Pond Boss
I'm asking for other PB members to help me with an experiment.

all of you will have ice out at different dates next year and I wanted to start thinking and planning for this early. I'm still a big novice to how perch reproduce in a pond. I've read everything I can on this forum and we have very good YP experts to rely on.

My goal up to this point is to control my YP population by trying to remove eggs. I don't want predators yet as I still am enjoying the luxury of having the ability to introduce and establish several diverse strains of forage without predators. Once predators are in place I probably will let the eggs hatch at will and let populations be what nature wants them to be.

I'd told that perch like to lay eggs on branches and have put branches in my pond and they do help get the egg strands back out. But I also find that they like to lay eggs in the leaves in the shallows, next to the branches and even INSIDE my pyramid style minnow traps.

there have been several observations by folks about what side of the pond the eggs first show up on and where the majority of egg strands are left. For me it has been SW and S exclusively and I have to assume it has to do with sun exposure and thereby the water temps in the shallow but I'm not sure. My leaves fall mostly on the S, SW half of the pond so if they prefer a bed of leaves to lay eggs on that may be part of it too. Also the slope of the bottom is less gradual in those areas of the pond so they may like sneaking up out of the deep, laying eggs and sneaking back rather than the N side of pond where the slope is more like 5-6 to 1 for a ways.

So the suggestion:
1. Be ready at ice out to report where the perch first lay eggs and where the majority of the eggs are laid.

2. Record water temp when the first egg strand is laid. Perhaps water temp is not as important as weather, moonlight etc?

3. I'd really like some help trying different spawning structures to see what they like. I'd ask you try some branches with different configurations (branches with thick bloom of small twigs at end, vs a branch with only a few stout branches here and there and no smaller fill-in branches?)

4. I'll set my minnow traps out which have a set of 6" openings all around the base of the pyramid and is made of a soft mesh. They seemed to like that this spring. I also am thinking of trying some 5 gallon buckets with a 5 or 6" hole bored in the side of it to act like a 'cavity' YP are not thought to be a cavity spawner...but in the Great Lakes, how many branches can they find on the miles of sandy beach to lay their eggs in? Maybe in the Great Lakes they actually lay their eggs in the rivers that lead to the great lake and not in the lake itself? Maybe they get in a pond and get so confused that they do something completely different with their eggs anyway in a small pond like mine?

5. I'll try some buckets with a hole bored in the side of different widths and try the buckets with the top off (maybe they prefer to see the moon?) and some with closed tops (dark conditions). I'll see if a big section of PVC pipe, maybe 4-6" draws any eggs in it or on it.

If they happen to like a bucket, basket, PVC pipe etc we all learn about YP pond spawning activity AND for me, it makes it much easier to grab the bucket and remove the eggs smile

Thanks to all in advance!
I'll try to help as long as you drop a reminder come spring '17.
A few comments about your yellow perch spawning project.
We should learn some beneficial information from your experiment.

My experience & observations are the eggs on the bottom regardless of location are from females that were not able to affix the ribbon onto a structure. The eggs will drop randomly when ever fully extruded and when the female has been unsuccessful at affixing or 'hooking' the ribbon to a piece of some structure underwater.

Leaves on the bottom will during sunshine absorb radiant energy and make that area slightly warmer water next to the bottom. Darker bottom areas do this. YP being bottom oriented can easily sense slightly warmer water. Warmer water to the instinct of YP indicates a better place and quicker hatch for those eggs.

Many perch in the lakes find old shoreline vegetation structure to drop or drape their eggs. Remember eggs can be just randomly dropped when the female is not able to drape or snag the egg on structure. YP esp in lakes generally consist of large schools. I think these pods of young and older fish instinctively know 'better' areas to frequent during spawn season. YP in lakes will use reefs and weedy humps to place eggs. YP eggs have been found on fish nets that were anchored or fished in deep water 15-20ft.


With your current goals for YP and your fishery, I would remove every egg ribbon that you can find. There will always be a few laid deeper that you do not see. These few ribbons will provide more YP than you need since you have no predators.

Thanks for the update and ideas Bill! You are correct, I remove every strand I can find and despite that, this year I have had a good recruitment of new YOY perch. At night with a light I can see lots of young perch just laying on the bottom in the shallows.

I'll try to limit reproduction this spring at ice out as well for the same reasons. You mentioned once that adult YP will control YOY to some degree and I do wonder how many YOY my 4-5" RES and LES eat.

I also wonder what the balance is for the GSH. Do the adult YP eat the GSH eggs or GSH young? Or do the limited number of RES or GSH since they are bottom feeders pick off the GSH eggs or eat the GSH young?

