Well it's been raining here hard as heck. It started as soon as I layed down
the grass seed. Some grass grew but there's not much dirt left on my
breastworks. It all washed into the pond. It feft a bunch of fist and
half-fist sized rocks behind. I'll be spreading dirt in the fall if it ever
stops raining. You can get a PH probe for about $99.00. I used to use a
aquarium test kit but I got sick of comparing colors.

"Bob Adkins" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 4 Aug 2003 10:00:23 -0400, "Sam Hopkins"
wrote:

Hi Bob,

You have to understand that even if you detect high levels of
something with that much water there's not much you can do. However, you
need to test the PH and add AG lime if the PH is 7.0. If you are
building
the pond for fishing you'll need a "Secchi" disk which will tell you how
much algae you have in the water. It's a disk on a chain that you place
at
18" deep in the water. If you can see it you add fertilizer to a point
where
you cant see the disk anymore. Adding fert will not increase the number
of
fish in your pond but will increase the current fishes sizes. Normally
you
add (1) 50 pond bag per 1 acres per month. If your pond receives it's
water
from run off from multiple areas I would buy a phosphate test kit and
test
the inflow water. Anything with a high amount of phosphate in the water
will
result in algae in your pond. Typical sources are run off from farms
ESPECIALLY diary/cow farms. I'd make ditches if you can to divert the
water.
Nitrite and ammonia are pointless to test since there's nothing you can
do
to about it and they don't jump up and down like they do in a koi pond or
aquarium. O2 test kit would be good too but only if you can get power to
the
pond to do something about a low O2 condition (i.e. fountain). Otherwise
it's one of those "cant change it so why bother testing" things.
Temperature
probes are good for when you stock fish and to know when to expect
spawning.
I use one of those digital house thermometers for $10.00 that have an
little
10' cable with "outside" temp probe on the end. The temp probe is incased
with plastic so it does well in a water situation.

Thanks for the reply Sam!

Yea, I already have plans to make a disk. I may fertilize early to boost
fish production, but later will let the water clear up. The catchment area
runoff is crystal clear. Nevertheless, all water entering the pond will be
filtered by grass and weeds, and a massive limestone filter to catch
grass
clippings etc.

I am prepared to change O2 and Ph if necessary. I need recommendations on
meters that don't cost more than the pond. :-)

How's your pond going?

Right now, I'm trying to hurry and get grass planted on 1/4 mile of levee
before it's too late to get a start.

Bob