Alien Invasion - I want my pond back !

[Eric Salop]

A few years back I started a project to restore a farm pond. Last year I thought I was almost finished and ready to stock with fish. Then, back in September, I realised that wasn't going to happen anytime soon. An initially innocuous looking alien from the other side of the world had stolen my pond and I now want it back. Perhaps it's better if I start at the beginning ...

I first bought this farmland back in 2003. It is rolling pasture with mostly fast draining sandy soil, with the sand having been deposited by a glacier in the last ice age. That glacier also dumped a fair amount of clay. The clay has been extracted on a small scale in the past for making bricks, leaving behind good sized farm ponds for watering the livestock. There is no water running in from elsewhere, all the ponds are filled by the rain.

As we went through the first summer I noticed that a 1/3 acre pond up by the roadside was in poor shape. From a distance it looked ok.

In reality the water was only a few inches deep in some places. After a couple more weeks warming in the summer sun there was almost nothing left but a green and brown scum to the surface.

If this was to remain a pond it was going to need some serious dredging work. At the time I had many other higher priority things to keep me busy, so I added it to the bottom of the mental list of jobs-to-do and didn't think about it again for the rest of 2003.

 

[Creamer]

I put some Asian Carp in it. They were triploid and no outgoing water so they couldn't leave. They eat a lot of weeds and this allows the surface to move more and keep the algae off of it. They had recommend 14 per acre but I only put in 5 per acre and they made it much better. There are still some weeds but the algae comes and then the next day or so it is gone with the movements.

 

[square1]

Perhaps it's better if I start at the beginning ...

I'm lost...stilll

 

[mx1alex]

I put some Asian Carp in it. They were triploid and no outgoing water so they couldn't leave. They eat a lot of weeds and this allows the surface to move more and keep the algae off of it. They had recommend 14 per acre but I only put in 5 per acre and they made it much better. There are still some weeds but the algae comes and then the next day or so it is gone with the movements.

I assume you are refering to grass carp? There are many different species of carp and "asian carp" is usally a generic term for either Silver or Bighead carp.

I don't know about in the UK but here in the middle of the U.S. they say ponds need to be at least 6', but preferably 8' deep to survive freezing over in the winter.

 

[Eric Salop]

By 2004 I had learned that this pond and a few others in this area were home to water voles.

These little creatures are now quite rare here, mainly due to the fact that mink find them extremely tasty. Mink have no natural predators here and got into the wild after being released from mink farms. With few rivers in this area, this has become one of their last strongholds while many dedicated people try to trap and remove the mink from other parts.

Anyone who has read or seen "Wind in the willows" will be familiar with "Ratty", who wasn't really a rat but a water vole.

This has given water voles a high public profile and helped make the pond eligible for restoration under a European environmental scheme. The scheme would pay half the money towards hiring machinery to dredge the pond. Sounded too good to miss, all I had to do to qualify was to carry out the work by 2006 and then leave the pond in it's "natural" state for 10 years from the date of signing, which would take me to 2014.

So I signed up and then ignored the summer-stinky pond for another couple of years.

 

[Eric Salop]

I'm lost...stilll

Sorry square 1, it will make sense after a couple more posts.

I've wound the clock back to the beginning of the project and I'll get to the Aliens in about 10 years time.

 

[square1]

Sorry square 1, it will make sense after a couple more posts.

I've wound the clock back to the beginning of the project and I'll get to the Aliens in about 10 years time.

Standing by
Thanks,

 

[tractorshopper]

I've wound the clock back to the beginning of the project and I'll get to the Aliens in about 10 years time.

I'm very curious and want to hear about this, but don't know if I have the patience to wait ten years until you get to the Aliens part of the story. :laughing:

 

[Bird]

I thought the water voles were the Aliens.

 

[Fossil Farm]

I put some Asian Carp in it. They were triploid and no outgoing water so they couldn't leave. They eat a lot of weeds and this allows the surface to move more and keep the algae off of it. They had recommend 14 per acre but I only put in 5 per acre and they made it much better. There are still some weeds but the algae comes and then the next day or so it is gone with the movements.

You are referring to triploid white amur. They are not in the carp family, they are actually in the minnow family.

