in the unseasonabe heat?

I had my second floater today in three days. Not going to lose sleep over it as over 99 percent will survive, but wondered if anyone else is losing any.

No issues with bluegills of course.

Cecil, I've not gotten a single report on any YP floaters in the much warmer ponds I've stocked recently.

I haven't seen any floating. I have noticed mine aren't eating very much and even my bluegill and HSB have cut back. We've had several nights down in the 60's and I thought maybe that would keep the water cooler. Need to get a thermometer to check the temp.

None here, I am more worried about the cooler temps and rain that are in the forecast. A big cool down is on the way.

I lose a handful every year if it gets hot for a significant duration of time, but a few more around spawning time. Nothing significant.

All perch feeding has shut down as far as I can tell.

Do the warmer water temps make it hard for YP to maintain body condition? Mine seem to get skinny when it gets warm.

Not sure. I don't mess with them in warm water so can't tell if they get skinny. And they always look skinny to me when they don't have eggs or are males. But if they go off feed it would make sense they lose some weight.

The floaters don't appear to be exceptionally under weight though.

What's interesting is even my smaller perch in my holding pond have stopped feeding. Ammonia and nitrites are zip so that's not an issue even though the 1/10th acre pond is fish heavy.

Was at a fish farm a weeks ago and the fish farmer said something interesting about the yellow perch in one of his ponds. He said he fed them too heavy in the spring and they went off feed in the summer and would be off feed until fall. Never heard that before. Maybe Cody or someone can explain. I have had them go off feed in late summer before until the water cools off.

How old were the dead fish?

Not sure. My guess is 4 to 5 years.

Are your water temps near 90 degrees,

Hey Cecil,

FWIW I lost one a couple weeks back but he/she was 6 to 8 inches up on the bank. I just figured he beached himself chasing a minnow. No floaters so far but my geo pumps 6 to 8 gpm of cool water into my puddle when the air conditioning is running.

I was at the pond yesterday. No floaters, but my YP were just stocked this year.
My feeder isn't working, so I hand fed at 6:00 am. The YP were hitting the feed harder than I've ever seen them. (The feeder hasn't worked for a month.)
Swam yesterday afternoon after I finished mowing. The water was surprisingly cool, considering the recent 90+ degree days we've had.

78 F. from top to bottom. Run the two diffusers mostly at night.

When I kept smaller yellow perch in cages (up to 8 to 10 inches), they had no issues with water temps in the 80's. Fed really well. Once thet get 12 inches and up they don't care for it.

I think my two resident snapping turtles keep my heat stressed, dying YP consumed before they float to the surface. Current surface temp at 6" is 85F and at 6ft 79F. The temperature difference meets the technical definition of stratification.

Historical heat stressed perch discussion.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=23726&Number=298097#Post298097

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=20285

Interesting read. I think I will have aeration going by the end of next summer, or 2017 at latest. Depends on how much I'm going to spend on fixing the leak in my dam..

Bill,

So you aren't running a compressor this year?

I have seen this for the last two years. I am thinking that they do not need the energy and just hang at the bottom of the pond. I have about 2-10% still feeding but seem to be the smaller perch. Young that may have learned to feed on pellets from their older kin.

Cheers Don.

P.S. water temp has dropped so no floaters here.

Cecil asks:So you aren't running a compressor this year?
Yes I am running aeration about 4 hrs per very early morning. Temps were taken late afternoon and I think the temperature difference was due to daytime heat accumulation. I will try and remember to retake the temperatures when the aeration stops tomorrow morning.

Bill are you only running the aeration in the morning because of running it during the day will warm the pond to much?
Is it to save power as well?
How would one guess on house much aeration is enough with out over heating the pond. I just run ours 24/7 and do find in the summer the pond warms up quite a bit.

Cheers Don.

No floaters, but have 82 at the surface yesterday, and 73 at 5 feet down. Perch are still aggressively eating, but waiting for the food to hit them down where it is cool. They don't want to come to the top very much. Definitely odd weather to have my water temps this warm this late in the seasons. No wind to stir things up, so it is well stratified, which is telling when you dive in and can feel the layers in temperature changes.

