With the drought this fall I was really hopeful the water drop was the result of that and not a seep. That's not the case as Oct-Jan rolled in with ample moisture and almost no evaporation (PAN) the level is holding solid about 2' below the overflow.

That's the good and bad news, if I don't do another thing the pond will thrive. .... but I'm me and as I push the glasses up the bridge of my nose and adjust my britches I know I 'might' be able to plug the seep, it raised up the overflow once so somewhere there's a seep (maybe more) but since it reached the overflow it's put a couple hundred thousand gallons thru the seep - it shouldn't be too hard to find.

Current plan is to test pH and Alkalinity in March'23 - if those are holding steady I'll stock FHM RES and Golden Shiners(GSH) Smallmouth Bass (SMB) and Yellow Perch(YP) - to be in the right ratio and plentiful. Also plan to add 300-400 crayfish.

Also in March'23 I'll do a real solid visual inspection of the entire pond perimeter to locate the active seep(s). My bentonite supplier has both the granular and chips and the current advice from the pros is 70/30 Chips/Granular, 6" thick and 8' in diameter from the seep. I figure I'll chase the seep for a year or two, do the bentonite cap a few times and see how it works... I do not plan to chase it until I fix it but this is my

-Apr'23 20 bags of chips and 6 bags of granular per located seep
-Apr'23 replace 12-15 cypress tress that didn't catch from last Apr

 

[Stressless]

How long will the lyme and gypsum keep it where you want it. Won't the pond eventually revert back to what it wants to be?

I trying to figure exactly that out. From what I've been reading it's much like treating the a plot, just spreading in the water and it settles to the bottom and reacts with the soil on the bottom of the pond. This is pothole so there's really not a tom of turn over... that said calculations with the Surface Acre of the water shed even given significant peculation (loss) 1" of rain should put ~ 1/4 million gallons in. Observations are the best evidence, asking over at the Pond Boss for their educated "slopes" but for now Crescent Pond is dialed in and going to get stocked. The Pond test kit I got a mid grade one, I wish they made an alkalinity gradient slide like the pH one to help know where the heck "Pink" fits in the scale.

@Sgt Fury I got back to the farm and broke out the test kit. I was(am) very curious on the pH stability as well.

2022 Apr pH 5.1
2022 Oct pH 7.0
2023 Apr pH 7.25


Now I got a question for you chem guys out there - the test kit I have says use the tritrator until it goes from Blue/Green to Pink.


This is the Blue-Green at 0ppm added


@ 20ppm


@30 ppm


@40ppm


@50ppm


@75ppm


@110ppm


@140ppm


@150ppm


In Oct 2022 I tested and think I had about the same color but it turned much "pinker", much quicker. I did the alkalinity and pH twice today each and got the same results.


2022 Oct Alkalinity I guessed but I think I was low but it was >=50ppm My estimate then was 21ppm, based on today s I think it was closer to 40 in Oct 22.

2023 Apr Alkalinity (I may do the mean of guesses over at Pond Boss lol) but from the two tests I think it's +/- 5 at 120ppm right in the very productive zone with a pH of 7.25.

It's got a good color, looks live with lots of organic going on. I think it akin to "soil Health in that get the chemistry right, trying to nudge nature to make her thing happen, coat the bottom with inches of organic matter to help insulate the water from the reactive elements I turned up fixing the issue.

 

[Sgt Fury]

Looking good! Do you plan on putting any vegetation in there for shade/structure for the fish?

 

[Stressless]

@Sgt Fury we planted 38 bald cypress along the edge Apr '22, most ~2/3's are like this one good buds and showing good signs of growth. I also took lots of ripe cattail pods and busted them up and got a nice catch almost all long the bank and will let them colonize (spread) anywhere they can to stabilize the bank as well.

Almost all the trees that got knocked down during construction are in the bottom/edge.

Its a lure eating hole.

Put another #1700 of Aglime in to push the pH up a bit more and hopefully the alkalinity.

Stocked with the perch, shellcrackers, Fathead minnows and golden shiners in mid April so it's off and running. Going to try and catch Smallmouth in the Walhonding, floating the yak this summer to stock that species and just buying crayfish from a local hatchery.