Instant Pond

[bindian]

:thumbsup: The ducks seem to be enjoying it.

The ducks are my comedy club. They enjoy anything that doesn't eat them. Each one has a different personality. My last crop of ducklings had about 1/2 of them drakes. :thumbdown: I have 12 of these guys left and hopefully will sell them tomorrow for $5 each, just to get rid of them. That many guys would be way too hard on my hens.
hugs, Brandi

 

[BoylermanCT]

Brandi, how do you fill your pond? Over the years it seems like you drain it to work on it, fill it up, drain it etc and repeat. I have a 2 acre pond that I am trying to figure out how to add an island for my ducks and am afraid if I drain it, it will take forever to refill. Mine is fed by an underground spring. Water level never drops more than a foot even in drought years (not that CT really ever had droughts). I would have to pump it out to be able to work on it. My pond was man made by the previous owners over 60 years ago.

 

[bindian]

BoylermanCT,
Your pond is G-O-R-G-E-O-U-S! :thumbsup::licking::cool2::dance1::2cents:

Islands are awesome, but can be a pain with running water eroding it. How deep is it where you want the island? Mutliply that figure by 3 for each side's slope, add the height of the island above water, and your island length and width, you will know how big a footprint your island will make in your pond.

Say you are 10 feet deep and want a foot above the water makes 11. 11 x 3 is 33 feet for one island slopes. So you 33 feet sloping in one direction. If you island is 10 x 10 feet, that makes 43 plus the other side slope of 33. So your island's base on the bottom of the pond will be 76 x 76 feet. A lot of real estate for an ideal sloped island only 10 foot square.

I have always wanted a floating island for my ducks, but haven't built one yet. Now that it is in the grass seeding stage, I need to address that shortage. Unless you wanna take the chance to drain your pond and put in an island, you should try the floating island first. Also, what the bottom looks like would dictate an island or not. Be sure to bring $$$$$ if you go ahead with an island.

I have a stream that is always trickling water in. I think it drains about 25-50 acreage watershed. Remember back in the tread, I took out half the dam and build a new dam section. This is to catch that stream.

I had the pond down 1.5 feet to finish moving a spoils pile and install minnow hotels. Today we had a 1.5 inch rain and it filled the pond to overflowing the grass spillway 4 inches deep, a height increase of around 2.5 feet.
hugs, Brandi

 

[BoylermanCT]

Thanks Brandi. Based on your calculations, I don't know that I have enough width for much of an island. My pond is 400' long but only 75 wide. Depth is 6-8 ft deep. I have thought hard about a floating duck island. I've been toying with a 10x20 free form blob shaped island made of 2 liter bottles which are hot glued together. Then cover the bottle with with plastic safety fence netting that is hot glued to the bottles. Then the whole thing is covered with landscape fabric and then topped with a couple of inches of soil to grow grass and plants. I'm drinking Pepsi daily to stock up on the bottles!

 

[bindian]

Thanks Brandi. Based on your calculations, I don't know that I have enough width for much of an island. My pond is 400' long but only 75 wide. Depth is 6-8 ft deep. I have thought hard about a floating duck island. I've been toying with a 10x20 free form blob shaped island made of 2 liter bottles which are hot glued together. Then cover the bottle with with plastic safety fence netting that is hot glued to the bottles. Then the whole thing is covered with landscape fabric and then topped with a couple of inches of soil to grow grass and plants. I'm drinking Pepsi daily to stock up on the bottles!

Guess I need to buy a hot glue gun. I was gonna make a 8 foot square of 4 inch PVC pipe with cross pipes in the center. So it will use a lot of T fittings in the design. Then top it with waterproof plywood. But I like your ideal also. I would think hot gluing is like soldering and I like soldering.
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

I was able to remove all the spoils pile on the fence line side of the pond. I moved this pile to the bulkhead that I extended for a little wider dam just past the bulkhead. The bulkhead is there to save this tree's roots from the dam.
hugs, Brandi

 

[BleedingOrange]

Hey Brandi. Awesome looking pond. Does the water stay clean enough so you can swim in it ?

 

[bindian]

Hey Brandi. Awesome looking pond. Does the water stay clean enough so you can swim in it ?

Yes. Without the pond dye in the water you can see down also 2 feet. The Blue Bayou (TSC) pond dye to rid algae blooms. Which reminds me to add more, as it has thinned out since the last rain.
hugs, Brandi

 

[EddieWalker]

I have two ponds. My first pond has an island. My thought was that it would be used by the ducks so they could lay their eggs and be safe. That never happened. They will occassionaly climb on it and sit, but most of the time, they are either on the edge of the pond, out in the open, or under some trees in another favorite spot. When I built my bigger pond, I decided not to put an island in it. That bigger pond gets all the wild ducks, and they seem to spend their time out in the open water. I have no idea where they sleep, or nest, but don't regret not having an island for them. Eventually when I fence in my land and I can keep coyotes out, I might add some domestic ducks to that pond, or not. They are fun to see, so I'm still unsure what I'll do.

