# Pond Dredge



## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

I'm a member of a sportsman's club in Lorain county. A major creek runs through the property and ends up in Lake Erie. This creek is monitored by the EPA. We have a pond on the property that was built in 1964, it is eutropifide by farm field run off. The pond is about 75 feet by 240 feet. 

The plan that seems favored by the executive board is to suction dredge the pond and dump the spoils on our backstop. The reported bid on the job is $8000. The thing is that dumping it on our backstop places the spoils in the flood plain of the creek and 20-30 yards from the main channel. The spoils I believe would be about 80% organic. I don't believe any permits have been or will be applied for. I think that plan may violate several EPA regulations and the Clean Water act. I am waiting on a response from an inquiries to the EPA on that. 

I spoke to the OSU extension office in Lorain county. He recommended 24/7 aeration of the pond and I've developed a plan around that. We have a windmill but it shuts off for days at a time. The two pumps I want to use will be electric and use 71 watts each. The cost of the pumps and all other hoses and stones, plus the wiring, will be $1400. The system will support aerobic bacterial growth and break down the organic sediments. It will dissipate toxic compound and nitrates to the atmosphere by keeping the pond at near saturation with oxygen and driving these compounds to the surface by preventing stratification by air lift mixing. The windmill will become supplemental rather than primary.

The area leading from the adjacent farm field to the pond is rather wide and is soggy much of the year. No grass grows in much of it. I plan on over seeding it with native rush's and sedge's with no mowing in that area. 

In the pond I plan on using large onion bags packed with straw and a few two liter pop bottles to act as floats. They will be anchored at about 30 foot intervals around the perimeter of the pond and four down the center, some near the air stones, so they are in the platonic zone. They will be changed in the spring and fall. Barley straw is best but wheat straw works if you use more of it. As a side, if you run capped 1/2 pvc pipe through the bag mesh and make it a porcupine ball you also have a fish attractor.

The OSU man says to put in amours at twice the stocking rate. They should be about 1 foot long. That will take care of the duck weed over abundance. He says if you don't have enough weeds then take a few out. Take them out when they get very big as they don't eat as much.


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

Sounds like you've got a plan and a job ahead of you. First and foremost you should contact Soil and Water in your county and ask them about the excavation plans. Interested in hearing what the EPA has to say about it.

Keep us updated as to how this goes.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

A Vertex Air 1 system would be plenty for the .4 acre pond acre pond, turning it probably 2-3 times per day. It comes with a very nice enclosure and all the valving to run 2 lift stations and plugs into 110v. If the lift stations will be at different depths, 1 big compressor with valves and a manifold will give you better balancing options than 2 seperate motors/stations and would probably cost about the same as the system you described. 

Aeration alone may only reduce the muck a few inches per year. 1 day with a good sized trackhoe and dump truck could probably make a pretty big difference on depth for probably $2000-$3000 less than dredging. Maybe not as completely as dredging but at least clean about 30' out from the banks and add depth and volume that the aerator could take advantage of.

It shouldn't be too hard to find a place for the spoils. I've heard it's good for growing...maybe spread and make some feed plots.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

I was going to use a pair of the the HB80's. They put out enough air and only draw 71 watts each. Because cold water holds more oxygen and the windmill runs a lot more in the winter, we may shut one off from 11-15 to 4-1. 

Areation is not the only treatment. The area that the fill comes in is rather wide, a soggy area most of the year. I was going to overseed with a mix of sedges and rushs and allow them to establish by dominance. The water would be transitioning from tree line to grass to sedges then rushs then cattails. That should cause it to drop it's silicate and clay. There would be no mowing in that area.

Then I was going to get some big onion bags and fill them with straw and a couple empty 2 liter bottles to make them float. I would place them at 30 foot intervals around the pond and a few in the middle, all suspended in the platonic zone. No before anyone say anything, I know barley straw works best but wheat straw also works, it just takes more of it. I might even run some pieces of sealed pvc through the mesh to make a floating porkupine ball.


