Photo credit: John Chiseba Mwamba (Zambia) Description: Abdel Rahman El Gamal (Founder of the website)
As silt accumulates, the overall capacity of a pond decreases. Fish ponds which were not desilted for years, ponds had become shallow, which may aggravate weed growth.
Silt can lead to pond turbidity which interferes with the sunlight penetration and hence limits the phytoplankton production which is the base of the food chain and ultimately affects fish production.
In spawning ponds, silt and mud can cover fish eggs and can also hide the fish feed –in case of sinking feed- and make it inaccessible to pond fish. De-silting of earthen ponds is a typical and periodic operation carried out from time to time. In small ponds as shown in the inserted picture, the de-silting is done manually while machinery such as dredgers, excavators, sludge pumps and agitators may be used in larger operations and lakes.
