The Farm Pond Manual

Save $2,000 a year on pond service calls, chemicals, and management contracts — using 85 plain farm methods for muddy water, weeds, muck, fish kills and leaks, every number sourced to your own state's fish and wildlife agencies. By Ezra Crane, four generations on the same Middle Tennessee ground.

Inside (1,194 pages, 85 chapters across 14 parts):

• Aeration — 10 chapters · the $2 venturi that replaces an $1,800 aerator, the turn-it-on-wrong mistake that kills every fish by morning, whether your pond needs air at all, windmill vs solar vs electric, where to put the diffuser (the middle is wrong), winter ice holes, sizing, the build list

• Muck — 7 chapters · why dredging is a $40,000 answer, what bacteria and enzymes actually do and do not, measuring your muck, the rotten-egg smell, and when dredging IS right and how to buy it

• Stocking & Fish — 9 chapters · the empty-pond order, the bluegill-to-bass ratio everyone gets backwards, delivery day without dead fish, what an acre costs itemized, bluegill, bass, catfish, and what NOT to put in

• Leaks & Sealing — 7 chapters · the sprinkle method that seals without draining, the leak-or-evaporation test before you spend $20,000, bentonite vs compaction vs liners, sealing with clay, manure and bales already on the farm, the dam and the tree you should cut down

• Algae & Water Color — 8 chapters · why every spray feeds next year's algae, the 300-year-old barley straw method and its timing, why a clear pond is a dead pond, the blue-green that kills dogs, dye and copper read honestly, clearing clay that will not settle

• Feeding & Growing Big Fish — 6 chapters · the homemade feeder that does what a $700 one does, what to feed and when to stop, why your bluegill are hand-sized and the harvest that fixes it, fertilizing, the conversion number everyone gets wrong

• Reading Your Pond — 6 chapters · read the whole pond with a rod and a ruler, the thousand-dollar electrofishing survey and the free alternative, how many fish