Creating a Lake

[EddieWalker]

John,

I wasn't clear on the fuel usage. My Dad was here helping me last fall when we were running the dozer and blackhoe 7 days a week clearing timber for the lake site. In one month, I filled the tank six times, but that was the most according to my receipts. I don't think we finished the last tank as it was bought right at the end of the month. 400 hours in a month on the dozer would kill me. Ten hours in one day is more than my body can take when tree clearing. Moving dirt is allot easier than tree clearing. That is the absolute worse and hardest thing to do on a dozer!!!! It would beat us up so bad that we had to take turns running it.

As for the water turning green, I'm relying on the water depth and cloudyness of the water to fight it. If it happens, that's life, but my 3/4 acre pond is muddy looking and I have only a little bit of alge growth in it. I also have fairly steep sides all around the lake to keep vegitation to a minimum. This will help contro alge to a certain degree.

With a drain valve, I can lower the water level real easy and kill the shorline plants when they get too aggresive. Just let them dry out and mow them down. Then when the water level comes back up, the shoreline will look nice again!!

Misquitos are a concern. My small 3/4 acre pond has quite a few. I put fathead minows, bluegill and catfish in it this spring, but they don't seem to have much interest in the larvi. (sp?) There are tons of tadpoles in there too, but not enough to stop the misquitos. hmmm

Eddie

 

[RobJ]

For the algae and grass you can get these carp (females only) that will eat it. I think you can get them through the state. I hear they do wonders. I think i read a while back there is a chemical for cattails that will kill them but doesn't hurt any wildlife. Never seen that work, just heard about it.

 

[EddieWalker]

Hey Rob,

Grass Carp are what your talking about. Here in Texas you have to have a special permit to have them, but I've also heard it's pretty easy to get the permit and buy the Grass Carp. I don't plan on going that route, but it's still an option.

Fishman has posted several times about chemicals to kill cattails, but it's one of those things that I want to avoid from the beginning. If they show up one day, I'll get right on killing them right away.

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[john_bud]

Eddie,

There is a product called Mosquito Dunk, it looks like a small donut and you toss them into a pond. It contains a bacteria that keeps the larvea from turning into skeeters. Might want to look into that and maybe see if you can get the bacteria only, given the size of the pond.

Putting up bat boxes to attract and hold bats helps a TON with the little beasties. A bat can eat it's weight in skeeters in a night. That's a lot of little blood suckers.

On the algae, I thought that having shade trees would keep the algae from growing and so you want trees around a pond. What do you know that I don't?
jb

 

[slaveToHorses]

We keep algae down by running a spray head off the irregation pump. Works very well and the fish love it.

 

[EddieWalker]

John,

Trees fall into that Pros and Cons catagory around a pond. The biggest plus to them is how nice they make a pond look. The list of negatives is pretty big. Worse is probably what was already mentioned. They will send their roots through a dam. The problems with this is when the tree dies, the root decays and you have a tunnel for the water to exit the pond. Another negative about roots is they are an attractive food source for animals. Here the Nutria is really bad at eating the roots into a dam. Some trees, like a willow, will drink several gallons of water a day!! A line of them can do some real damage to your water level!!!! The last negative that I can think of is that trees drop debri into a pond. Leaves braek down and cause water clarity issues. They supply food for alge and over time they can change the PH level in a pond. Bigger ponds are better at handleing this.

I realize all these reasons are good arguments for me not having trees around mine, but I decided to leave a few anyway. It's not the smartest thing to do for the pond over time, but having a beautiful pond really is my main goal.

I like the bat box idea. I looked online to see what's involved in making them and it seems pretty straight forward. I'm gonna put that on my winter projects list!!!

Thanks,
Eddie

 

[Tim_in_IA]

Eddie here is a mosquito eater I found in my garage the other night. I just kept the door open till after dark until he went out for supper.

 

[fenneran]

I cannot say enough good things about bats. We have an old, decrepid, 1/2 acre pond about 100 yards from the house. It needs to be dug out as it is now abot 3" deep where it used to be up to 8 feet. Great breeding ground for skeeters.

We have a bunch of bats that live here. I can sit on my front porch and not get one bite. We love to sit and watch the bats fly around at dusk, scooping up their fill of pests.

 

[WhyNot]

Eddie,
In your post about the pier you built you said you tossed your scrap sheetrock into the pond. What if the lake end's up muddy like your pond how will you treat that? Sure would take a lot of scrap's to clear up your lake

 

[EddieWalker]

What to do about muddy water in the lake is a true mystery. For now, it's a wait and see aproach.

One thing that has me hopfull is that soil changes. Where the pond is, the soil is all red clay with very high acid levels. It's where all my pines grow.

Where the lake is, the soil is more of a gray color. There are very few pines there, instead all the trees are hardwoods. Oaks and sweatgums mostly.

There is a chance that this different soil won't have the same effect on the water as in the pond.

Another consideration for both the pond and the lake is the amount of exposed dirt the water has to travel over to get there. As I finish of areas, I through out seed and let the grass start to grow. When it's all grass and no more exposed dirt, I might not have the same problems as I do now.

If it comes to treatment, and this is the lake only, than I'll buy the gypsum in it's powdered form. Sheetrock is just too expensive for what I need. Anywhere from one to two tones per surface acre.

The hard part will be spreading it in the lake. From what I understand, dumping it off the back of a small boat and letting the outboard motor mix it into the water is the best way, so that will by my goal. Hopefully I wont' have to deal with it.

Eddie

PS, the engine block for the dumptruck is still at the machine shop. It looks like it wont' be ready until early next week. The lake is dug, the dam is done, and now I'm just hauling dirt out to make the dam thicker and clean up the outside slopes.

Eddie