Not sure if they are legal in the UK. If the pond is as shallow as you say, there probably are not many options open to you. Many of the water dyes
require somewhat deep water to filter out the sunlight to reduce weed growth. There are several herbicides available in the US,
not sure what is labelled in the UK. Reconstructing the pond with deeper areas would help tremendously.

The photo looks like a muskrat species on this side of the "big pond." Trapped for fur, although prices have dropped a lot this spring.
Just depends what end results you would like and what regulations you have to deal with in the UK and how much money you are willing to spend.

 

[dave1949]

Eric, I'm staying tuned in.

 

[Creamer]

I assume you are refering to grass carp? There are many different species of carp and "asian carp" is usally a generic term for either Silver or Bighead carp.

I don't know about in the UK but here in the middle of the U.S. they say ponds need to be at least 6', but preferably 8' deep to survive freezing over in the winter.

Yes. i am referring to Grass Carp. I am not sure how deep the pond has to be but mine is definitely deep enough - about 25' at the deepest but most of it is probably 10'.

If freezing is a problem - but I doubt it thank to the UK being an island with a large relatively constant temperature mass all around it - one can install an aerator.

 

[Eric Salop]

2006

By the time 2006 came round I was starting to give the pond dredging some serious thought. September was marked down as the ideal time of year as by then it would hopefully be as dry as possible and with less chance of heavy thunderstorms once we started to dig.

First thing would be to get rid of the water. Either it had been a wet winter or a wet spring, but the water was deeper that summer year than in the previous years. I forget how many gallons I estimated it to be but it wasn't a trivial amount. Another thing to consider was that the land drains nearby feed back into the pond, so when the water came out it would need to be moved quite a way to make sure it didn't run back in again. I got a quote to have it pumped - about 500 pounds ($750) a day, and estimated to take 1 to 2 days.

The year before I bought a well used water pump and 1 1/4" pipe at a farm sale and did a few experiments with it to see how fast it could move water.


Not too bad, but I could see I would be spending a lot of time filling the fuel tank.


Another option was to let gravity do the work and suck it out with a siphon.



Siphons are so simple (I thought at the time), no moving parts, except the one thing you want to move. Just one problem, where to put the water ? A few checks with a theodolite and a tape measure and I reckoned I could clear the rise and get a good 15 yard or so vertical fall if I had 250 yards of pipe to go over the hill and down the other side. That's quite a length of pipe, but I had friends with a lot of 2" diameter MDPE pipe which I had seen in their fields and I was sure they would lend some to me, so it was possibly on.

In my late teens (quite a long time ago) I studied Electrical & Electronic engineering and as part of the training we had to do a few hours a week with the mechanical and hydraulic lecturers. One of them was really enthusiastic about water power, pelton wheel turbines and all sorts of other water related stuff. At the back of my mind I vaguely remembered he had us doing sums on water pipelines. I had kept a text book that was titled "Proper engineering for electrical idiots", or at least words to that effect and sure enough in there was a little section on pipes. A bit more checking on the internet and I was into the magical world of the Hazen Williams equation and Darcy Wiesbach equation. At least this time around I could use a calculator instead of a slide rule for the sums. This let me take a half educated guess at how long it would take to drain the pond - 3 weeks, if my sums and guesses were right.

Well, only one way to find out, give it a try !

 

[EddieWalker]

Add me to the list of those following this to see where it goes!

Eddie

 

[texasjohn]

Not enough water over the dam yet for me to have caught up....listening....

 

[japody]

I'm all ears!

 

[Leejohn]

For sure he isn't going to get the 50/50 deal. With the tool in that one picture another glacier well come thru and fill it back in.

 

[Depmandog]

This is way cool. Eric's bedtime story. One wee chapter per night.

 

[Wagtail]

This is way cool. Eric's bedtime story. One wee chapter per night.

I know! First it was "Wind in the Willows"... surely faeries and/or water nymphs are to follow.

Unless his pond has been invaded by <dun-dun-DUN!!!*> 'Travelers'.

*ominous music

 

[texasjohn]

Is it a frog chorus which keeps him up at night?

Or mosquitoes which torment him both day and night?

Maybe he gets mired to the armpits while setting up the siphon and has to be sucked out of the mud via helicopter!

Or we have an innovative success story involving a solar pump accelerating the siphon flow.

Oh! The agony of having to wait for the next installment ... time travel at its finest!!