I have a 12 acre pond in E Texas. It has been an especially bad summer for moss ( baby pond weed?) and the usual pond scum (filamentous algae?), but we have problems with weeds every year to one degree. I know carp won't eat scum, but they should nosh on the pondweed.

Does anyone on the forum have experience with triploid carp?
Am I going to regret stocking them?

Thx for any help,

David- Athens

David
Firstly welcome from Oakwood Tx ( and of course other places). You might talk to Overton Fishery near here for carp and Tilapia. They have helped a lot of us Texans
With such problems. Todd is about an hour and a half from you. Lots of smart folks here to help you on this pond boss forum.

Welcome from SW Arkansas!! You are in the right place...SOOO much information here it will make your head spin!

Thx guys. I really am impressed by this forum. There's not a lot of info about carp for grass control, however. I know I could fertilize to decrease clarity, and that may be the approach I should take. It seems like an expensive and recurring pain though. I wonder if the freshwater fish center in Athens can help.

Give them a call, but research well before adding fertilizer to your pond.... it can make some things worse

David, get an expert to positively identify your plants before stocking any biological control. TP eat algae, but grass carp generally don't. And fertilization may help, or it may hurt -- depending.

Whatever you do, don't wing it yourself. Bad things can happen very quickly!

Anthropic,
thx for the advice. That makes sense considering my substantial ignorance. Any one know east Texas consultants they like? A bad consultant can be worse than none at all.

Whart are TP?

David- Athens, TX

East Texas is probably the number one spot in the nation for pond consultants. You are most definitely in luck!

Speaking only of people I've met & hired, I can say that Bob Lusk (supreme pondmeister here at Pond Boss!), Overton Fisheries, and Lochow are all honest & extremely competent. They won't try to sell you something just because they have it.

I'm sure there are lots of other great consultants out there, but don't know them personally.

Even the very best won't always get everything right, because nature isn't fully under our control. But they will help you make fewer mistakes than the average bear!

TP = Tilapia. Mozambique TP can be stocked without a special permit in Texas.

Davidwat,
There is an article in the most recent PondBoss mag (Jul-Aug) about this very subject... You can buy a single issue (I think) from the store or I bet they'd start with that issue if you call to start a subscription

There is a reason why many, many hatcheries use GC to keep the FA (F. algae) out of their rearing ponds.....because GC eat FA! Don't believe those who tell you GC won't eat FA. They definitely will.

They also like coontail and sago pondweed. This from personal experience. Stock 4 or 5 GC per surface acre. The first year you won't see much difference but after that you will definitely notice. One or 2 per surface acre won't get the job done. Put new GC in every 4-6 years and you will be happy.

Our ponds, which typically have some FA problems, are like night and day with GC versus no GC. BM61.

B61, how do GC do with chara? My FA is pretty well under control what with TP, but chara worries me a bit.

Hey anthropic, sorry for the very slow response. Youngest graduated from college last Saturday (Roll Tide!!) and in the process of selling family home and moving to empty nester residence.

We have never had chara at our place (knocking on big piece of wood) so I can't give you a good answer. As mentioned above they do eat FA, coontail and sago pondweed based on our experience. Those are the 3 we fight in most years.

I suspect the Google Machine would have some opinions/answers for you as would the PB Forum archives (which I am terrible at finding). BM61.

I have GC for my chara. They will eat it fairly good. Depending on how bad you have it really is how you should stock them. I stocked 8 in my 1 acre but I had a LOT of chara and pond weed. They ate the pond weed first. Chara is not top on their list but if there is nothing else to eat they will chow down on it. It really took about 2 years to get it under control. At first you will start to see big round open patches on your pond bottom where the chara used to be. Almost looks like a circle crop if you will. They seem to like to eat in a circle at least mine do. Now with a little help of Aquashade in the late springtime I don't have much chara left anymore. How ever my carp are now 3 plus feet long and this is their 7th year so I need to replace them soon. I've never seen mine eat any floating FA but if they are hungry enough maybe they will as BM61 suggests. Either way they do work for Chara and pond weed for sure.

RC

David,

If controlled, they are wonderful.

One of the Pond Boss long time-members/moderators recently wrote a piece about triploid grass carp that is available here on the website: Grass Carp -- yes, no, maybe

The biggest complaint I hear is about 3-5 years after I put them in a pond that was a totally clogged mess when I put them in. The pond owners say they didn't do any good, and the pond is again full of whatever. The original grass carp were slim and trim, and 8-10 inches long. After 3-5 years, they are well over 36 inches and very obese.

However, a year after putting them in, most ponds are pretty weed free. During the first year, they can't trim things fast enough, so it looks like they aren't doing much. But, after the weeds die over a winter, they start hungry, and start nibbling at anything growing on the bottom a the next springtime starts. Same for the third year. By then, the original grass carp have become fat and lazy, and usually need to come out and be replaced.

A few can stay in. They are a lot of fun to watch, especially if you feed your pond. They look like silver 3-4 foot torpedoes going through the water as they slurp up pellets. If they get spooked they will slap the water like a big beaver slapping its tail.

I'm not familiar enough with Texas to suggest numbers to stock, but somebody should be able to give you good guidance. The biggest thing is to stock grass carp big enough not to be eaten by predators in your pond. Most grass carp suppliers sell them at 8 to 10 inches. Large mouth bass can swallow a fish about 1/3 their length.

When I speak of grass carp, I am talking about triploid White Amur than cannot reproduce.

Regards,
Ken

Ken, I get them to stock at 12" minimum length to avoid the predation problem.

I had one die on me 2 days ago that was put in the pond 2-3 years ago, it was easily 30+" in length.

I've got two grass carp in my oldest pond that have got to be 15 to 20 years old. One is about 30 inches, the other is in excess of 36 inches. I hadn't seen then in 2-3 seasons, but they have been showing every once in a while at feeding time.

It will be interesting to see what has happened at our beach home. Back in late February I put in four 10 inch grass carp in about a 1/10 acre pond that gets really thick with pond weed. One grass carp died within about 10 days. The pond weed was growing so fast, and I was getting ready to back head north, so I applied Weedtrine-D with a surficant to about 1/3 of the pond. I'll be down there next week to see what the rental season has done to our place and to see what the pond looks like. I really don't dare go in the pond this time of year because of the alligators, which probably ate my grass carp anyway. Because of the alligators, this is kind of a difficult pond to work on.

Big AL (about 7-8 feet long)


Big AL's neice and nephew (about 3-4 feet long)

Make big Al into some boots

Big Al might not control pond weeds, but he'll definitely cut down on fish poachers. Especially at night!

No problem. I know all about college graduations & the absolute necessity of attendance!

Right now I'd rather have chara than not have it. Guess we'll see about next year. I do have some good planted duck potato and don't want to see it eaten.

For real what a pain in the neck to deal with tho. I'll take my GBH any day over them!!!

RC

Just an update on the grass carp in my alligator pond ...

We got down to our snowbird home a couple days ago. Some friends said that one of the small alligators (about 4 foot long) had one of the grass carp in it's mouth, on shore late last week. They figured the grass carp was about 18-20 inches, and it was not going down easily. It was apparently really flopping the small gator around. The gator was able to bite the head off plus a few inches of the body. It came back a little later for more. The carp was all gone the next morning.

The pond looks pretty good. Two grass carp remain. I'll put more carp in this winter when the alligators go into hibernation.