Problems with a nasty pond. Help...

Same experience here. Decades ago my parents bought a house with two large ponds (probably 1/2 acre each, few feet deep on sides down to about 20' in the center) and the filamentous algae was terrible. I was the young kid back then and the first year or two they has me go around and rake out the algae, dry it on the side and then throw it away. They finally realized that was too much work and didn't really work so we went to chemicals . . . used Cutrine for a while. It worked but the algae would come back and sometimes the chemical would get washed away with a rainstorm. It was better than nothing but didn't solve the problem. Then they started using the blue dye packs and that helped a lot, cutting down the sunlight . . . but still not perfect and would still get diluted by rainstorms. Then they got grass carp. Hallelujah, bless those fish! For the last 10-15 years now the ponds have essentially no filamentous algae and the water is clear and the fish have never needed replacing. I think dad throws in a dye pack every once in a while, mostly just to make it nice and blue looking. That was a the winning solution for them and I just wish we had known it from the start and saved me a lot of backbreaking work.

Also, FWIW, they always had large schools of goldfish in the pond from the get-go, but those never made any kind of dent in the algae for us.

Comment about those grass carp.
They get very big in time, 20 to 30 lbs is not unheard of. If you put too many in the pond, their constant foraging can muddy the waters and they can also use far more than their share of the oxygen during periods when it is most needed .... high heat with no incoming water, or when iced over. This can lead to a die off of fish.

Go sparingly with the grass carp.

Last year the guy I ordered over the phone the grass carp and other fish said I needed three for my size pond (there were zero to start with according to old owners). The day we met the fish truck, another guy on it said I needed 12, so I bought 9 more.

Any thoughts on what the right amount is for my set up?

12 should be plenty. They eat the most when they are rapidly growing "teenagers" and then their food consumption goes down like any other fish.

Even in a heavily stocked (7,000 lb/acre in a 4' deep pond) commercial fish pond the fish only account for about 10% of the oxygen consumption. Bacteria and plankton (even plant plankton) account for the remaining 90%. In terms of actual weight the bacteria and plankton outweigh the 7,000 lbs of fish many times over and have a higher respiratory rate.

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

Well the smart fish farm website guy called me back. He said I could go up to 20-24 grass carp.

I think I'm gonna hold off on that and maybe try adding 5-6 new ones every other year.

He did recommend I get 30-40 tilapia. So, I asked to be put on the list. He says I'll probably get a call in a few weeks with the delivery date.

On another note, the new overflow pipe I had installed has heaved up above where it was installed last year. I called the guys who did it to come see about fixing it.

With the last rains that came through, the bottom of the pipe is at the height of the berm, so I've started d to have overflow from it cresting the berm. Not good.

I'm hoping he'll call, cause he needs to make that right. I paid $1200 for that work. Argh....

I don't know why it's heaved for sure. But, it's got to be fixed.

Reading through this....

You have a pond that was small, was then converted to larger by digging and piling more. (That kinda is risky, not designed right for the flows and stresses....)

You have a bad exit pipe, fixed, and went bad in a year again. (That's a bad design, those pipe need to be anchored right, packed in right, have a stop ring around them to preven water soaking along the outsides of the. And washing out. Takes a person who knows what they are doing, not a guy with a backhoe...)

You have a livestock, which if uphill will foul your water on their own.

You have an intermittent flow to feed this pond, which is just problematic all around. Stuff builds up on the surrounding terrain, and then is all flushed into your pond quickly in a rainfall, but the water stops running before it flushes the junk through. Really a tough deal. This is hard to get past. More or less without constant flow, this is just a deal killer. (The off and on flow also is tough on your exit pipe, as the dirt is gonna swell and shrink around it, why you are having leaks and failures of the pipe....)

I believe barley straw is the correct one to help with scummy ponds, not rye or other - use barley straw if you want to try this.

If you have some room to the upstream side, a cattail rush type of wetlands could filter some nutrients and silt, but with your on/off flow, its going to be a difficult thing to make worthwhile, and likely will take up more room that you are willing or can afford to lose. It would be a prefix ter to trap and use the nutrient load, but you have a tough set of issues there to make it work.

You have a tough deal there.

Paul

I'm not visualizing the pipe being "heaved up" to the top of the berm. Did it move in the berm or did it just change the angle of the pipe?

