On Sat, 25 Jun 2005 01:40:55 GMT, (~Roy~) wrote:

Courageous gave some good info. Invasive plants are bad in the south
and will take over in a single season, and most are vairtually
impossible to get rid of without a lot of work. Been there done that,
and never again........I am not finally parropts feather, water
hyacinth and frog bite free as far as I can tell. Cat tails and some
others are well under control and not a problem. I am located in south
central Alabama so were not all that much different in zone and
weather.

Are these ponds dug or are they merely formed by naturally occuring
depressions. I have a huge pond (natural depression) in my back area
thats probably 2 1/2 to 3 acres and it stays full of water about 8
months out of the year, the rest of the year it is just a
bog.......Your located around Swanney area by chance? Watch out of
cotton mouths and other bad types as well.

The front pond is dug, I think. It looks kind of rectangular. Whatever
was done, it was done a long time ago. The rear pond is far too irregular
to have been dug, it has never changed level in the 8 months I've been
here, and, as it feeds a very small creek, I think there might be some sort
of spring in the bottom. The middle pond seems to be a classic "poorly
drained" depression. I see the water level in it fluctuate a lot. Yeah,
I'm not 3 miles from the Suwannee River, in beautiful Suwannee County,
elevation a stunning 145 feet, darn near on top of the world for Florida.

Aeration is highly suggested. If you do not aerate, you will get
heavy algae blooms, and then all it takes is a few overcast cloudy
days and the algae dies..........that night fish also die from oxygen
depravation........and at times it can go on for days and days.
Aeration will help with keeping algae down and your water well
oxygenated, and reduce your risk of a fish kill greatly.
I aerate my dug pond with a fountain and it took quite a few months of
playing with it until I can now say it has good, if not great water in
it, as compared to most southern natural or dug ponds......I actually
have visibility of 4 to 6 feet, all due to keeping excessive nutrients
out and providing lots of aeration. I use a submersible type pump to
pull water from the bottom and spray it over the surface. I also dose
with Baraclear P-80 which locks up phosphorous which algae needs to
have to utilize nitrogen to make it grow. Having a shallow pond as
such can have its draw backs, if relying on rainfall. My maina pond is
over 21 feet deep and is a bit over 1 acre in size. If you can build
up a berm around the majority of the pond y our wanting to estabish
first, it would help with runoff and adding excessive nutrients, but
it will also reduce your fill rate if your dependant on rain and
runoff, but once full if it does not leak, it will be a plus not
having all the runoff and excessive nutrients. Its gonna take you some
time but the efforts are worth it. I used to have bass, bream and
catfish in all my ponds, now my main pond has no bass, 3 albino
channel catfish, of 24" or better in length, and a few bream, which
are virtually impossible to get rid of, but I do have a heap of Koi
and various typs fo Goldfish in it. The other ponds still have the
assortments of bass, bream and cats and rarely if ever get much
attention like the main pond, but they are healthy none the less, but
lots of green water.

Do those floating solar powered fountains do any good? I imagine they just
take water from near the surface and squirt it up in the air. It seems
like the loss from evaporation might offset any good they do in stirring
things up. A berm is pretty much out of the question. Impossible in the
case of the front and back ponds and a real engineering project for the one
in the middle.

I'm an old cave explorer, and I know that underground drainage is more
often like a sewer than the glittering limestone caves a lot of people
think of. I'm right on the northern edge of a limestone ridge that runs
from here to south of Ocala. There is some world-class cave diving right
here in N Florida. I am reluctant to put any chemical in the ground or
water. Hell, I'm even kind of embarrassed to have a septic system, I'm
working on that.

Lots of luck and keep us posted on your progress.........

Thanks for your help. I will not only burden you all with reports now and
then, if I can figure out how to do so I'll also put up some pictures on a
website and give y'all the URL.

Galen Hekhuis NpD, JFR, GWA
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