I'd like some informed opinions of those of you that make a living moving fish etc.

I'd like to seine my smallmouth producton pond and bring the fingerlings inside into my two RAS tanks for more control, a good count, and optimum growing conditions.

The problem is due to the lingering all time record heat wave with highs around 100 F. daily, the pond water is in 80's to probably 90 or so from top to bottom.

I'm thinking if I wait until highs are only in the 80's later next week and ran well water into the pond and slowly dropped the water temps it would be safer to move the fish? I just don't want to move fish in excessively warm water and have bacterial issues.

Thoughts?

Sounds like a good plan to me, I would also plan on doing the move in the morning before pond temps start to rise during the day.

I am not going to move any of my SMB out of my RAS system and into the pond until the water temps cool down a bit. The water temps in my RAS system are staying in the 74-76 degree range with this heat.

Do so when the DO's are highest if possible after the cool down you note. Only move a few at a time in water with a little salt and bacterial inhibitor. Be sure the RAS water is in good condition. Move each batch as quickly as possible. This is all info you know already.

Not necessarily Eric. I didn't think about moving them when D.O. was highest. This is a new species for me this year.

What size to you have in your RAS? What are they like in your RAS? Robust feeders? Are they jumpers and therefore do I need to put netting over the tanks?

They are 3-1/2" to 5" and they don't jump, I have the water level set 6" below the rim of the tank. I have less than 50 SMB in 250 gallons of water. I do get splashed occasionaly when they take pellets off the surface but they prefer sinking pellets to floating. Every once while they will grab a finger when I'm dropping a glob of pre-soaked pellets in the tank.

Good point ! I sure wish I could grow them here. Might try one day.

I think you could easily grow them in MS. All you need is another small pond. I have them nearby in several small 1/4 acre ponds.

Bill I may try. It is very iffy for our location. While SMB do well in North MS rivers (Tenn-Tom waterway) and river fed lakes(Pickwick)and even some ponds (ones with good water and springs)they don't do well in south MS ponds. Central MS is iffy but might be worth a try. I need to check with Jeff Slipke on his efforts for results.

Chris Steelman has SMB for the 3rd year in his small, turbid Texas pond. If he and Arron Matos can do it you surely should be able to get them to survive. As more people try them, we will learn mor about what they require for surviving in ponds. The biggest factors in my experience are to keep the LMB completely out, maintain lots of 'good' forage (not BG), and don't have DO sags. Less eutrophic conditions with lower plankton bloom cycles seems to also help. Heat does not seem to be a big limiting factor.

Chris - have you checked your smallies lately? Is your pond still turbid and are you aerating it?

Speaking of keeping largemouth out, my biggest pond where I have my broodstock smallmouth and no largemouth, I'm now seeing 3 to 4 inch smallmouth in the shallows. They look healthy with good proportions but I'm betting they are from last year's hatch. I'm sure if I had any largemouth in the pond they'd be history.

I think if you had any LMB in the pond there wouldn't even have been a smallie hatch. LMB are repressive toward and bullies to smallies.

I was fishing a local river yesterday. The water temp was 94 degrees in the main channel and I measured one back pool at 98 degrees! I didn't catch any large SMB, but did catch several in the 12"-14" range. Even in the back pool with 98 degree temps, there were many 2"-4" YOY SMB cruising around. Water temp certainly doesn't seem to faze them, but low DO would definitely be a factor, but in a flowing river they don't have that issue.

True. I've read the smallies bed first and the largemouth push them off their nests.

Still muddy and no aeration. Building a new pond and may move them over there.

Chris - we will assume that the smallies are still living in your TX hot tank. You are my reference for TX smallies. Keep up the good work on all fronts. Smallies may grow faster in clearer water because they can see prey items better. It will be very interesting for me to see if any of your lake chubsuckers survived in this pond.

Not trying to be a spoiler but I had a friend plant 200 smallmouth in a turbid 1/2 acre pond here in Indiana. All disappeared.

In this case he jumped the gun and planted them when the pond was brand new and he didn't even wait to plant any fatheads.

Not a spoiler. Without good amounts of forage and depending on other fish in the pond the SMB could have easily died in the 1/2 ac turbid pond. In fact I would expect it to happen depening on what else was in the pond. Doing things correctly improves chances of success. Chris did things correct by first developing lots of diversified forage in the new turbid pond then planting smallies. Even in turbid water lots of forage allowed smallies to find enough food to survive in his TX 'hot tank'.

Bill,

So true. The friend couldn't wait. Over $600.00 down the drain.