have_blue
Veteran Member
patrick_g said:
Pat,
It's pretty frustrating that my neighbor's pond, only 400' away from mine, is clear while mine is muddy. I guess I should just chalk it up to 1 of the mysteries of nature.
Creating a Lake
- Thread starter EddieWalker
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Pat,
It's pretty frustrating that my neighbor's pond, only 400' away from mine, is clear while mine is muddy. I guess I should just chalk it up to 1 of the mysteries of nature.
patrick_g
Elite Member
have_blue said:
Bob, What is a guy named Bob doing in the heart of Cajun Country? Is that your nom de plume, a handle assigned by witness protection, you're not a local, or what???
Bob, I certainly sympathize with you. I haven't been able to decode the mystery of adjacent ponds with vastly different clarity characteristics. I have 7 pretty clear ponds and 3 muddy ones. Of course, the luck of the draw makes two out of the 3 ponds in the back yard the largest muddy ones. Of the two big muddy ones, one has been there for decades and I built the other about 4 years ago, getting much of the dirt for the dam from the excavation I did to get a walk-out basement.
The third muddy pond is fairly small (100x250ft) and is not in sight of the house. Another pond, slightly smaller is clear all the time. It would be worth a few K$ to me if I could have the ponds nearest the house stay clear all the time (and I don't mean by constantly adding chemicals as they overflow.)
I guess while you have your chalk out, mark mine up as mysteries of nature as well.
Pat
Patrick,
Yeah, it's been years since I've dealt with flocculants. We used them to drop out suspended product in effluent streams. The EPA didn't want the stuff in the pipe, the WWT people didn't want to deal with it and we didn't want to lose product! The guys on the production area would "accidentally" spill some of the powder in high traffic areas and wait for a rain. It would turn to the slipperyest stuff you have ever seen and talk about hard to get off! A fire hose could spray it and it would still be slick.
On your ponds, have you measured the pH of the water in each pond? That might give you a clue ...
The gypsum and other ionic flocculants don't change the charge of the water. They provide the opposite charged particulates as the stuff that is in suspension. Opposite charges attract and the particles clump or "floc" together into something that is large enough to settle out.
Yeah, it's been years since I've dealt with flocculants. We used them to drop out suspended product in effluent streams. The EPA didn't want the stuff in the pipe, the WWT people didn't want to deal with it and we didn't want to lose product! The guys on the production area would "accidentally" spill some of the powder in high traffic areas and wait for a rain. It would turn to the slipperyest stuff you have ever seen and talk about hard to get off! A fire hose could spray it and it would still be slick.
On your ponds, have you measured the pH of the water in each pond? That might give you a clue ...
The gypsum and other ionic flocculants don't change the charge of the water. They provide the opposite charged particulates as the stuff that is in suspension. Opposite charges attract and the particles clump or "floc" together into something that is large enough to settle out.
have_blue
Veteran Member
john_bud said:
John,
I stand corrected!
patrick_g
Elite Member
John and Bob, Thanks to you both for your suggestions. I haven't measured the pH in any of the ponds. I guess I'm lazy or something but since most of the ponds are on seasonal creeks and the overflow of one goes directly into the next in some cases I thought the water woild be pretty similar. We have 3 ponds in our yard. Two are always muddy and the third (downstream of the other two) clears up right away after the muddy overflow quits. The drain pipe of each of the "upper" ponds dumps directly into the next pond in the chain with no intervening creek.
I am not only lazy but curious and curious always trumps lazy so I will be measuring the pH of all 10 ponds to see if there is any trend to be noticed. I suppose measuring while the usually clear ponds are muddy and again after they clear would be good.
Pat
I am not only lazy but curious and curious always trumps lazy so I will be measuring the pH of all 10 ponds to see if there is any trend to be noticed. I suppose measuring while the usually clear ponds are muddy and again after they clear would be good.
