Main Discussion Area > Primitive Skills

The Iowan Path

<< < (81/222) > >>

Pat B:
How do you keep the duck weed off John?

iowabow:
Well not completely sure just yet because this is my first year working the pond. So this will be a long answer. In the spring I bought 6 grass carp and a variety of others like bass bluegill etc.  ...and I noticed that one had died so maybe there are 5 now. But the carp did not do the trick so I started to net the duck weed. You might ask why?  and the answer was to remove it so light could reach the bottom of the pond so that plants in
 pond could produce the oxygen needed for the fish. It took me a week to figure out that the duckweed can produce as fast as I can remove it. So I decided to treat with chemicals. My rational was that the pond was out of balance due to nitrogen and phosphate run off and all the trees litter form the surrounding banks. Now the water shed has been placed in crp set aside. When i started this project last year there were no fish in the pond. The fish had died off so the eco system needed to be re-balanced. So it hit it with bacteria to decompose the leaf matter and copper crystals to attack the submerged plants (I know this is counter intuitive but I am trying to reduce the work for the young carp)  and weaken the strength of the duckweed. Then I hit it with an aquatic herbicide called tsunami dq. It was almost all dead on  day one then it came back and I retreated it and it all just about has died. Now I only need to maintain control with spot spraying till I can order some Koi fish. If these actions don't neutralize the issue then I will move toward a bubble system to introduce oxygen and water movement to help reduce black mud build up. The crp and removal of trees from the dam and cutting all the walnut trees from the surrounding banks should go a long way to re-balancing this economy system.  I fully expect it to take a couple years to put it back in check. As you can see in the picture many of the cattails died off with the rise of the water level after the dam was repaired. So I am seeing some natural balance and that is good. I hope that the fish can rebalance the pond so it requires very little work from me in the future.

Pat B:
Sounds like a good plan. Sometimes you have to give nature a boost.  ;)

iowabow:
Nice snake found at the pond

Pat B:
I'd love to have a pond; still water. We do have a nice creek with waterfall but our land is too steep or it would be ridiculously expensive to have a pond here. Water attracts all sorts of wildlife and I love it all.  ;)

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page