A properly designed pond dike has a carefully designed and built spillway so that water can safely go over the berm without eroding on the down stream side of the berm. That won't stop your fish from heading out to greener pastures and there is something about moving water that makes fish do crazy stuff. I always had to put screens on the ends of my siphons because the moving water would attract fish and away they would go without the screen. One time I finished siphoning and pulled the screen off the top end of the siphon. Inside were a bunch of 2 1/2" fish that had swam up 80+ feet of pipe against 200-300 gallon/minute flow inside a 4" pipe with no place to rest.

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

I didn't design an of this set up. But, the way the pond drains it this.

The overflow pipe was buried underground. On one end it can take in water when the pond level gets high enough, before the water would overflow the berm and hill side that make up one end. This is also the side of the pond that is furthest from where the field run off enters the pond.

The other end of that pipes pours out onto a river rock layer and then runs across my neighbors field about 30 yards into the creek. It can cut into his field, but he doesn't sn"t mind cause it's going through the same path that he has runoff in his fields flowing into the creek too.

In between those ends in f the pipe it is buried under a pasture and road ( gravel) and a couple fences. The pipe distance is about 30-40 yards length total. This rest of berm is mostly the width of th road on that side of the pond.

I had then new pipe laid because the whole pasture hill was being eroded because the underground length of pipe was crushed/collapsed. So water went in, but didn't really flow out as intended.

The guys who did the work replaced it. And, the part that has heaved up (at an angle) is the 6 ft or so that is not buried that faces in to the pond. The lift is significant enough that I can see about 6 more ft of it moving underground too. It was definitely moving when we stood on it today to lower it back down enough to get some water to feed through it.

I'd post a picture, but my image size from my phone pics is too big to upload and I don't know how to resize it. Hopefully what I've written makes sense.

From what I can tell you have a stand pipe drain. If so it should swivel to raise or lower the outlet end of the pipe. There should also be a post to fasten the pipe to so that it doesn't swing all the way to the bottom and drain the entire pond.

Is there water or mud on the downstream face of the dam or is that fixed?

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

There is no stand or swivel. It is a 12" black plastic pipe like a culvert or drainage pipe. It's open at both ends. I think we're going to put some kind of hardware cloth over the pond end of the pipe to keep fish out.

It is straight but corregated or rippled, and buried underground except the ends.

How do you control the height of the pipe end?

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

It was buried and the rock and dirt covering it is I think all that was holding it there.

If you can lay a overflow pipe to the INLET of the pond it will reduce both the silt and nutrient loads in the pond.

Ponds are like bathtubs they usually have the drains at the wrong end for the builders convenience !

I know very little about pond building but what I read here and there. In my part of my state we have too much water, land of 10,000 lakes, in my area we have 10 million praire potholes, or wet spots. Miserable, we tried to get rid of them until the 1980s when city folk wanted to keep them and passed laws....

So I've never really understood the fascination with digging a pond out in the country. When you have too many bug filled, flooding natural ponds around, you want less, not more.......


Anyhow. You want to make good use of yours, so that's a different deal.

Those output pipes from a man made pond are finicky things. Water saturates your berm, and the constant force has water trying to trickle along the outside wall of the pipe. Often that is disturbed soil, not perfectly packed clay like the rest of the berm. So those pipes often need a collar, a giant washer, around them, to stop that seeping water moving along the outside of the pipe. It also serves as an anchor to keep the pipe in place.

There are different grades of tile, I sure hope you used dual wall plastic pipe that is ribbed on the outside, and smooth on the inside, it is much stronger and won't crush as easily. Regular single wall 12 inch plastic tile is pretty flimsy stuff.... (Tile I understand; my small farm has many miles of tile underground to get rid of all this darn water that pools around here....) as well. You didnt use perf drainage tile, you used solid I would hope!

I have heard of those swiveling deals someone else mentioned. Who did you have install the new pipe, are they familiar with pond design, or are they just a fella with a backhoe type? Maybe you got a pro pond setup there, and maybe you got someone who dug a trench, lined with gravel, threw in a single wall slotted tile, and filled it back in.... Boy howdy would that be a disaster......

Not sure where you are at with this, but pond design takes some different thinking to do right, hope you got that part right.

Paul

Well, I didn't design it. I inherited the design of the original family.

As far as the guys we hired. It was a local septic, plumbing and something else company.

The boss came out and we walked the property together and I pointed out several things that needed doing and asked him to bid for the ones that his company did.

They bid for the pond pipe two new septic systems and another drainage field area with no septic. They also fix or ran new for waterlines and/or utility sinks to four separate buildings and some other stand alone hydrants.

So, it wasn't just a guy with a backhoe.

The job was bid at $12k and ended up getting pushed to $20k which I wasn't happy about. They also left us with a lot of clean up after when backfill settled.

