Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants grass carp/tilapia stocking

for two 125 acre lakes (connected by a canal), mostly shallow. for the most part there is peppergrass, coontail, and milfoil. smaller amounts of eelgrass, plus plenty of filamentous algae as it gets warmer. we do some chemical treatment, but would like to supplement with some grass carp and tilapia. any opinions on stocking rates for the two?

Blake, with zero hesitation, I suggest you contact either Todd and Clint at Overton Fisheries or the Pond Boss himself Bob Lusk and his man Chad Fikes at Texoma Hatcheries.

Both will provide you with sound advice from years of experience in similar waters. Neither will dig into your wallet deeper than needed either.

As for a stocking suggestion, it depends on the amount of vegetation. Stocking rates for both tilapia and White Amur (grass carp or GC) should NOT be based simply on the surface acreage of your lakes, but rather on the vegetated acreage. If the water is fertile and fairly deep, the cost will be far less than if the water is closer to an average 4-6 feet deep and fairly clear.

i would say probably 90% or better would be considered vegetated they are fairly shallow.

i'll contact those guys, thanks.

Thanks rainman Blake emailed me today. I think a problem like Blake described is best managed by a an integrated approach with herbicides, grass carp, and tilapia.

Blake if you would like more specific recommendations then we can come out and consult with you sometime.

Ok experts I have the option to get some Grass Carp on Friday and considering to get some for a couple of ponds and need advice quick so I do not mess up on this order like I did with fish one.

These ponds are small from maybe 1/8 acre to stretching to get 1/2 acre.

My question is how many should I consider adding to each of these, I would like to at least put 1 in each pond as I am sure that would not take over and eat all the vegetation. But if more should be added I can do so as well.

I just want to get a jump on the weeds this year.

And when it warms up I plan to give Tilapia a shot as well if time and money allows.

Thanks

I'm no expert, but I added 3 GC to my 1/2 acre pond last fall. I have had massive amounts of chara in the past, though when I added Whitecap last year to kill the watermeal, it also wiped out the chara until late season. I'm going with Whitecap again this spring so my GC will have to find other means till my watermeal is controlled. Tilapia numbers seem to be around 20 - 25 pounds per acre for initial vegetation control, tapering down from year to year as your plant situation improves. Rex, Todd Overton, and maybe a few others seem to know quite well how this fish performs, so seek their input.

And BTW, I'm hoping to add 15 pounds of tilapia to my 1/2 acre pond this year in addition to the Whitecap. Partly, I just want to try them, but I also think they will help tackle any watermeal that emerges in spite of round 2 of the Whitecap.

Todd - I'm not certain what wiped out your chara last year, but it wasn't attributed to the Whitecap treatment. Chara is a higher form of algae, and as such is completely unaffected by fluridone. Maybe you achieved a phytoplankton bloom that turned out the lights on bottom-growths of Chara. Who knows! Regardless, I thought it best to correct any misperceptions regarding fluridone vs Chara.

MrHello,

I have a 1 acre pond and it's about 50 pecent covered with chara in the summer. I also have about that same amount of pond weed too. I added 5 GC a year and a half ago. This last summer I had no pond weed issues at all but still had quite a bit of chara so I added 2 more GC this last fall. So now I have 7 if they all survived. One thing though with GC is don't get in any hurry to see results right away. You more than likely won't see any results till the next year. In your small pond I would put only 1 in your 1/2 acre pond you could put 2 to 3 and go up from there if needed. Like rainman said though some of it depends on how bad your weeds are. The more weeds the more GC you may need to get them under control. From everything I have read most of it says to go 8 per acre if you are 40 percent or more covered in weeds. It seems to be a good close estimate. But like I said that's just what I have read. I would start low and add more if you need them.

RC, I don't thinkh GC will touch the Chara....On another topic, did you see a saturn sitting under the tires of a semi on the news tonight?..It was my son in law in what was left of the car...driver side roof was crushed..yore the driver door off and popped open the passenger side..which he crawled out of. Fortunately he was just bruised and cut up some from all the glass and air bags exploding.

Hey RM no I did not see that!! Gald to hear he is ok! GC won't mess with chara??? That's weird I have read a lot of stuff saying that it is in the top 3 things they like to eat?? Hmmm... Maybe that's why I have a bunch of it still this last summer? Can anyone else here confirm that GC don't eat chara??? I would like to know one way or the other?

RM here is a chart I found that has it ranked number 2 on the list?

What do you think? False?