Dono - I am only aerating 3 hrs per day from 6-9AM in 0.7ac using 6 diffuser heads (3 separate diffusers) for strong mixing when it occurs. This schedule is a reduction from last year when I was aerating 5hrs per day at a similar time of day. Some other local YP pond owners with 1/3 ac ponds were running aeration 2-3 hrs per day with success and fewer adult YP deaths during mid summer. I decided to try the reduced time frame for experimentation to measure how much of my pond water column in a larger pond will be mixed on this schedule. Hopefully some temperature & DO data will be available in a few days. This 0.7ac pond is primarily a YP-WE pond and YP will tolerate low DO, but not the WE. I am still catching some WE in traps so I know they are surviving this aeration schedule and amount of water column mixing.

You assume correctly. The more or longer one mixes the pond the more the deepest bottom areas become warm and close to within 1F of surface temps. My goal in my summer climate is to have the coolest water on the bottom areas with adequate DO for YP and WE survival.

Question was "How would one guess on how much aeration is enough with out over heating the pond. I just run ours 24/7 and do find in the summer the pond warms up quite a bit."
Very good question with several variables or it all depends. Variables: pond size, pond depth, bowl shape, amount of habitat to resist mixing, size of compressor, number of diffusers, location of diffusers.

My goal has always been to have a minimum of 2-3ppm of oxygen on the deepest bottom areas prior to the aerator restarting. This maintains adequate DO for good aerobic bacterial and invertebrate decomposition of the sediments.

In your specific case in cooler summers of Ontario and if your compressor produces 3-4cfm 3-5 hrs of aeration per day should be ample to maintain good DO on the bottom for YP. In your situation running 24/7 is hyperventilating your pond and increasing the DO above 4ppm (mg/l) is not necessary. Warming the bottom water over 75F for YP may actually slow down the growth of the larger perch. YP growth will decrease in less than optimum temps, both high and low. As YP get above 11" and WE above 18", I think they prefer a cooler habitat for optimum growth rates. Smaller YP grow good in 80F-86F water, not the big ones.

Great info Bill! I wish i could cut and paste and send it in an email to the local DNR team. They insisted that perch cannot do well in a pond like yours and mine. We need to do only BG, LMG and channel cats. My young perch have grown like weeds even though pond temps have been quite warm and they seem to really like the forage options. I appreciate your input about differing growth rates depending on water temp and perch size..

As i was attempting to seine net out some undesirables in our pond last night I caught a very plump, perch that had been cleaning up the pellets as they sank to the bottom. I was amazed at how much they have grown since this spring. I'm very happy they are in my pond even though it isn't the ideal pond (mine is more shallow, soft clay bottom without much structure or very deep spots thought necessary for successful perch growth)

I'll probably run my aerator different times now that the hot muggies are behind us.

Ccreek - with feeding pellets to the YP that are 8"-9" long, you should easily see a 13"YP in a couple years even in your shallow soft bottom Michigan pond. When you catch/harvest some of your 12"-13" YP, send a picture of them to your local DNR team and tell them to visit Pond Boss for an education about growing pond fish especially yellow perch.

Isn't Michigan's DNR the one that discourages nonhybrid bluegill because, "you can't prevent them from overpopulating and stunting in ponds?"

I'd sure hate to be a bass in a hybrid bluegill only pond!

And grass carp are not allowed in Michigan because they fear they will consume desirable macrophytes. At the same time they say they are not effective at consuming macrophytes in ponds! You can't make that stuff up!

I see now why hydrating feed makes sense now. The bigger guys are deeper in the cooler water, hydrated feed sinks to them.

See there is a knack to growing very large perch too eh.

Cecil, I'm not sure of their thought process or training, This was the quote I had from a very nice biologist but who I think misses out by not keeping up with the wealth of knowledge here on PB.

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Your pond is small and you will want to keep the fish community simple. I strongly recommend fathead minnows, largemouth bass, bluegills and channel catfish as your target community. Most of the rest of your listed species do not do well in small ponds. I will put the fatheads in first to get them established then put in largemouth bass (both in year 1) to ensure they can get big enough to keep the bluegills populations in check when you introduce them. In year 2, put in bluegills and channel catfish. These are all fish that should be available from private aquaculturists in our state.
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I'm going to follow Bill's experient with keen interest. They don't call him Dr. Perca for nothin.'

About a month weeks ago I forgot to turn on the compressor for the night. So cranked it up in the morning to compensate and forgot to turn it off before the wife and I took a swim. Swimming was not as comfortable as normal becase the water was quite cool!

