this may sound like a stupid question but how do u make a mud pond? ive read that when rearing fry its best to put them in a mud/clay pond. is it that u just get a pond with mud and dirt or what?
mud ponds?
- Thread starter Tsunamiboy77
- Start date
I think the thing about mud ponds is that you'll need a constant supply of fresh water, like from a well that you might spend $10,000 to dig and set up. If you have a good amount of yearly rainfall, this might take care of this, but depending on your bioload it may not be enough even though it keeps the pond full of water.
Depending on the size of the pond you'll also need to have clay brought in by the truckloads. If your soil is very dense clay then maybe you can skip this step. After this I believe you need some heavy equipment to pound the clay to compact it, so it holds water. This is stuff that I just gathered by reading a couple threads on clay pond construction for koi ponds - I thought I could do what the Koi breeders do to grow out fish in the backyard, but reality kicked in.
If it's allowed in this forum I can link a mud pond construction thread here or in a personal message/email.
Depending on the size of the pond you'll also need to have clay brought in by the truckloads. If your soil is very dense clay then maybe you can skip this step. After this I believe you need some heavy equipment to pound the clay to compact it, so it holds water. This is stuff that I just gathered by reading a couple threads on clay pond construction for koi ponds - I thought I could do what the Koi breeders do to grow out fish in the backyard, but reality kicked in.
If it's allowed in this forum I can link a mud pond construction thread here or in a personal message/email.
I have some relatives in missouri that've built lakes. They pretty much just dig a huge hole. If they can hit a spring, that's great, but alot of times people just dig a hole that's set up to catch rain water. you have to wait a while for it to fill up if you don't have a spring, but it works I guess. We have alot of clay in our soil here, so that probably helps.
A mud pond with floating mud would have a lot of turbidity thus support fewer fish I'd imagine. Why would fry eat dirt and clay anyway?
Mystix212;1363764; said:
they don't but a variety of fish have fry that hide in soft silt and such substratesd provide large ammounts of benthic micro-organisms to feed upon. A friend and I once bred weather loaches and medaka in a small rice paddy in his back yard.