Making a pond questions, mainly keeping mosquitos from breeding

[etpm]

My wife and I have been talking about me digging out an area we have that already ponds every winter and making it permanent. And larger. The area is in the woods behind our house. Because of the way the land is I could excavate and pile the dirt around part of the perimeter and end up with a pond about 12 feet deep and about 50 feet diameter. Overflow would not be a problem because higher land on our property would keep the water from leaving our property. So there is no worry about flooding neighboring properties. Our house is about 30 feet above the pond so the house would not be threatened either.

The area that ponds now is fed by rain and ground water only. I think I can dig the area out and seal the pond with bentonite. I have a Case 580CK that I would do the work with. I have been reading books and government publications about building ponds. But I have never communicated with anybody who has actually put their own pond in.
One of my biggest concerns is keeping the pond from turning into a big mosquito breeding facility. I have plenty of small frogs living in our woods and I'm sure they would love a year round pond but I have no idea if they would keep mosquitos at bay.
I live in the PNW about 30 miles north of Seattle on the south end of Whidbey Island. Maybe that info will help with suggestions. Besides frogs I was thinking fish and crayfish might also be beneficial. I could trap crayfish in a lake that is close to me and transport them to my pond if they would live. Ducks and geese may find the fish tasty and so maybe there goes that control method.
I am willing to put in some sort of aerator for the fish if needed, but I was hoping the pond would be big and deep enough to not need one.
Since the pond would be in the woods it would get a lot of shade unless I cleared trees around it, which I am considering.
So, looking for suggestions.
Thanks,
Eric

 

[jyoutz]

Fish will eat mosquito larvae. Also if you can install a waterfall or fountain in the pond to keep the water moving, mosquitoes won’t be a problem. Crayfish will make your pond muddy.

 

[SandburRanch]

Try researching fish for keeping misquotes at bay in ponds . Some species may be better than others .

 

[bcp]

You could put condoms on the mosquitos.

https://khn.org/morning-breakout/medicaid-can-pay-for-mosquito-repellent-condoms-in-effort-to-curb-zika/

Bruce

 

[Cycledude]

Might want to try putting up a few Purple Martin and bat houses , they love flying insects.

 

[jaxs]

You are on the right track with stocking fish from your area rather than importing some that might not adapt. I would go for diverse species and let nuture decide which floresh and which struggle. Give them a place to escape/hide from water fowel. We place Eastern Red Cedar ( Juniperus virginiana L.) in ponds we build for cattle. They have small,dense limbs that take longer to rot than most other trees.

 

[Outinstickssnafu]

Frogs and toad tadpoles here get a lot of them in a pond / puddle situation. Small fish also do a wonderful job if the pond is one which will retain water year long.

As for moving water ... well here mosquitoes happily breed in rain water tanks which have a roof powered water feature during the rain season here, when much of the day is drizzle. Not every mosquito breed is the same, no doubt some would be more picky or careful where to lay eggs - there's no point feeding fish in a nice stream.

BTW, dams and ponds don't generally tap into underground water streams, so do not add to any flooding burden downstream unless the wall breaks. I'm sort of amused when some people tout such things about dams causing flooding downstream ... a bit like that picture of a bloke on the back of a truck tray helping push it.

 

[LD1]

Mosquitos like stagnant water that isnt sufficient habitat for frogs and fish.

An actual pond with its own life and ecosystem...fish frogs and birds....mosquitos wont be an issue

 

[Bill Guenthner]

My wife and I have been talking about me digging out an area we have that already ponds every winter and making it permanent. And larger. The area is in the woods behind our house. Because of the way the land is I could excavate and pile the dirt around part of the perimeter and end up with a pond about 12 feet deep and about 50 feet diameter. Overflow would not be a problem because higher land on our property would keep the water from leaving our property. So there is no worry about flooding neighboring properties. Our house is about 30 feet above the pond so the house would not be threatened either.

The area that ponds now is fed by rain and ground water only. I think I can dig the area out and seal the pond with bentonite. I have a Case 580CK that I would do the work with. I have been reading books and government publications about building ponds. But I have never communicated with anybody who has actually put their own pond in.
One of my biggest concerns is keeping the pond from turning into a big mosquito breeding facility. I have plenty of small frogs living in our woods and I'm sure they would love a year round pond but I have no idea if they would keep mosquitos at bay.
I live in the PNW about 30 miles north of Seattle on the south end of Whidbey Island. Maybe that info will help with suggestions. Besides frogs I was thinking fish and crayfish might also be beneficial. I could trap crayfish in a lake that is close to me and transport them to my pond if they would live. Ducks and geese may find the fish tasty and so maybe there goes that control method.
I am willing to put in some sort of aerator for the fish if needed, but I was hoping the pond would be big and deep enough to not need one.
Since the pond would be in the woods it would get a lot of shade unless I cleared trees around it, which I am considering.
So, looking for suggestions.
Thanks,
Eric

The number one thing is water turnover or moving water. If you get plenty of rain and you have an overflow you should be alright.