I see a few schools of GSH young this summer but really the balance between GSH and YP seems pretty good based on traps, visual and angling. I catch and trap a few larger GSH and a my original YP stockers are plump and fun to catch but everything else is going well so I hate to put a big hungry group of SMB or LMB in the mix yet smile

I'll post an update when we get closer but I didn't want to miss the folks down south who seem to get ice out and perch eggs as soon as sometime in February or early March?
This experiment might make a good story for Pond Boss magazine. Keep good notes, and let's see about a story.
I had perch spawn for the first time last year. I noticed the ribbons on 4-18 (I keep a log book). Interestingly all the ribbons I saw were on the south side of my pond even though the structure and grade was the same in other areas. I had branches set out in several shallow water areas for them to spawn on, they chose cattails in 1 to 2 feet of water. Note these fish were just stocked that spring. I'm in eastern Wisconsin.
All small fish species including your goldfish will eat fish eggs. Removing every YP egg ribbon you can find and you still have ample small YP lends merit to may comment above "There will always be a few (ribbons)laid deeper that you do not see. These few ribbons will provide more YP than you need since you have no predators. Number of predators of small YP has a big influence on the amount of recruitment of YP into a pond.

Sunfish of 4-5" RES and LES and most other small fish species (>5") will primarily only eat the "fry" of YP. Once they become good swimmers at 1", sunfish predation is basically nill on YP. Fish fry of 1/4"-5/8" are pretty vulnerable to sunfish predation. GSH will eat mostly newly hatched fry of YP for about 2-6 days after YP fry swim-up.

In your small pond without significant predators of the 1"-3" fish be watchful that the pond does not get too many forage fish, small foods become limiting and overall growth "hits the wall". I would remove every YP less than 4" that you catch in traps. IMO your pond will soon need a limited number of predators to maintain some sort of 'natural' predator prey balance.
Carefully watch the goldfish they can quickly overcrowd a small pond with unusable fish biomass.
This thread gives a bunch of dates for ribbon sightings in various states. I find it interesting that Colorado and Minnesota had very similar dates of first egg strand sighting. Woodster seems to have a similar date almost to the day in WI.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=33490&Number=445094#Post445094

If all of us keep notes of weather, water temp, which portion of the pond gets the eggs and the substrate eggs are laid on, in, or around I think we can really learn something.

One common theme so far is branches, but also where branches were ignored and something 'spindly' instead was used. In my pond, the first strand this year was on a very thin spiky rush or sedge. It also was the only real cover there was anywhere as I have no submerged vegetation. Woodster saw them pick cattails.

Perhaps, not too unlike humans, they prefer to do their 'duties' in private and feel more protected when they can go in between or under things?

Bill thanks for the wealth of knowledge. I never knew that the YP after 1" or so are good enough swimmers to have a chance at avoiding predation. That is good to know. You are very correct that some eggs clearly hatch even when all the visible eggs are removed as we have plenty of YOY perch smile

The good news is that my schools of hundreds of large adult goldfish are down to one small school of 20-30 adults. We had lots of summer and fall fishing parties with friends and family and took an average of 20-30 big ones out every time. Late fall we started catching smaller 3-4" goldfish along with the mature adults (this year's brood) so we'll have to keep at it till we get the breeding size ones out...(or till the SMB go in and hammer the 2-3" ones)

I wanted one more chance to grow vegetation (another reason goldfish have to go) and then try to establish FHM. UP till this time the FHM disappear in about 2 weeks as the YP(?) vacuum them up. I may have one more spring and summer to get FHM established, see if I can get another season of GSH young to the fast swimming stage, see if I can get a successful 2nd generation of LCS, evaluate my crayfish population, see if I can get some other minnow species going (found some stickleback in a seine net this fall and would love to get more going) and then add a few SMB maybe in the fall in very small numbers. I don't think I'll get sizable numbers of PK shrimp either without more vegetation/grass for them to hide in.

If you have suggestions for other structure or devices to leave out for YP spawn sites let me know. It sounds like an artificial stand of cattails would be cool to try too. I worked hard to get rid of all the cattails I had smile

ccreek - your pond is in a dilema. It needs more habitat / vegetation for survival of the FHM but adding more dense habitat to favor FHM will also favor goldfish & other sunfish survival. You could easily have too many gfish and sunfish that are not growing and overeating the foods. Be aware the goldfish may eventually become too abundant with a high fish biomass (standing crop) detracting from the fishery goal. To a point enough you have to renovate the whole pond and start over.

The YP are the ones severely reducing your number of FHM. YP really 'like' slow swimming smaller FHM.

