FORGET THE GOLDFISH!!!!!!!!!

[MysticOakRanch]

[QUOTE=invinoveritas;8661725]
Egrets eat the gold fish out of water tanks at a lot of barns.[/QUOTE]

Sadly, that happened here - I had a great goldfish farm going for several years - my original 20 feeder goldfish had turned into about a hundred and some were about 6 inches long. Then the egrets figured it out…

[whitney159]

[QUOTE=MysticOakRanch;8671117]
Sadly, that happened here - I had a great goldfish farm going for several years - my original 20 feeder goldfish had turned into about a hundred and some were about 6 inches long. Then the egrets figured it out…[/QUOTE]

So this is where I try to hijack this for advice. We have a pond on the farm and every year it gets this little aquatic plant that grows on and covers the surface of the pond. It is not algae, but a little round leaf, called Watermeal. The natural way to beat this is to either set up a fountain in the pond to disturb the surface enough to disrupt it ($$ and work), or to get koi. BUT, I have blue herons that frequently fish the pond (little sunfish live in it). I feel like I would be feeding the birds.

[MysticOakRanch]

[QUOTE=whitney159;8671444]
So this is where I try to hijack this for advice. We have a pond on the farm and every year it gets this little aquatic plant that grows on and covers the surface of the pond. It is not algae, but a little round leaf, called Watermeal. The natural way to beat this is to either set up a fountain in the pond to disturb the surface enough to disrupt it ($$ and work), or to get koi. BUT, I have blue herons that frequently fish the pond (little sunfish live in it). I feel like I would be feeding the birds.[/QUOTE]

I don’t have an answer for you - unless you get some kind of tough, fast fish - we have sunfish in our pond, and they are SURVIVORS!

[DHCarrotfeeder]

Plus, sunfish are a native species. Koi / carp / goldfish are not and will eat every ounce of vegetation out of a pond.

I’ll take duckweed over an empty pond, always.

Does your farm leach excess nutrients into this pond? Fix the nutrient runoff problem and the duckweed may cut back.

[whitney159]

The only source of nutrients would be dead leaves falling in the pond, from the trees on two sides. There has been zero fertilizer around it for six years. The side not wooded is just mown grass and weeds. No run off from pastures. I don’t want to lose my sunfish but as thick as this stuff grows they can easily end up dead from oxygen depletion when it does off in cooler weather. So do I take the John boat out with a skimmer net? That was one suggestion online.