Great Salt Plains Lake is dying

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Bullbuster

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Its a travisty. Atleast the birds will pick the fish clean and they won't be a total waste. But I'm sure the smell is down right rank around the lake. If we don't get some major rains soon the fishing as a whole in this state is going to be poor the next couple years till the numbers come back. As another member told me if it stays this hot in the fall you can deer hunt over a bucket of water as bait.
 

RickN

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I got to thinking about this thread and something I built for one my father's ponds years ago.

I took an old 12 volt air pump he had and rigged it to a small raft we built. A hose with an old sprinkler head hung down into the water a few feet. It did a pretty good job of keeping his pond alive during a really hot summer. We used a marine batteries that had to be swapped and recharged all the time but I bet something could be rigged up with a small solar charger. I am also sure there is something better then an old sprinkler head for diffusing oxygen into the water.

Would not help on a large lake but I bet it would help for most farm ponds.
 

Deer Slayer

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RickN - Although this idea sounds fine, it will not provide sufficient air to adequately oxygenate the water. I installed an aeration system in a 2 acre pond on Friday that will aerate and pump approx. 500,000 gallons of water/day and completely pump the entire pond thru the aerators in 8 days. The system may use approx $30-40/month of electricity.I reccommended that the pond owner run the aerator until mid September. I checked on a system that I installed 2 weeks ago and found a significant improvement in the water quality. This pond was within 48 hours of dying. This also was a 2 acre pond
 

SMS

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Just goes to show that no matter how much money and intervention...mother nature's going to have it her way sooner or later.
 

RickN

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RickN - Although this idea sounds fine, it will not provide sufficient air to adequately oxygenate the water. I installed an aeration system in a 2 acre pond on Friday that will aerate and pump approx. 500,000 gallons of water/day and completely pump the entire pond thru the aerators in 8 days. The system may use approx $30-40/month of electricity.I reccommended that the pond owner run the aerator until mid September. I checked on a system that I installed 2 weeks ago and found a significant improvement in the water quality. This pond was within 48 hours of dying. This also was a 2 acre pond

Agreed it would not work as well as a professional unit or on a large pond, but it worked great on my fathers small catfish pond. (less then 1/4 acre) I am only suggesting it because some have small ponds or no electricity close by.

My father raised some nice sized catfish in that pond along with perch.
 

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