Egg laying of YP is not similar to laying of eggs of many fish species and even chickens. YP egg laying takes several minutes of extruding the long ribbon of eggs as the accompanying males do the fertilization as the ribbon lengthens. During the process the female is swimming along and among structure "hoping" for the ribbon to hook onto something to help pull out and off the ribbon. I think where the eggs are finally dropped is quite haphazard and by chance.
Bill
This spring at ice out the goldfish were very hungry and even entered traps to get food. Later in the summer they would no longer go in traps. But they are pellet trained and always come to the same area at dinner time. I chum a little feed and can easily catch them with hook/line using corn or worms for bait. My goal is to get rid of the rest of the goldfish by doing lots of fishing for them early in the spring/summer. I probably won't get every one but we can get very close.

I had thought crayfish cleaned up on the vegetation but now I'm thinking goldfish. Hopefully plants will get a start this year.

With vegetation the GSH eggs should be more likely to succeed?, the PK shrimp can hide other forage may have a chance, etc.

I have had only one batch of YOY for RES and LES and their numbers remain very small. I imagine they are eating the perch fry as well.

With the YP I may not be able to re-establish FHM but then hopefully there will be young sunfish, other perch, and GSH to eat?

Perhaps this summer we'll put a few YP on the table and then introduce a non-reproducing predator.

Half the fun is learning as we go.
I also am kicking around some ideas on making a micro pond within my pond. I don't have a good spot for a forage pond but was thinking of creating a semi-permanent netted off area for growing forage within my pond. I need to figure out how to keep fish from going over or under the boundaries while at the same time letting pond nutrients and the tiniest part of the food chain make it in to the netted off area. I can then hopefully grow forage and remove from this area as needed.
Netting off an area to allow even fair amount of water circulation while excluding fish fry that are 1/4" to 1/2" long will be a real challenge if not almost impossible. A very small mesh (1-2mm) blocking net will soon (weeks) become clogged with various types of varying thickness of attached algae growth. Consider drawing down the pond and building an actual wall of cement blocks or plywood, etc. that extends into the sediment 6"-12". When the pond is drawn down a back hoe could expand the size7/ordepth) of the micro-pond by some digging back into the pond bank and deepening the area or 'pocket'. Then treat the micro-pond as a completely separate pond with its own aeration. Wall can be removed fairly easily by reversing the process.
I can source a large plastic water tank, 1000 gal, 1500 gal, etc. I've read on the forum of SFS doing well in a 55 gallon barrel, perhaps I can embed a 1500 gallon tank on its side in the pond with small inflow and outflow openings and appropriate mesh over the openings.

thanks Bill.
I saw my first YP egg ribbon on March 11th last year. I ended up with over 100 ribbons in all. The first one showed up on the west side of the pond. My south end is in the shade, so I don't think it heats up as fast. I threw down a branch about every 20 yards last year. I'm not sure I'm going to put that many in this year. I also put the wrong type of branch down last year. They were too open with just a few limbs off the main section. I'm going to try cedars and plum and peach tree branches this year.
I'm figuring with that many ribbons I had to have some successful recruitment. My traps immediately fill completely with tadpoles, so I've had very little luck at really judging recruitment success.
I will be happy to keep track of dates and water temps, and the location of the ribbons.
One question, where do you all get temps? My thermometer hangs off the dock about 20" deep, and 20' from shore. Is there a standard location I should be using?
I was at the pond yesterday. Has about 1" of ice on it. And it's down about 3.5' due to the continued drought we are having. It's got to rain sometime.
Will you want to add in to the database the other species we have stocked?

Thanks for starting this thread.

Jeff
I guess a follow up question would be, should I be removing YP ribbons? I've got HBG, SMB, and HSB to control them. Plus don't YP cannibalize also? I run a feeder, but it's not a particularly reliable one. When it works (75% of the time) food is cleaned up in less than 30 seconds. I've been keeping a lot of YP to eat. We caught around a hundred this fall. They were a bit smaller than the ones we were catching in the spring. In the spring the larger fish were all females. In the fall there was no difference in size between males and females.
My 2cents. Your thermometer at the dock 20" deep is okay for a overall pond water temperature. However if you really want to check the water temperature where most of the eggs are being laid you need an indoor-outdoor thermometer with a probe attached. Most of these units have 10 ft long probes. Check / calibrate the temperatures of the dock thermometer and the in-out door thermometer to verify or determine the readings at 40, 45, 50 and 55F. Use ice in water to get the test water to your needed standard temps. We have to assume one of the thermometers is accurate or our standard. I have a quality mercury thermometer that I use as my standard.

When you know the variation of the thermometers, put the probe weighted with a fishing sinker on the spawn area bottom in late afternoon the measure the bottom water temp. Adjust the reading to match the calibration temp difference. Bottom water is the area the YP are sensing temperature differences along the shoreline. Overnight & during the day the convection currents will mix all this water to a pretty uniform temp until the afternoon sun again heats the bottom in the main spawning area.