The only way I can see for us to suction dredge the pond is to place the spoils in dewatering bags or tubes. We would need a number of them and they are not cheap. That would allow the filtered water to flow back to the pond and not into the stream bed.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

5 PSI is typical operating but may be different for the pond described and airstones used. Those pumps you listed are for shallow water operation like a koi pond or aquariums...less than 6' deep. A rotary vane or rocking piston would be more suitable for the pond you described. Two of the HB80s will deliver about the same CFM and use the same amount of power as 1 Gast or Brookwood compressor. The 1/3hp Brookwood compressors can deliver up to 30 psi without damage whereas the HB80s are only rated for 4 PSI continuous. Two HB80s would probably run near $700 where the Gast or Brookwood could be had for under $400.

What do the other members think about a bunch of onion bags floating around? Personally, I think I'd rather see the weeds.

Armurs aren't very effective on Duckweed. Chemical control would be the most effective solution. Fishman usually recommends Sonar I think. Whitecap is a 1/3 less expensive and the same thing. If looking for natural control, annual tilapia stocking would be much more effective at reducing the watermeal and bottom muck and produce forage and fillets if you can locate some.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

I decided to go with the Forevergreen Economy Air System2. That's with two defusers. It is a 1/4 horse Gast rotary vane compressor.

The guy told me to run it for 15 minutes the first day then doubleing the time every day until I get to 24 hours. He said that it would prevent too many toxins from being disturbed at one time killing the fish. He said when night time temps are running 40 degrees or less shut it off. In any case it will be off from 11-15 to about 4-01, when the start up proceedure starts again. In our case the windmill is enough to keep a hole in the ice. It's stone should be at about the 1/2 depth level.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

I went to the club today for a steak fry. The wind is blowing pretty good yet the windmill wasn't working for the most part. Well, that figures as the windmill is well below the trees that surround that area. To get just at the level of the top of the trees it would have to be about 35 feet higher. To get up where it gets solid air, the 30 recommendation, the tower would have to be at least 85 feet tall, maybe more. Like the OSU guy said, windmills are supplemental. In the winter it will keep a hole in the ice because the leaves are down and it can get some air. Also, apparently the air stones are poor performers, the bubbles are too big. The membrane types are much better.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Ted was helpful with my system too. He puts together a nice package. I've heard arguements that the membranes will tear but having a lot of experience with aquarium airstones clogging, I went with the membrane diffuser too. Personally I'd rather gamble on the chance I'd have to replace a membrane every 6 years than acid dip an airstone every year. I want to get every bit of lift I can for for every dollar I'm spending in electricity every day the system is running. Ted's economy systems seem like a good value. I ended up going with the Vertex simply because I liked their housing and the anodized fittings were a nice touch even if they don't really add to function. The startup procedure he recommended is pretty standard. I shut my system down the last day of October and usually start up in mid to late April because my geothermal loop is sunk in the bottom. The new system will turn a lot more water than the old one. Post some pictures of install if you can. 

I saw somewhere that you can make a muck measuring tool out of clear plastic pipe. I would be interesting to see exactly how much muck reduction you actually measure with the new aerator.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

The meeting was last night. The building and lands guys was in at about $9000 for the dredge, and that specified an amount not that it all would be removed. He said that the muck was about 1 foot deep, not the three foot I had been previously told. One foot I ain't worried about. Clearly the muck is a symptom of a problem. The problem is stratification

One of the guys said that heavy aeriation will not clear the muck over time. What he was looking at was a statement that it has not been proven. Well, the statement that it has not been proven simply means the feds haven't funded a study at a university. I'm talking about moving 4000 GPM in a pond that only has about 650,000 gallons in it. That turns the volume over in 17 minutes and probably the entire pond 12 times a day. The bottom will get a lot of O2. 

The building and lands guy commented on the windmill. Our windmill is surrounded by high trees. The wind was cranking about 15-20 mph yesterday and the head was barely moving. I tried to explain that in order to get consistant operation it would have to be 30 feet above the trees, which would be a tower of about 70 feet. Then I tried to explain that the airstone was an inefficiant air lifter because of the bubble size, trying to explain it by surface area of a sphere and that a given volume of air has more surface area when broken into small spheres rtaher than large ones. All that was lost on him, not because he's stupid, because he's closed minded. 

He was po'd because he had gotten bids. I didn't know he was seeking bids. He was mad because I didn't contact him. We almost got into a fight. 

I passed the info over to him, we will see what he does with it. I offered to work with him on it, we'll see about that too.


