plants for very large man made fishing pond

15 years ago

I got a call about a pond this week when I was doing my volunteer phone stuff. A nice lady said their new pond was 28 feet deep and her DH was hooked on fishing and they wanted to know what plants to put in.

The pond covers almost 3/4 of an acre and the DH thinks it will be over a million gallons. The liner is a mix of ordinary clay with Bentonite. I forgot to ask how thick it is. Now we don't really hand out advice on ponds that size and I suggested she contact the DNR. She said that had been her first call and they had sent her to several other gov. departments and I was the only one who had answered Wow! rather than a stunned What?. I remember several posts from owners of very large ponds and maybe some of you others have ideas as well. I am appealing for some suggestions at this point because I have been through a lot of stuff and can't find any recommendations. Sandy

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Comments (8)

terrestrial_man
15 years ago
TWENTY EIGHT FEET DEEP! Is that from shore to shore?
It is just too deep for any plants but masses of floating algae will probably show up???
youreit
15 years ago
I found the site below, Sandy. It has a LOT of info, but I'm not sure if anything will prove to be relevant to this particular situation.

Brenda

Here is a link that might be useful: Pond or Lake Management
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These stories have made me sad but very much aware of the danger from the birds. My hubby built and now we are beginning to enjoy the pond in the back yard. I was fearful of placing fish due to the fact that we live on a lake and the pond is in the back. I have seen the herons here on the lake side dive off the dock into 5-8 ft of water and jump back onto the dock with a fish in his mouth. They do eat rather large fish, mostly brim or the shad. We bought 12 goldfish at the baitshop just to see how nature would react, and so far, about one month, we still have the fish. Pond is about 18" deep and we used a cement block with two holes to hold the pump and the first set of plants. We plan to add lots of plants before we spend money for fish. I am very amazed at myself for how attached I have become to fish I usually would have used to catch bigger fish for eating. So wish me luck with trying to have nature on both sides of the house!
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Debbie, it could easily be a formal tropical water garden with its rectangular look. It would require a pump and some simple filtering, but that could be made to look formal. Many water plants have that tropical look, like taros (colocasias), and tropical water lilies are so beautiful. Submersible pumps don't cost much, and your first job could be to pump almost all the muddy water out and refill with fresh. Leave just enough water in for the fish. Then set up a skippy filter in a large fake old-fashioned looking flower pot and put it in. Then go all out with the tropical plants! These pics from the Singapore botanical garden. :) Mary
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Chiming in for my own interest as well as to offer a suggestion. Warning: I am a novice - my advice might be detrimental! Hopefully, those with greater expertise can chime in and offer an opinion. I put in a 12 x 10 pond years ago. Did it on the cheap. I used the thickest black plastic on a roll I could find. It is not unlike painter's drop clothes only a lot thicker. Every 2-3 years I have to replace it due to it wearing out or getting holes poked in it by my kids playing around. It was $30 or so for a monstrous roll I still haven't used completely. Why not drain down the pond, muck it out, layer the pond with the cheap liner and see what happens? Full disclosure - I go to the local pet store and buy 25-cent goldfish. The sales people are usually good about letting me select a combination of different markings so my gene pool is diverse. I started with four and had it quickly grow to 40-ish fish. For a while I fed them but found out one winter I didn't have to - I was hospitalized and too infirm to care for them and they survived on the nutrients in the pond. Trees grew over the pond in time and they would muck up the bottom and clog my submersible pumps. Eventually, the shade countered the algae growth and I didn't need to replace the pumps. A small number of plants in pots that were weighted to stay submerge provided a small amount of cover. A shrub rooted near the pond and branches dangled to the ponds surface. I trimmed them but left the shrub for shade/protection. The problems were not health of the water or the fish or the plants. The problems were related to leaves filling the pond and "filling it in" substantially each fall. Until Tulsa changed the chemicals in its water supply. The 110+ degree temps and leaks in the thin-ish liner required fillings 2-3 times a week. I forgot for a week and it got really low. The water I added overwhelmed the existing water, and the chemicals wiped out the remaining dozen fish. The plants didn't seem to mind but I now have a muck-covered liner (several layers of it, actually, as I'd just add the new one on top of the other, figuring the old ones would provide some protection from roots poking through). Is that a practical solution? Buy some cheap CHEAP liner. Connect them to cover the bottom of the pond. Drain and muck out the pond, drop the liner and let it fill in. === Or...fill in a big chunk of it and create a new "wall" out of liner with rocks, backfilling with rock, soil, sand, whatever. Plant plants that don't mind wet feet and let them live in a bed next to a much more manageable pond.
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thanks, that's a neat system, but nothing at all like what I have in mind. The growing pipes will hang vertically above a fish pond, and a pump will take water from a fish-pond (with fish in it), up to the top, and a sprayer will spray that water down through the hanging pipes which contain plants. It's a modification of the aeroponics setup where the pipes lay horizontally. :) d
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prairie_bogger
15 years ago
The only thing I can think of that grows that deep is Kelp seaweed! LOL If the sides slope at all, they might be able to somehow anchor some varieties of water lilies at 3' or so? It seems like they should take root, but I don't have any experience with bentonite and I'm also not sure about how deep things need to be in your zone to prevent freezing.

If the sides don't slope at all, I remember reading somewhere of "hanging" basets/planters using roping, etc. down into the water and anchoring them with stakes on the side. Wish I could find that link because I remember it contained sketches and photos. While I was looking for it I found this overgrow mat on a uk site. Has anyone ever heard of/tried these before? Looks like it might be a good alternative if you don't have planting shelves.

Our farm pond is much smaller,only 7-8 ft at the deepest and with no lining-- just silty clay that sinks waaay down when you try to wade out into it. Last week I stuck some of my extra lilies down in the muck at about 2-3' depth and am waiting to see if they take off and grow or not.

Just thought of one more idea-- why not just use Jenny's noodle/floating islands?! That should work in any depth :-)

Sherry
sandy0225
15 years ago
if it's a fishing pond, her hubby probably won't want any plants in there. they'll tangle up his line.
youreit
15 years ago
Below is another link to sources for native aquatic/wetland plants, many located in Indiana.

Brenda

Here is a link that might be useful: Sources for plants native to Indiana
pamritchie
15 years ago
My brother in Ohio grows water lillies around the shore, He just plants them right in the mud and they multiply like grazy.
pamghatten
15 years ago
The center of this new pond is probably 28 feet deep, and the sides are sloped.

My 3/4 acre farm poind is 10 feet deep in the middle, when I had it cleaned out 5 years ago, the bulldozer was sparking on the rock/shale layer they dug down to.

I have iris, willows, water lillies in my pond. The willows and the water lillies provide places for the fish to hide.
sleeplessinftwayne
Original Author
15 years ago
Thank you all for your suggestions. I was beginning to reach my quiting point and you encouraged me to continue. I did finally locate a couple of publications, one from Michigan and the other from Virginia Cooperative Extensions that gave good and bad plants and the chemicals or mechanical controls. I put the links in a separate post in the hope that it will stay in circulation for a while for other fishermen.
I have to admit the 28feet blew me away. I failed to ask why so deep while I had her on the phone. My guess is it is in a ravine or dip in the ground that has an artesian well in it and it was easier to improve the existing site rather than fill it in or build it somewhere else. She did say it was fed by a natural source. Sandy

plants for very large man made fishing pond

Comments (8)

terrestrial_man

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plants for very large man made fishing pond

Comments (8)

terrestrial_man

youreit

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prairie_bogger

sandy0225

youreit

pamritchie

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sleeplessinftwayne
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