 

[bindian]

I have two ponds. My first pond has an island. My thought was that it would be used by the ducks so they could lay their eggs and be safe. That never happened. They will occassionaly climb on it and sit, but most of the time, they are either on the edge of the pond, out in the open, or under some trees in another favorite spot. When I built my bigger pond, I decided not to put an island in it. That bigger pond gets all the wild ducks, and they seem to spend their time out in the open water. I have no idea where they sleep, or nest, but don't regret not having an island for them. Eventually when I fence in my land and I can keep coyotes out, I might add some domestic ducks to that pond, or not. They are fun to see, so I'm still unsure what I'll do.

Exactly Eddie. I had alot of ducks lay eggs in a communal nest or two on the island. But hawks and snakes would take out the eggs, if I didn't row out and check often. Like every other day. An island just gives ducks a safe place to rest at night, when predators are out and about. We even had a Lab swim out in the pond recently to try to catch Goosegoose.
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

Friday, I took a road trip up past Centerville. Overton Hatcheries sold me 50 Channel catfish and 5 pounds of Fathead minnows. The Channel cats are 8-11 inches long. I couldn't buy smaller ones. Later this summer, I'll go back for Blue catfish.
hugs, Brandi

 

[EddieWalker]

From what I know, you do not want to mix blue and channel cats. And you don't want blue cats if you have a small pond. And anything less then ten acres is a small pond. What will the catfish eat? The minnows are too small to support them. Will you be adding bluegill to feed the catfish? or will you feed the catfish every day with floating catfish food? Catfish are a predator fish. Rule of thumb is 100 pounds total weight for all predator fish per surface acre of the pond. That's ten catfish that weigh ten pounds, or 50 that weigh 2 pounds. As they grow, they need to be thinned out. As they reproduce, they really need to be thinned out!!! You only want one predator fish in a small pond. I have just the channel cats in my small 3/4 acre pond, but messed up and put both channel cats and large mouth bass in my bigger 4 1/2 acre pond. If I could go back in time, I would not have put the channel cats in the bigger pond.

 

[bindian]

From what I know, you do not want to mix blue and channel cats. And you don't want blue cats if you have a small pond. And anything less then ten acres is a small pond. What will the catfish eat? The minnows are too small to support them. Will you be adding bluegill to feed the catfish? or will you feed the catfish every day with floating catfish food? Catfish are a predator fish. Rule of thumb is 100 pounds total weight for all predator fish per surface acre of the pond. That's ten catfish that weigh ten pounds, or 50 that weigh 2 pounds. As they grow, they need to be thinned out. As they reproduce, they really need to be thinned out!!! You only want one predator fish in a small pond. I have just the channel cats in my small 3/4 acre pond, but messed up and put both channel cats and large mouth bass in my bigger 4 1/2 acre pond. If I could go back in time, I would not have put the channel cats in the bigger pond.

Yes to all. About mixing blues and channels. I did not know that. I know the blues get huge, but thinnng by "Catch and Fry" will work. Definite no to bass. Floating catfish food. It took 3 days for them to find right after I throw it in. I have been toying with the idea of redears or bluegills.
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

The pond has gone down enough to mow at the water's edge. Well, not quite enough on the uphill side. I got stuck twice before giving up until drier. When I rebuilt the pond, I sloped it shallow enough to mow. I mowed two of the three sides.

Mowing the grass gives no cover to the huge red ear slider that moved it. He is sneaky and must have 20/0 vision. I have to shoot from the deck, where this photo came from, all the way across the pond to where he suns. I use Dad's old Winchester pump 22. It doesn't shoot well now, as the front sight is off to the right when sighting down the barrel. But I am bracketing him with shoots and time will tell if I get him.

Anyway.the pond has arrived and it is pretty. Friday I added 20 Blue cats and 200 Bluegill perch. Next summer I will add aeration.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Xfaxman]

Looks good, like an instant pond should :thumbsup:.

 

[bindian]

Looks good, like an instant pond should :thumbsup:.

That instant pond took 8 years to perfect.
hugs, Brandi

 

[bindian]

I figured out between buying cornmeal and pond dye to fight pond algae, I could make up the cost of an aerator in two years. So I bought a Easy Pro PA10W with cabinet and cooling fan from Absolute Aquatics. I took it slow and easy with the installation and am please with the results. I do want to move the aerator more towards the center of the pond. It was hard paddling the boat and taking depth readings by myself, so I will have to try again with help.
hugs, Brandi

 

[Xfaxman]

Interesting,

 

[bindian]

Interesting, View attachment 672083

As Spock would say, Fascinating!
hugs, Brandi

 

[groundcover]

What is a read ear slider ?
Do you use the pond for irrigation or just for the duckies? My pond isn’t as big as yours but works slick for watering. I have the 1 1/2 Honda pump and have poly pipe throughout the property with hose bibs every few hundred feet. Almost all our watering for vegetables and landscaping is done from the pond even though I have well water run to the garden as well. One of these days I will get around to treating with Bentonite to hopefully stop the leaks!