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

[email protected] said:


> Fishman usually recommends Sonar I think. Whitecap is a 1/3 less expensive and the same thing


If you could please, provide me a link to where you've found Whitecap at a 1/3 of the cost. Last I knew, and please correct me on this if I'm wrong on this... the company that was producing Sonar, bought out the company making Whitecap... From what I've seen, the active ingredients in the solutions are the same and the prices are too.

Sorry to interupt, interesting thread


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Whitecap $150 for 8oz 
http://lakework.com/cart/index.php?p=catalog&parent=1&pg=1

$155 w/ free shipping
http://products.hbpondmanagement.com/product_p/alg17.htm

$152.83
http://www.newtechbio.com/catalog//...sult&search_in_description=1&keyword=whitecap


The best price I found on Sonar $199 but it runs $225 to $249 too. http://products.hbpondmanagement.com/product_p/alg15.htm


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

Fishman, the description says one 8oz bottle treats 1/2 acre pond...just dump it in. Does that sound about right? How often do treatments typically need repeated?


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

I think I got the skinny on this, and this comes from someone who switched from using Sonar, to Whitecap, and then back to Sonar. Somewhere in the middle there he also used Avast or maybe it was Avasti.. anyways they were actually the second fluridone containing product the hit the market. Pretty sure it's still available? Never hear much about it.

Without going into too much details, this guy basically put it to me this way "it's the equivilent of buying a pair of Levi's or the K-Mart brand." They simply are not the same.

In theory I suppose, you could make your application in a single location, but it's lazy and terribly ineffient. The best means of applying fluridone is via injection (spraying underwater) with a backpack sprayer just a few inches below the waterline. If you've got a jon boat and a trolling motor handy injecting it right into the prop wash is unarguably the best means. Always, at least, triple rinse you application equipment and the container to make sure you get every last drop of fluridone since the stuff is liquid gold back into the pond. The reason injecting is the best is because one of the fastest degraders of fluridone is sunlight, so anytime you can get it below the surface you're doing yourself a favor. This is expecially true when using it on duckweed or watermeal or even using it on another plant that has reached the point of actually taking up surface coverage. So when using it for any of the submerged aquatics that's arn't taking up surface coverage simply spraying it over the pond will suffice. Dispersal is key. I'm not going to state this as fact; but the best I can gather is some products are better at moving through the water column on their own accord rather than others


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

8oz won't treat every 1/2 acre pond. You need to know the adverage depth and then properly identify the species you want to annihilate. From there you determine how many ounces you're going to use per acre foot.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

That makes sense. Kinda like how generic glysophate doesn't work nearly as good as actual Roundup even at the same concentration. In the case of a small pond that doesn't have a terrible infestation and may not need a full 8oz treatment, I think I'd still consider the cheaper White Cap.

Due to the sunlight breaking the product down, would it be effective longer if a good pond dye is used with it?


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## Fishman (Apr 5, 2004)

A small dose of dye goes along with flouridone applications. If you have a good plankton bloom I wouldn't consider it though. 

Just out of curiosity, do you have a plant issue or are you just stratagizing a battle plan in the event of such a senario?


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## bassmanmark (May 17, 2005)

Man you guys know your pond info. I wish you guys could come over to my pond and let me know the best course of action for my weed control. I will take pictures and post them if that would help you tell me where to start.


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## SPEAKSUP (Feb 19, 2009)

Weed control is a big lippless crankbait. 

Hope everything gets worked out for you.


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

I don't have a problem...yet. A new weed popped up this year and I've been keeping an eye on it. I'll start a new thread and post photos for positive ID and action plan sometime.


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## garryc (Jan 21, 2006)

Well, they bought a system. The building and lands guy bought a HiBlow HP100 and one airstone. I spec'd two Vertex air stations, he got an aluminum oxide stone. While the system would seem to provide 4 CFM at 10 feet depth, it's maximum continuous rating is 4.5 PSI. The pond is 10 feet deep and fresh water has a pressure of .43 psi per foot for a total of 4.3 psi at 10 feet. That means the pump will be operating at 99% of it's max continuous rating 24/7. I expect a high failure rate


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## [email protected] (Dec 22, 2006)

No doubt the system you chose would be better but the HP100 may do fine for awhile since there's usually a decent safety factor built into capacities and it should at least keep a hole open in the ice.


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