My pond is a year old. It's about 1500 gallons in the Spring, and I cannot say for sure how many gallons in the late Summer because of the bad drought. It all started when I noticed a tunnel of water shooting into my creek. I dug away at the tunnels, here's a picture from late April 2012: http://i.imgur.com/Q1TmR2A.jpg I eventually dug out a hole for the water to pond up in.

It had a tough summer, worst drought we've had in 100 years, the water disappeared, which allowed me to dig deeper, through ~18" of clay and had to dig through a few inches of conglomerate-type stuff to get water again, but couldn't go deeper because of bedrock. No pics on my computer, but trust me you don't want to see it.

Here's a picture of it post-drought after we got a good 3 inches of rain. This is a just below average height for it, ~400 gallons, 15" deep. Fall 2012 http://i.imgur.com/W0vdTbS.jpg

Here's what she can top out at. This is a full winter's snow melt plus 3 inches of rain over three days: month ago http://i.imgur.com/GZeg2pL.jpg

Here's what it looks like now, from further away. See the ducks enjoying the water? http://i.imgur.com/aJtCt09.jpg

I bought an aerator recently, but the groundwater seems to flow quickly in the spring, and I think that may be a problem because the water maybe doesn't stick around enough to get aerated. I threw a dozen of shiner minnows and a dozen of flathead minnows in there this morning and by noon at least a few had died. Not a good sign, or bait fish are weak. I've had ~15 blue gill in there since the post-drought half a year ago, but only a few actually survived the 14" of water with -30F wind chills over winter, with no aerator! So now I want to add blue gill, and would like to have minnows. Any thoughts?

My other concern is vegetation. I would like grass or tall grass on the banks, and some water plants I don't know what to do because the height fluctuates, and the banks are steep.

Finally I'm wondering about erosion. In a couple pictures you can see how close it is to the seasonal creek. Also the banks of the pond are very steep. There is a few inches of soil, and then 2-3 feet of clay.