That makes good sense actually but they are not typically taught much about ponds. I don't remember anything about recreational pond culture in my Michigan fisheries curriculum. But then my degree was only a technical degree so maybe there is something more at the university level? I will however put my two year education up against any four year program out there, which included a summer internship and a trout hatchery. Lots of hands on application. And our prof was really hard on us. I think only two or three of us graduated out of the progam in the class of 78.'

I think Cecil is correct. Most state biologists are not taught much about fisheries of ponds and what they are taught is the information that was basic pond management from the "old guard". Keep recommending the same tried and true methods to keep it as simple as possible which can work well. What they learn is basic concepts that have been available since the 1940's and 50's. All of us in the Pond Boss family are learning new pond management methods and trying fish combinations as practical research for better ways to enjoy the private water resources.

The few fish hatcheries in Michigan only sell HBG, not regular BG. I wonder if the cart is leading the horse or if it's the other way around?

My thinking is people think the DNR is right about not being able to manage regular bluegills in a pond, and hence growers don't get much call for regular bluegill.

One grower in Michigan told me he doesn't get much call for regular bluegills.

From the 2015 list of registered fish farms in MI, 31 farms list BG and 30 farms list HBG. Most list both as well as GSF and other sunfish. Whether they are actually producing and selling them or not is another question.

JKB, can you throw up a link here to that website that lists the places that have BG?

Yeah that's the thing. It may be different now but several years back I was looking for regular strain bluegills and the Michigan suppliers I called only carried hybrids even though they listed "bluegill." It's been so long ago I don't remember how many I called. This was years before VHS testing showed up.

I do know I ended up with bluegills from Keystone in Illinois, then Bruce in Nebraska, and a couple of places in Ohio. All but Keystone and Bruce probably were wholesales from Arkansas which I understand is quite common. Many suppliers make numerous trips to Arkansas to get everything from grass carp, to red ears, to bluegills and bass. Then just hold and resell.

I wonder if the shift toward HBG is an economical one for the fisheries. If you buy BG, you are pretty much set unless you have some sort of catastrophe (due to their prolific breeding). If you buy HBG, you will need to keep coming back to buy more because of their breeding properties.

Sean

I believe that's part of it.

The hatcheries I deal with offer native as well as HBG. I tend to think we are still dealing with the misconceptions and half-truths of 30 years ago. And that's with both state and private fisheries personnel.

I've sat in on a couple seminars, one private and one state, and neither would recommend HBG.

Sure...

Michigan Department of Agriculture & Rural Development

Go down to the link where it says List of "Licensed Aquaculture Facilities in Michigan". It opens up a 32 page PDF that lists facilities by county.

MDARD is running it now -vs- MDEQ or MDNR or when those two were combined, which was kinda like hell for everyone.

Yeah Spark... I think it's more of what the prevailing winds are doing at the time. I've never heard of imports for pond stocking, but then again, I'm not the one being paid to police this.

I do know that the fish farms up here work with each other. They do business with each other, buy/sell to each other to fit their needs. One produces this and is set up for it, they sell to others that are not set up for this, but they must list any species that could possibly be in their possession in their facility or on the farm. A few just put everything, but they seem to be the brokers.

My honest opinion is the people who fought hard to get things turned around up here would welcome anyone new to jump in and contribute.

....all you need is one feisty male GSF "accidentally" dropped in yer puddle with those lady BG! I have become a huge fan of the fight and growth of HBG. Ooops! Was that a GSF I "accidentally" bucket stocked!

Quote from my post above. “Current surface temp at 6" is 85F and at 6ft 79F. The temperature difference meets the technical definition of stratification. I am running aeration about 3 hrs per day early morning (actual run time is 6am to 9am) . Temps were taken late afternoon and I think the temperature difference was due to daytime heat accumulation. I will try and remember to retake the temperatures when the aeration stops tomorrow morning.”

I am back with the end of my dock, morning water temperature reading after aerating 3 hrs for comparing the 6” sub- surface temperature and one at 6ft. Surface temp, post 3 hrs aeration was 79.5F and at 6ft it was 79.5F. Evidently the 6 degree F thermal stratification noted above was due to daytime heating. Closest diffuser to the end of the dock is 60 ft away in deeper water.