Table 2. Common aquatic plants
consumed by grass carp.
Plant Order of
common name preference1
hydrilla 1
chara (muskgrass) 2
pondweeds
(Potamogetan) 3
bushy pondweed
(Southern naiad) 4
elodea 5
watermeal 6
duckweeds 7
water-fern
(Azolla) 7
coontail 8
hygrophila 9
cattail2 10
torpedograss 10
salvinia 10
water-aloe
(Stratiotes) 11
watercress 12
torpedograss 13
Eurasian watermilfoil 14
eel grass (Vallisneria) 15
maidencane2
(Panicum) 16
parrot feather 16
know grass
(Paspalum) 17
water hyacinth 17
giant bulrush2 18
water lettuce 18
soft-stem bulrush2 19
water lilies 19

Hey, thanks, Kelly. I assumed the Whitecap was the cause. One thing I did do was mix the Whitecap with a decent amount of Cutrine Plus when I applied it, so that was probably what happened. This pond is crazy clear, so I know we did not get a bloom. Thanks for clarifying that for me - great catch and great info to have stored away now.

I was going from memory Corey and could be wrong...Perhaps others can say from personal experience...I'm not a biig fan or believer of the "lists"...lol Chara is an algae..White Amur don't like algae...I've never seen them eat duck weed or watermeal either...unless they swim weird...I would say any ingested is mostly incidental and not intentional.

So I should just start with 1 Grass Carp for now or should I do 2?

The fish I can get are 8-10 inches so how much should I expect them to eat this year?

Would it make much difference adding them on Friday as compared to adding them in April or May?

I could wait and maybe get some larger fish, but the last time I waited I was unavailable to get the fish, that is why they did not get in last year.

Like I said I mainly want to get some if not most of the weeds thinned out to fish, but would hate for them to remove all of them and then my BG and other small fish not have anywhere to hide out.

Any more thoughts or recommendations?

Anyone have good and bad experiences with Grass Carp?

If it makes a difference I do feed as well and hope to have the feeder back up by the end of the month.

Plus I plan to add some Tilapia as well in either April or May depending on what type I can get my hands on and when they are available.

Thanks

Grass Carp love duck weed. They also eat filamentous algae from our net pens all summer long. We had a pond that was .6 acres and got infested with duck weed and 40 carp completely ate the .6 acres. of duck weed.

Toss 2 in this Friday. If you don't see the amount of weeds that you want in the pond later on this year remove one of them.

yeah I hear ya about the list. Maybe I can give some better info on this after this year. As I have quite a bit of Chara and I should have 6 or7 GC big enough to take care of it, if they like it. So I will let everyone know how it goes this summer!

I had thought about adding 2-5 and remove as needed, but I was worried if I could not catch them, shoot them, or what ever to take them out, it may be better to add more as needed.

I just wish I could make it to the other place as they are much cheaper there.

For example I can get 8-10 inch fish for $12.50 a piece from one place and 10-12 inch fish for $8.00 a piece from the other.

Basically if I waited I could get 3 for the price of 2. (not factoring in the fuel and time)

But since one place brings them to my town and the other is 1.5 hours away I think with the fuel prices so high it could cost more to pick them up.

Then again on the other hand I planned to get more fish from the other place in April or May. That is why I was wondering if it would make much difference to add them tomorrow or wait until April or May.

Would the ones I put in tomorrow get much of a head start as compared to waiting?

I may actually be able to get them tonight, so please if someone has more ideas as to how many I should add and if it would be better to wait or not.

Thanks

It's just me but I would go 1 in your 1/8th pond, and 3 in your bigger pond. They are good for about 7 to 9 years so you can always add another one or 2 next year if you need it. Think of it this way. If you add 3 your better off then where you are now right? That' just my opinion.

Well I went with 2 carp for now. One of them though had something wrong with its tail and I hope to get a picture up on here to see what people think, I hope it heals up so it does not die.

They were 8 inches long, so I hope that is large enough to not get eaten by a LMB or CC.

I also fished a little while out there and caught a GSF, HBG, and what I believe is a LES. All were in the 6 inch range.

I guess that is not bad for the HBG that were stocked in Dec 2009 at 1-3 inches.

Thanks

I"m with Kelly on this one....I am thinking the only reason GC would eat duckweed is because it is all there is to eat with the overpopulation of GC. As for Algae, if it is eaten, it isn't helping them in any way as their stomach acid is not strong enought to break down the protein barriers in algae's and extract any nutrition from eating it...GC are incapable of controlling algae and will simply starve to death if it is the only thing there is for them to eat. GC (White Amur) eating algae would be as life, sustaining as humans trying to live on sawdust. Filling, but no nutrition.

Well it looks like my father and I will both get a replacement carp. Since one of mine had a nice sore on its tail (still need to upload pic), and my dad's was belly up in the bag when he go to the pond.

They both may or may not make it so we are getting new ones the next time they are in town.

Now my question is should we go ahead and add them to the same ponds they others were added, or if both of them made it 3 per pond of 1/8 - 1/4 acre would probably be too many correct.

I am just trying to figure out where to put them if this would be too many, since our other ponds are so turbid and do not really have any vegetation growing in them.

One usually has water primrose in the late spring and summer but that is about it.

Please provide some recommendations.

Thanks