Speeches have been a part of my life and career for more than 35 years of the 46-plus years in this business. I bet I’ve given more than 350 speeches in front of crowds as small as three folks, up to as many as 1,000.

Over that span, most of those talks have been to grass roots pond owners. Patterns developed. I can read the room and tell if the topics I’ve chosen are hitting the core spots folks want to learn.

I’ve also picked up patterns of questions.

Here are the top five questions people ask me during these basic pond management talks.

Number Five:  What about turtles? Are they bad?

If a turtle eats a fish, the fish deserves it. Most turtles are sliders or mud turtles and their biggest offense is eating your high-priced fish food. They don’t offer a threat to any fish population at all. Common snapping turtles and alligator snapping turtles absolutely eat fish, but they don’t alter a population of fish since they tend to travel solitary. If turtles are numerous in your pond, meaning if you’ve got more than 15 to 20 and a 1-acre pond, it’s okay to live-trap them and relocate them, if you want to. Or, if you don’t want to bless a neighbor with these offerings, dispose of them as you see fit.

Number Four:  My pond is leaking. What to do?

Leaky Ponds do so for several possible reasons. First, poor quality soils. Poor soils allow water to wick and seep. One universal law to remember is, “water seeks the path of least resistance.” It’s going to leave, no matter what. Your job is to confine it for a span of time and take good care of it while you have it. The second reason a pond can seep or leak is because of poor construction. The dirt guy didn’t compact a lift during dam construction or didn’t see a vein of gravel or sand during construction. Here’s my advice. Quantify how much your pond is dropping. In the summer months, don’t be surprised if you lose half an inch of water per day just to evaporation. Set up a measuring stick and see how much your pond drops. If it drops more than half an inch a day, you probably have a leak. That’s the bad news. The worst news, is trying to finally a leak and fix it is a tough task. 

My good friend and fellow Pond Boss writer, Mike Otto, has a favorite phrase. “All dirt leaks. Some dirt leaks less than others”. If soils are properly compacted and there’s enough clay content, you minimize the risk of a seriously leaking pond. I’ll never forget managing a lake in North Carolina that had a sand dam and its early years. That dam held the water back very well and I didn’t understand it. Otto explained it simply, “There’s more water flowing in than can leak out. Yes, there are many ways to fix a leak. The hard part is finding the leak and deciding which method to use.

Number Three:  What to do about muddy water?

Muddy water is an effect. The cause can be suspended colloidal clay from surrounding soils…usually from disturbed dirt. It can also be a water chemistry thing. Another reason for water to be muddy is because something is physically stirring it up. Before choosing a path to clear the water, find out the cause. Get a gallon jar of the water and set it on a shelf in the garage and forget about it for five or six days and then go look. If the water has cleared up and there’s a layer of dust on the bottom of the jar, there’s the problem. Something is stirring it up. If the water does not clear up, then you can run several tests to figure out which material it will take to get it clearer. Gypsum could be a good choice; or aluminum sulfate could be a good choice. No matter the choice you make, be sure that the watershed is vegetated or your results will be temporary.

Number Two:  My pond is full of moss. How do I get rid of it?

Moss is a generic term. It’s like saying cow. Job One is to identify the aquatic plants. I highly recommend going to Aquaplant.tamu.edu. That’s Texas A&M University’s fantastic website for plant ID. Positively identify the plant, and then look at the options as to what to do about it. Keep in mind that healthy ponds are that way due in part to the plants that grow there. Once you identify the plants, determine if they are “good” or “bad”. At the same time, calculate the percentage of the pond covered with those plants. You want 5 to 10% coverage of aquatic plants in a healthy environment. Once you find out the percentage, have identified the plant, look at the different options that you have. They are on that website. You can leave it as is; you can use one of the methods to manage the plants. And you can use a strategy of your choosing. Be aware, that too many plants grew there over a long period of time. That likely means that you should decrease them over a long period of time. Keep in mind that plants grow for three reasons. They have sunlight, food, and the right temperature. If you take away one of those big three facts, plants won’t grow.

The Number One most asked question:  My fish aren’t growing. Why?

Fish stop growing for a variety of reasons, but typically because of several factors coming together. Fish stop growing because they run out of food, don’t have the right habitat, or they’re overcrowded. Assess your situation and figure out which one of these facts fits your pond. If your fish are crowded, harvest some. If your food chain is lacking, feed your fish or stock what’s missing. If your habitat is lacking, fix it. Add some habitat. Job One here is to analyze the situation and figure out why your fish aren’t growing and then come up with a reasonable answer to solve it. Most of the time you can’t money whip your way out of this. You have to manage your way out of it.

So, there you have it. My top five questions. If yours isn’t one of these, send it to me and it might just show up in another article in a future issue of Pond Boss. Email to boblusk@outlook.com. Seriously…or not.