Pat
OP
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
My small 3/4 acre pond was stocked last year and it's full of fathead minnows, copper nose bluegill and channel catfish. The catfish are pretty easy to catch with cheese on a hook. The minnows fill up the minnow trap almost every day, but the bluegill are a different story. We've only cought about a dozen or so of them with the pole and none in the minnow trap.
Pat mentioned siening for minnows, which I don't have any experience doing, but it sounded like fun. I bought a 4 ft by 20 foot sien net online a month ago, but today was the first time to use it.
Steph's step dad, Larrry, was here and we got to talking about giving it a try. He'd done the siening thing with poles as a kid, but never with a bigger net like I'd bought.
I tied a rope to his end and he stood on the dock while I waded out into the pond. Our fist pass netted a dozen or so minnows. We tried again and again. It took some practice, but after awhile, we found the hiding spot for the year old bluegills. We also realized that half the minnows in the net were actually bably bluegill. They have spawned in the small pond and are everywhere!!!
It didn't matter where we draged the net, we cought baby bluegill. Mostly we let them go while working on the bigger ones. Some would jump out of the net, others would work there way to the end and escape. To stop this, Alissa got in the water with us and would pick up the side of the net close to Larry.
I was able to release two dozen of the big bluegill, plus about 200 of the baby's and another hundred or so minnows in Lake Marabou. It was a fun way to spend a couple hours on a warm Sunday afternoon!!!
One suprise was the monster. At first we thought it might have been a baby crawdad, but the tail and head are alll wrong. Anybody know what the "monster" is?
Thanks,
Eddie
Pat mentioned siening for minnows, which I don't have any experience doing, but it sounded like fun. I bought a 4 ft by 20 foot sien net online a month ago, but today was the first time to use it.
Steph's step dad, Larrry, was here and we got to talking about giving it a try. He'd done the siening thing with poles as a kid, but never with a bigger net like I'd bought.
I tied a rope to his end and he stood on the dock while I waded out into the pond. Our fist pass netted a dozen or so minnows. We tried again and again. It took some practice, but after awhile, we found the hiding spot for the year old bluegills. We also realized that half the minnows in the net were actually bably bluegill. They have spawned in the small pond and are everywhere!!!
It didn't matter where we draged the net, we cought baby bluegill. Mostly we let them go while working on the bigger ones. Some would jump out of the net, others would work there way to the end and escape. To stop this, Alissa got in the water with us and would pick up the side of the net close to Larry.
I was able to release two dozen of the big bluegill, plus about 200 of the baby's and another hundred or so minnows in Lake Marabou. It was a fun way to spend a couple hours on a warm Sunday afternoon!!!
One suprise was the monster. At first we thought it might have been a baby crawdad, but the tail and head are alll wrong. Anybody know what the "monster" is?
Thanks,
Eddie
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pat32rf
Veteran Member
So, do those snapping turtles really taste like chicken?
I'd check with Pond Boss about muddy water, I have the feeling that there are many reasons and just as many cures. I have a small pond out back that is clear every spring but as the water level goes down over the summer and the fish become more concentrated gets muddy from them stirring it up.
I used to have a problem with kids running their ATVs thru it and stirring up the mud until I dug a couple of 12' deep holes out in the middle
I'd check with Pond Boss about muddy water, I have the feeling that there are many reasons and just as many cures. I have a small pond out back that is clear every spring but as the water level goes down over the summer and the fish become more concentrated gets muddy from them stirring it up.
I used to have a problem with kids running their ATVs thru it and stirring up the mud until I dug a couple of 12' deep holes out in the middle
patrick_g
Elite Member
john_bud said:
Doesn't look like the dragon fly nymphs that I have seen but I haven't seen them all.
Seriously, you can Google on dragonfly nymphs and the ones I looked at there are what I recall seeing. Not so long by quite a margin. The dragonfly nymphs are not so long for their thickness. They often crawl up out of the water on the stems of plants and split open to release the metamorphosed occupant leaving behind a really ungly looking criter (totally hollow) hanging onto the plant.
Pat