We had three separate break in the lines we had to fix this winter, and we have another two we still have shutdown that we're going to have to redo.

So, it's been a little frustrating.

I actually talked to the boss yesterday, and he's supposed to come out and look over these problems. I have very little expectation of him making any of it right. Which is part of why I mentioned the pipe here.

The best work and cheapest we ever have done us diy. And, I've got relatives who can do almost anything I need done. But, pond management is not an area we have a lot if history with.

I'm definitely going to have my hubby check on the collar and if the pipe is flat inside or rippled like outside. Thanks very much!

Sounds like you just have a culvert overflow, water gets high enough it flows out. When the level goes down , no overflow. See below.

http://s465.photobucket.com/user/mnf...78efd.jpg.html

The other end daylights below the dam to the ditch like any culvert. Sounds like the end of culvert inside pond is too long and floats up on the water, needs cut closer to pond bank. If the culvert pipe is corrugated on outside, smooth inside, the ribs are hollow and this causes the pipe to want to float....James

Barley straw is supposed to be THE straw but I was never able to get it economically so I used oat straw and that worked fine.

__________________
"Do you believe in the devil? You know, a supreme evil being dedicated to the temptation, corruption, and destruction of man?" Hobbs
"I'm not sure that man needs the help." Calvin

I realize you got what you got, and you are trying to make things work. Just trying to get to a better place is all with my questions.

Some fancy outlets from a pond allow the water to rise and fall, and keeps a slow output over a longer time. This moving water keeps the pond a little fresher. Not by much, if there isn't any water trickling in it just is a dead pool, but with a slower release over time, there is a bit of water movement and recharge. That bit of water trickling out for a long time keeps a bit of a current in the pond, not quite so dead....

It sounds like you may have just a simple 12 inch pipe, when water rises to the level of the pipe it spills out, and when it lowers to that point it stops spilling out. Some pipes are put in angled up, some are angled down, some are about level. Depends what your pond needs, is the worst water at the bottom, at the top, or just need flow through the middle....

Simple, complex, cheaper, more costly..... It all gets complicated. We are trying to replicate nature with an artificial pond here, that can get complex to make it work when mother nature didnt have a pond in her plans there.....

Taking the water out of the pond from deep down, or near the surface, or near the incoming side, or near the dam wall side can all have effects on how your pond does. These get pretty deep into designing with what you have, and what you want.... Far beyond what I know. But working on these ideas could improve what you have, help move in a better direction.


For issues causing algae and such, you have N, P, and silt.

N in certain phases dissolves in water and gets flushed out of the ground in high rainfall events. Farmers put N on their corn fields and grass type fields, but they want it used by the plants, not flushed away. But, when rain comes in silly amounts, there are gonna be problems. Timing and different types of N can have a big effect, if you control the land upstream or can have a comfortable, nice discussion with neighbors over years. And, natural high organic soils and legume fields create their own N which moves on out naturally as well. They tell us wetlands naturally clean up water; but in heavy rains, they leak out nutrients as well, not a magic bullet by any means.....

P does not like water, it attaches to soil particles and so wouldn't be a problem; unless you have heavy washing rains and then the whole soil silt gets washed into the pond and there ya go, you have too much P in the pond. Control the silt and you control the P, this is where grass traps in front of the pond, and shallow wide inflow to slow incoming water helps keep the P out of the pond. Even a tiny mini dam in front to trap the silt and clean out yearly...

Silt slowly fills a pond, and carries in P and other nutrients. Bad deal, same steps as above of course.

Your problem will always be the lack of flowing water, your pond is often stagnant, and so it is more like a sea than a lake - you need to work on keeping it as fresh as you can, with the limitations you have. Designs that let the water swirl and circulate through the pond when there is flowing water might be best; but that depends on other issues as well, one needs the whole picture.

I realize you got the property with what is there. Again, my comments are on moving forward, making it better. There likely is no easy snap your fingers, write a check, and its all good next year. It is a work in progress, to improve, learn, and make better with baby steps.

Paul

Thanks rambler for all that info.

Didn't mean to sound short saying I got what I got. Was just trying to clarify that I'm not in a position to more easily overhaul the entire pond structure.

I'm also trying to not damage everything that is surviving pretty well while I improve some other things.

I'm actually learning a lot and getting help with finding new search words to hunt on Google with from this thread.

So, big thanks to all y'all who have been willing to share so much with me on here.

I apologiz for any short comings in my descriptions on these posts which is hampering communicating well about it. This is definitely a learning curve for me knowing how to talk shop about pond/lake management,