 

[EddieWalker]

My wife and I have been talking about me digging out an area we have that already ponds every winter and making it permanent. And larger. The area is in the woods behind our house. Because of the way the land is I could excavate and pile the dirt around part of the perimeter and end up with a pond about 12 feet deep and about 50 feet diameter. Overflow would not be a problem because higher land on our property would keep the water from leaving our property. So there is no worry about flooding neighboring properties. Our house is about 30 feet above the pond so the house would not be threatened either.

The area that ponds now is fed by rain and ground water only. I think I can dig the area out and seal the pond with bentonite. I have a Case 580CK that I would do the work with. I have been reading books and government publications about building ponds. But I have never communicated with anybody who has actually put their own pond in.
One of my biggest concerns is keeping the pond from turning into a big mosquito breeding facility. I have plenty of small frogs living in our woods and I'm sure they would love a year round pond but I have no idea if they would keep mosquitos at bay.
I live in the PNW about 30 miles north of Seattle on the south end of Whidbey Island. Maybe that info will help with suggestions. Besides frogs I was thinking fish and crayfish might also be beneficial. I could trap crayfish in a lake that is close to me and transport them to my pond if they would live. Ducks and geese may find the fish tasty and so maybe there goes that control method.
I am willing to put in some sort of aerator for the fish if needed, but I was hoping the pond would be big and deep enough to not need one.
Since the pond would be in the woods it would get a lot of shade unless I cleared trees around it, which I am considering.
So, looking for suggestions.
Thanks,
Eric

Minnows will help with mosquitoes. Bats are the best thing for eating them. But if you have standing water anywhere, you will have mosquitoes.

Bentonite is an expansive clay that has to be mixed in with the soil and compacted. Disk it and drive over it a bunch of times should work. The amount of bentonite that you need will depend on the soil that you are dealing with. Bentonite is not water proof, it gets bigger when it's wet and seals up what you have if it's able to hold water. You cannot expect it to do anything in sand or loam.

I dug my small pond with a 555E backhoe. Digging is easy. Hauling it off takes forever!!!! When I was about halfway done with my pond, I just started piling up all the dirt right next to my ramp out of the pond so I could be done before winter rains hit. I had a pump to get rid of the water from rain while I was digging. It was warm enough to dry out, and I had a low area for the water to go to while I was digging in a higher area. The ramp is the most important part of digging with a backhoe. It will only go up a slope so steep without spinning the tires or bogging down. On my small pond, I make the ramp go from the middle of the pond, up the side. When I dug my big pond, and I had a dump truck, I made my ramp run along the edge of the pond so it was longer and had less of an angle.

After you are done with it, and the plants start showing up out of nowhere, you will eventually have fish in it that you never put in there. Mother Nature will do this. I believe it's from Herons and Cranes that go from pond to pond. I think that fish eggs get attached to their feet.

I don't know what the laws are there, but a friend in California wanted a pond on his land and the county refused to allow him to do it. He looked all over his place and found a spot where a pond used to be. He didn't need a permit to clean up and fix an existing pond. Only to build a new pond. It's very important to avoid violating any laws, so you should be fixing and repairing an existing pond that has filled up with silt, over grown with trees and brush, and the dam failed, to stay legal. It's not your job to prove to them that there was an old pond there before you rebuild it, it's their job to prove it was never there before. In my friends case, his old pond was from the 1800's, and they didn't have aerial photos going back that far to prove it wasn't that old.

 

[jaxs]

Whoever said "You can't make this stuff up" evidently never visited TBN.

 

[erikjohn67]

If you can your best bet is to fill in the depression so the water drains and does not stand. A pond needs to big and to stay relatively full of water to be able support an ecosystem that will keep the water from becoming stagnate, at least down here where I am at in the south.

When i moved to the property I have now 20+ years ago there was a pond in the front that would go from chock full to dry depending on the weather. It was a mosquito breeding ground between cycles and impossible to maintain the vegetation in it as well.

