New Pond Help...

To get started we purchased a piece of property with a 2acre pond that is round and is 13ft deep in the center and gets shallower around the edges... it is lined and has 2-3ft of dirt on top of the liner. It is a steady level pond and may drop up to 8" in the summer but comes right back up with no issues. There is an automatic feeder on the pond and he stocked it with a pond package from a local feed store when they had a company come through which included all types of fish. We fished it for the first time last weekend and caught bluegill, sunfish, what looked to be shiner baitfish but were about 5-6" long and very healthy, Largemouth bass that were about 5-7" long and small catfish. So I have some questions...

1) Having a pond like this he never treated it, but I read where it needs to be treated... Do I need to treat the pond or not? If so what is the best way to go about doing so...

2) With a variety of species is it ok to buy the 40lb bags of floating fish food from tractor supply?

3) How many times per day should the feeder go off? How long? I currently have it set for twice per day for 4 seconds and it seems to be plenty of food but I dont want to feed more than I need to.

4) How long will it take for the Bass to grow into bigger fish? He had the pond stocked last year and they are by far the smallest fish in the pond...

5) Is there anything that I need to do with the pond as far as upkeep goes that you would suggest. please leave any suggestions or tips for me and anyone else that may need help in the future.


Thanks,

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I hope I can shed some light for you.

1) When you say treated are you talking about vegetation or fertilization or what? Since I'm not sure I'll try to give some blanket answers to all of the above. Treating is by no means necessary for a pond to survive. If it is vegetation problems you are looking at then there are several options. I personally suggest biological options like tilapia for filamentous algae, and triploid grass carp for submerged vegetation like bushy pond weed and coontail. Tilapia are legal to put in any pond, but triploid grass carp require a permit from TPWD. They will let you know how many you can place in each water body. If you are looking for a quick fix then you can treat with chemicals. Cutrine Plus works well on filamentous algae, but there are several different options for submerged vegetation depending on the plant. Use caution when treating vegetation as treating to much can cause depleted oxygen that may in turn cause fish kills.
If fertilization is what you mean by treating then a good rule of thumb is to keep your water visibility around 12-18 inches. If it's clear then fertilizing will cause phytoplankton blooms that feed the food web from the bottom up. If it is muddy then it typically isn't an issue. Be careful fertilizing if you already have a vegetation problem. Those plants will thrive even more with the added nutrients.
If you are looking to treat it in terms of clearing up a muddy pond then several options can be chosen. Most ponds will clear up with gypsum treatments, but water quality can affect this. Knowing hardness, alkalinity, and pH is important to determine if you should use Gypsum, Aluminum Sulfate or something else to clear the pond.

2) Yes. Floating fish food is the best way to increase your fishes growth. Bluegill and Catfish typically benefit most from a fish food. Bass most likely won't touch the food unless you bought them feed trained from the fish farm. The idea behind a feeder is to grow monster bluegill. This will allow those guys to avoid being eaten by bass therefore producing tons of young and boosting the food chain in that way. For bluegill and catfish be sure you buy fish food that has at least 32% protein. This will help them to grow at the best rate.

3)Twice per day is perfect. As for length of feed, you have to let your fish answer that for you. If the feeder goes off and all the feed gets eaten up quickly then add a second to the time. If the feeder goes off and fish finish feeding but there is still feed floating then dial it back a second. I typically set my feeders to 30 minutes after sunrise, 1 hour before sunset and 3 second feeding times. As the winter comes (October November is) down the line, we typically move to one feeding in the hottest part of the day, then eventually not at all. This is because the fish become lazy and won't come up to eat in the cold water so you would be wasting feed.

4) If he stocked them as fingerlings then they shouldn't be to large. Their growth will come along. Focus on building the forage populations. If your bluegill are the healthiest fish in the pond then the rest will follow. If your bass are skinny and you are looking for quick supplements then adding fathead minnows or golden shiners would be a good idea.

5) Give us a call here at Pond King Inc. We specialize in forming ponds to be what our customers want. It's much easier to answer any question you may have over the phone (940-668-2573). We do everything but digging the ponds. Stocking, vegetation plantings and treatments, habitat installs, turtle traps, floating docks, pontoon boats, kayaks, and fishing tackle. Stop by at our store in Gainesville Tx and see what we can do for your pond.

Welcome to ponding.

First thing I would recommend you do is find out the chemical composition of your pond....it is important to know the ph and total alkalinity. Local county ext. services can provide testing and also recommendations based on results if any are needed. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Tractor Supply here sells two types of fish food: one is called "Trophy Fish" by Sportsman's choice and is an excellent product. It comes in convenient 25 pound bags and has 36% protein and min 4% fat. The other product is lower quality catfish food that generally comes in 40 to 50 pound bags. Ask your local TSC store manager to stock the "Trophy Fish" and you will be very happy with it.

Be careful to avoid adding unnecessary waste into your pond. Make sure the fish consume everything...and don't overfeed. Excess feeding causes many problems in small ponds.

The growth rate of your bass will depend on forage availability and water quality and to a much lesser extent genetics. I've raised bass to two pounds in that first year, but one pound is more normal and expected.

A really excellent monitoring technique involves measuring the relative weights and tracking that as time moves forward. There are several publications which explain this: http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-1193/ANR-1193.pdf

I have found it to be a really excellent tool to monitor fish status and a great indicator of when changes need to be made. Personally, I prefer it over any other approach I've found, including electro shocking.

Good luck with your new pond. It can provide generations and generations of fun for very little effort.

Pond king has a great new app in the apple app store that calculates relative weights for you. Download the free app (called "pond king app"), click the bass-o-meter option in the lower right, and enter the length and weight. It simply keeps your from having to do calculations yourself, plus it's right there in your pocket if you're curious. We're looking into an android version.