Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Hatching perch.

So I thought I would start another thread if some one wanted to try to hatch out their own perch.

This year my son and I thought we would try to hatch out some of our perch ribbons. We have an odd thing happening in our pond that will not give us many perch young. We happen to have in our minnow stocking many many creek chub and horned chub. These were stocked a full year ahead of our perch and have no predators now that they are 7-10"s in size. What is quite amazing is that these chub can eat millions of perch fry. So now we have a fish lab in the shop.

First was to lay branches on the shore line in our pond for our adult perch to lay egg ribbons on. We took the ribbon out of the pond with a bucket. The ribbon is much easier to manage in the water so sinking the bucket and pushing the ribbon into the bucket worked great.

Back in the shop with the bucket and ribbon we inspected the ribbon. UN-fertilized eggs will be white in colour. We hand picked the larger clumps of white eggs off and discarded large areas of the ribbon un-fertilized.

We made up some wire weights to hold the ribbon down to the bottom of the fish tanks. We used galvanized 1/2"X1/2" wire and rolled it around 1" plastic pipe to get the shape. With the wire in the water with the ribbon we pushed the ribbon into the wire tubes. If the ribbon gets exposed to the air it will mold. I don't think it has to do with the air as much as it has to do with the temperature. Don't pack the ribbon in the tube. Nice and loose had a higher success rate of hatching. Too tight and the mold would kill the eggs before they hatch.

You must keep the water temp of your incubation tanks 60-63 max. We placed one air stone per tank keeping the tank aerated and water moving. We had two tanks that the water temp was 65 and the ribbon molded before the eggs could hatch. It will turn over night and you can't mistaken the smell. Not all the fry were dead, but I bet 90% were.

A week of incubation and in the cooler tanks 10 days. The perch are so very small and clear they are very difficult to see. They are very very attracted to light. A light bulb or flash light works very well to clean the tank. We would take the air stone from the tank place the light in one corner of the tank. In two or three minutes the fry were all in the corner and we could use a 2 oz syringe with a long 1/4" hose hooked onto the end of the syringe. This was used to suck out all the extra egg guu and dead fry.

I have learned from reading that the fry will live for 3 days after hatching on their egg sack. After they they will need very small goodies to eat. We took two 1.5gallon tanks and set them up in a window. We crushed up some pleko pellets that we placed into the tank. We squeezed out all the good stuff from one of our planted tropical fish tanks power filter into the two tanks. This was the kick start bacteria. We then cut the grass with the lawn mower and cut the clippings back and forth a few times. Picked up the clippings and placed them into some shop rages. Dipping into water then squeezing it out adding green water to the tanks. In about three days the tanks will go just about clear this is when you need to add more green water and mix up the bottom. Water temp in these two tanks is kept at 82* with sun light but not direct sun light. The tank will get a funk or smell and you know its growing some good small plankton.

We used a small microscope to see how much infusoria we had growing. The first two days the odd one now after three days hundreds in just one drop of water from these tanks.

This is the good stuff for the little perch fry. Start feeding this the second day we start to see some fry swimming in the tank. The plankton is attracted to the light just as much as the perch. With our syringe we would draw off some water from these two tanks to feed the perch fry. You don't want the top stuff or the bottom stuff of the tank just the cloudy goodness in the middle. You can use a light to attract the plankton if you need but if the tank grows good plankton any water from the tank will have thousands. We would just add the plankton to the fry tanks and monitor the number of plankton in a drop of water from the fry tank with the microscope. We did not grow the plankton in the fry tanks.

After 10 days the fry can eat brine shrimp eggs. Just a small hatch every 24 hours. We started a bottle in the morning then another at night. We now will feed one bottle in the morning and one at night making a new bottle after feeding. After the 10 days you can start to see the perch bellys with the shrimp in them. They tend to bob on their tails in the current of the tank tanking in the shrimp and we are still adding some plankton to the tanks as there are some slow hatchers in the same tank.

Keeping up the brine shrimp feeding right now.

Some pictures added. We have two different hatches shown.

Video of Infusoria.

Video of hatched perch fry.

Cheers Don.

Dono, this guide is fantastic. I don't have several aquarium cages, a way to keep the temperatures constant, or a way to hatch brine shrimp but I imagine it wouldn't be hard to learn how to get all these items and set up a perch hatchery.

I imagine pond water can become green water fairly simply if you just take it inside and warm it up?

Is there another food source (tiny food flakes maybe) to avoid the process of providing brine shrimp eggs?

I moved this thread topic out of Questions & Observations to Raising Forage and Bait because as the thread ages it will be easier to locate. Yellow perch especially when small can be considered a good forage fish.

I will shoot a few pictures of our lab as the kids call it.

Keeping the water cool was as easy as keeping the shop cool. I set the temp to 60 and it would keep the tanks there too.

Hatching the brine shrimp is very easy you would be surprised. I will shoot a picture and describe why it looks like that.

I am not sure if hitting some high protein fish food with a coffee grinder would get it fine enough and really when the fry could eat coffee grinder feed. The shrimp are quite easy if you have the air. Just a fine 150 micron net is important. Pull the air out to let the shells and shrimp naturally separate. Siphon off live shrimp into mesh net. Rinse with water and feed to the tank.

We did start these tanks with water from our pond as well as the tropical fish tank on a water change. I was not sure if the pond water was warm enough but the natural young perch need something to eat.

Most important is to keep the temp down!!!! Keep the water temp at 60 for as long as you can. We tried a second ribbon and could not keep the water temp below 70 and the whole ribbon molded before the perch could hatch. Then removing the ribbon from the tank starved the fry before they could eat any brine shrimp.

Hatching the brine shrimp the best ratio for hatching is

1.5 tsp per liter of table salt
.5 tsp per liter of baking soda
.5 tsp per liter of shrimp eggs.
Water temp kept at 80-82

This will give you a solid 95% hatch with constant aeration. Just enough air so the eggs will not puddle on the bottom of the jar and not too much air that the eggs are spatted out of the water by the bubbles. What helps on the puddling is tipping the mason jar on an angle with a 3/8" shim under one side of the jar and the air stone on the lower edge of the jar.

We hatched about 70 perch this round. They are nothing like tropical fish we have learned. Next year even if we have to add ice to the water we will have a much better hatch.

Cheers Don.

Great info Don,

Thanks for sharing your journey so we can all learn!

Bill