I filled it in the first year graded the area so it didn’t hold any water and haven’t had a problem since.

 

[Torvy]

Ducks and geese will not eat many fish...only really tiny ones and not typically on purpose...tadpoles may be at risk. Ducks are omnivores and mostly eat plants, but will also forage for other aquatic life, including mosquitos and their larvae if they can. Some other waterfowl, like Mergansers will eat more fish. Geese are more herbivores, though they will sometimes eat insects.

 

[Henro]

and end up with a pond about 12 feet deep and about 50 feet diameter.

WoW! Fifty feet in diameter an 12 feet deep?

My spring fed pond is probably only 75 feet in diameter and maybe averages at best 4' deep.

Lots of gold fish and other fish, and frogs too. Never worried about mosquitoes so they must not be an issue for us.

 

[SandburRanch]

You are on the right track with stocking fish from your area rather than importing some that might not adapt. I would go for diverse species and let nuture decide which floresh and which struggle. Give them a place to escape/hide from water fowel. We place Eastern Red Cedar ( Juniperus virginiana L.) in ponds we build for cattle. They have small,dense limbs that take longer to rot than most other trees.

And the eastern red cedar in the pond usually makes for good Crappie fishing .

 

[kenmbz]

We have blue herons here that would clean out a pond without areas for the fish to hide.
I have been thinking of putting in a 50x30x4'deep pond here and was thinking about a solar pump with battery.
Maybe using a liner instead of bentonite, though we have diabase here which might work well with bentonite.
I would have a runoff to some lower lying areas towards the front of my property to make sure it didn't go into the neighbors. Since I am on the side of a hill, filling it won't be a problem.

Let me know how you make out, my plan is till in the future as I have a lot of dead trees to handle first.

 

[jaxs]

And the eastern red cedar in the pond usually makes for good Crappie fishing .

That's true but unless crappie are fished heavy in a small pond and not returned after caught they quickly over-populate which results in non getting any size. The reverse is true of Appaloosa Catfish that eat everything in a pond and get huge. We forbid using live aquatic bait in our ponds because you never know what minnows will grow to be.

 

[etpm]

WoW! Fifty feet in diameter an 12 feet deep?

My spring fed pond is probably only 75 feet in diameter and maybe averages at best 4' deep.

Lots of gold fish and other fish, and frogs too. Never worried about mosquitoes so they must not be an issue for us.

If you saw where the pond is and would be you would understand. Whidbey Island has a topography that was sculpted by glaciers and their retreat some 15, 000 years ago. The result is that there are lots of deep and narrow cuts, kinda like small valleys, in many areas on the island. The island is mostly glacial till.
Where I have the small existing pond that rises and falls every year as the ground water level changes is one of these features. So there is a small valley with a small opening. Already the ponding area is about 7 feet deep, 20 feet wide, and maybe 30 feet long. If I were to seal the area so that water could not drain out it could easily fill another 3 feet or so higher before running out the lower end of the valley. If this happened the pond would get much bigger. But it would of course not be the same depth over the whole area. I am thinking of deepening some of the pond and using the material removed to put a small dam at the low end of the valley. If I did not dam the lower end the pond would get much bigger but would eventually be stopped by a natural dam a bit farther on.
We did not realize when we bought the property back in '96 that some of it had so much difference is elevation over such short distances. This is partly because it is so heavily wooded. My wife and I really appreciate this topography because it makes the trails we put in so much more interesting to walk on. And it gives us more exercise when we walk as we get older.
We also found a "Kettle". These land features are much more common on the north end of the island. Kettles are depressions in the land that are fairly circular but not real deep compared to the diameter. They are called Kettles because they resemble in shape the rounded bottoms of kettles that were hung above cooking fires. They were formed by ice "lenses", so called because of their lens shape, that were buried with insulating material as the glaciers retreated. So they stayed frozen for some period of time after the glacier retreated. Then the ice melted and left the lens shaped depressions. I suppose they could have called them Lenses. Or Lenticulars. Or Lentils. But Kettles sounds better. BTW, even though lenticular is a word I'm not sure lenticulars is.
Eric

 

[workinonit]

I dust my ditches with lime once a year. It's safe and easy to spread and it keeps mosquitos from producing.

 

[KennyG]

Regardless of depth, I would suggest aeration in an pond that doesn't have a constant and significant flow through. I've seen ponds that seem healthy suddenly turn toxic from buildup on the bottom and kill everything in the pond. Aeration will discourage mosquito breeding and promote aquatic life that will eat the eggs.