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Ok, My good buddy just bought some land in Ohio. The land has about a one acre pond. The people who lived there before him kept the pond up very well. The sad thing is here husband passed on, she could not keep the pond up very well.

The problem:

This pond is almost 100% covered with All different weeds (don't ask me to name them LOL). We have put a lot of Physical work into cleaning it up. We found a Pond Weed Cutter in the garage. The only thing I managed to cut was myself and the dog don't worry the dog is fine now. Anyway his wife works for a large Construction company. We could get our hands on a fairly large Excavator, That would take care of ALL the weeds and most of the fish I told him to use that as a very last resort. On the other side I have heard that if a pond is Five or more feet deep, little or no weeds will grow in the deeper areas. Also we have looked into some different chemicals. The problem is you need different chemical for different weeds. The chemicals are very expensive as well.
One of the problems, Ohio has not had very much rain this year. We are guessing that on a normal year this pond has a lot more movement ( more movement equals less weeds). There is a pond next door that drains into this pond. That pond on top is AWESOME. Almost no weeds.
Both of the Overflows are about 3 feet above the water line. This pond is fairly old, and has some very large bass and Bluegill
We are not scared of a little work. We have removed a lot of weeds but ALOT are still there.

So the options:

1. Dig out the pond

Up side=
The pond is deeper
Get rid of the weeds
Use the dredged material to grade the banks

DOWNSIDE=
Kill lots of well established fish
Throw the pond all out of whack
Take a long time for the pond to get established again

2. Chemical treatment

Up side=
Control weeds

Downside=
VERY EXPENSIVE
Could harm Fish if not calculated just right
VERY EXPENSIVE

3. Old fashion Manually pull the weeds

Upside=
I get paid in BEER
No fish die (unless I get drunk and fall in)

Downside=
Very dirty job
Lots of work
What do you do with weeds
One can only drink so much beer

4. Buy some Grass Carp

Don't know much about these guys.



Once we get control of the weeds. He needs to invest in some sort of Otterbein or something to move the water. Who knows on a good year with a normal amout of rain the weed issue is not an issue.

would it be possible to buy one of the cheap swimming pool which blow up and fill it with water so you can put the fish in there, then empty the pond out so it easyier to pull the weeds out, or wont you be able to fill it back up

THis pond is a little too big for that. It would take some serious pumping power to drain it.

Last edited by R0B at 15-Oct-2005 07:33

how many gallons is the pond

I'm not sure. it's about 40 yards accross, 75 yards long, 2-4 feet deep.

Last edited by R0B at 15-Oct-2005 11:41

Anyone have any sugestions?

well then you best way is to go to your local aruarium shop and buy some Chemical for ponds(make sure there for ponds) it the only way with out hard work

Is this a natural pond or manmade?


I'd suggest pulling a lot of the weeds and then creating some temporary shade - a tarp over part of the pond, say.

-Molly
Visit shelldwellers.com!

I am sure this pond is man made. If I had to guess it has been there for about 30 years.

this may not be viable but i would partially drain the pond leaving just enough water for the fish and wait till the banks dry up a bit and get a machine in to redo as much as possible and then manually do the rest

OH TOLEEDY!

That is viable. We could pump out the water, it would take a few days depending on what size of pump we got a hold of.

Considering our luck the rain would come as soon as we started the pump lol.


Another thing we could do is drain the pond as low as feasable, dig half of the pond this year and the other half next.

a pic would be great

OH TOLEEDY!

Testing..

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v228/rub1978/ttiwwop.gif

Last edited by R0B at 22-Oct-2005 18:24

Last edited by R0B at 22-Oct-2005 18:25

Ok I can do that, give me a few days. Please check back.