r/ponds

I am devastated. Woke up this morning to my biggest and most beautiful koi... Gone. I lost several fish last fall to wildlife so I put in an "AlpineReach" net right over the entire pond and used around 50 stakes to make it completely inaccessible. It worked great, until today. It is time for war.

I need the best clear (not black) and strongest net you can get in Canada. I don't want the net spacing much smaller than 3/8". My pond opening is about 15' x 12'.

If you can please recommend me something, I would very much appreciate it.

I’m a bit older and have some back problems. We bought a house that came with a pond and it grew on us but it needed a lot of help. We basically needed the whole thing torn down, new liner, and put back together but a smaller footprint. There was an existing water feature which I’m sure when it was first installed 20+ years ago, it looked great but it was against the house and needed to be removed because I knew it was rotting the sill plate (it did).

Anyways I met a guy at the local pond store who was extremely knowledgeable about fish and ponds who said he works on ponds on the side, the pond store didn’t provide that service. He came out and looked at the ok d and said he could do everything for $2k. Day 1 the guy shows up with his teenage kids to work. This guy didn’t do shit, he basically sat around and ordered his kids to work. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that but these kids aren’t living on a homestead in Texas. They are urban kids never even saw a shovel before. Day 7 comes around and I just felt bad for this guy, I calculated the time and money and they were making about $12 dollars an hour and no where near done. I decided we had enough and told him they were done and didn’t have to do anything else.

I ended up grabbing two laborers who never worked on a pond before and the pond looks amazing. And it took them 8 hours to finish everything which included removing all the rocks again, carving out the pond a little better, and reinstalling everything. Should have done this in the first place.

My buddy's family has a 13 acre beaver made pond with about 3 natural springs on remote propery in upper PA, and i would like some help in figuring out the best ways to help him rehab the pond. We dont have a huge budget as we are relatively young but we can get some assistance with bigger aspects from his family if we can show justification to the cost and prove its working.

(I am a family friend and we vacation up there in the summer)

Problems: Pond is mucky bottom all over, hydrilla has taken over most of the pond( and by the 4th of july its so dense that a 10hp boat has issues moving through it), its a pond thats a few hours to drive so it would need to be weekends, and we both probably only have like 1-2 weekends a month where we can work on it.

We have access to big tractors and property we can move the muck and plants out of the runnoff path, we have a few boats we can use, though only 1 right now with a 10hp 2 stroke.

Our goals are to clear a small dock/beach area, eliminate close to all of the hydrilla if possible, cull some of the lilly pads, and not create a large fish kill or harm the beavers.

Right now we have pulled some of the lilly pads in the dock area and last year cut some with a DIY weed razor during the 4th but it wasnt super effective.

Our current plan is to start at the end of this year by trying to pull/cut some of the hydrilla and lillies to help keep the water quality better in the winter and get some would be plant matter out. Then once or twice a month go and cut the grass with the boat and weed razor to hopefully get at least the deeper areas free to start. We are going to drag a chain at the beach/ dock area to hopefully expidite a lot of muck removal in that area and begin to treat with tablets, and install a solar powered submerged aerator in the shallows (6ft, most of the pond is 8 to 14ft) near the dock area to hopefully promote some aeration while not turning over the pond. And causing a fish kill.

There are already some grass carp but we are unsure how many are left due to eagles and cranes pulling them out.

The current ecosystem is bass, bluegill, crappie, and bullheads, snapping turtles, painted turtles, and beavers. We potentially are looking to add channel catfish at some point as well.

We could use some help with determining the aeration schedule/setup and maintenece. Determining best plan of attack and ongoing maintenece to the pond to keep it healthier and cleaner. Adding beneficial habitat and hopefully natural baceria enhancing structure like rock piles and cover for fish habitat. Enhancing the fishing for all species in the pond. And lastly best much removal and repurposement ideas as the pond is located on a farm where we may be able to use it as fertilizer for the surrounding feilds for deer crops.

Any help would be appreciated as we are relatively new to this.

I built this pond a few years ago and recently bought my husband an under water camera. He set up a daily YouTube live stream. Enjoy! https://www.youtube.com/live/RVsaH13lJ1k?is=ZUj0WOttfITaaleV