Example of a decent digital thermometer with 10ft probe
http://www.ebay.com/itm/Taylor-Precision-Products-Digital-Indoor-Outdoor-Thermometer-1522-/381901088656?hash=item58eb142790:g:7WUAAOSwKOJYIm-v

http://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-OPEN-PACKAGE-Bios-Weather-Indoor-Outdoor-Digital-Thermometer-READ-/262785425992?hash=item3d2f3b6248:g:ztsAAOSwUKxYZwjY

http://www.ebay.com/itm/Acu-Rite-Digital-Indoor-And-Outdoor-Thermometer-No-00888A2-/172165696095?hash=item2815e00a5f:g:8DMAAOSwcUBYS0mh

I'll get one. I don't think I'll ever be a true Pond Miester, but I can help a little. I've learned so much here.
It will be very informative to have a few interested in YP to actually measure the bottom temperatures where YP begin spawning. I have never done that. I always assumed slightly warmer temperatures were sensed by the YP and this stimulated or indicated the best place to be laying the eggs. YP always first start laying eggs in my south-east bank that receives afternoon sun. Common sense tells me that area has the warmest bottom water as heat build up is released from the shallow water bottom shoreline area. Dark bottoms can absorb lots of radiant energy from sunshine.
With our yellow perch I have learned that the shiners are keeping just about all our perch fry from growing up. After four years we are at 5-1 still of young 4-5" perch to our original stockers that are in the 11-13" size. Shiner minnows got a year head start on the perch spawning. We can catch 6-7" shiners on a hook and worm.

I do not know what is really limiting the young perch but I do know after 4 years I can not catch any perch minnows in the minnow traps.

We do remove all the ribbons we can and find that the north west side of the pond gets more ribbons than any other side of the pond.

Cheers Don.
We have the same problem, though I think it is the many adult perch, the remaining few BCP, and the few WE beating up the YOY.

I started with a lot of YP minnows this spring, but if any made it to fall, I could not see them in the traps or in the schools I normally do.

A good fish fry may be what is needed to restore balance, though I am waiting for the BCP to get hammered to smithereens first. After that I am sticking with perch and walleye.
Dono, I find it hard to understand why in your cold climate with late ice out and late warmup that the NW side of pond would have ribbons. Do you have more 'beach area' there, less shade trees, or maybe if more trees you have more brown leaves that would make the ground heat up faster on the NW side?

I have checked surface water temps and found it matched other ponds but I'll try to sample temp at the exact point the eggs are on the bottom. I expected my egg ribbons to show up on the branches in 20-24" of water but found that the branches were ignored and the eggs strands actually went very shallow, maybe 10-12" of water or less on the bed of leaves. In fact where I had a few stands of 'sedges' and the eggs were intertwined in the spikes the water was very shallow, maybe 8" and they didn't mind going there to lay eggs.


I'm curious as to why I don't have more YP young since I've had had 2 spawns, the first a very limited spawn due to just stocking and the stockers had a few large female YP egg laden at the time of stocking. I saw no ribbons that year. The 2nd year I removed all ribbons but had plenty that must have made it. I too wonder if my GSH are helping keep things in check as they are biting hooks at about 4-5" size.

To me that would be ideal since my GSH (and maybe RES) are controlling YP YOY, and hopefully I can grow out a generation or 2 of adults without a predator. Keep diversifying forage, then when I have plenty of egg laying adult YP and a few other sizes in the 'ladder' I can introduce the predator that will take out the GSH of all sizes except the adults maybe and help control YP.


SetterGuy, I think there will be a bigger market in the future for YP in the states in the middle of the North/south extreme and then more call for them even in the southern states. If you get good at YP and can help source them to others south of you that may be a great thing. Who knows perhaps northern perch can learn to adapt to warmer water temps over successive generations just like saltwater adapt to fresh, etc. They are a great fish to start with in your pond as they are hardy, prolific reproducers, able to be pellet trained when young, fun/easy for kids to catch, help control crayfish populations, and are one of the more sought after fish to eat even in the Great Lake states where they are readily available in restaurants during the 'in season'.

I'm not sure why they haven't caught on as a fish farm target as they bring a hefty price when on the menu in our local restaurants.
Dono - I see a couple options to help your lack of recruitment.

1. allow more YP ribbons to hatch in the pond. If the ribbons are not draped off the bottom - see to it that happens.

2. It is not all bad that recruitment is low for your needs. A significant number of YOY perch will not learn to utilize pellets. To compensate for harvest of YP get more every year or two from your supplier. Considering all factors, the price for pellet trained farm raised, mid-sized stocker perch is a very good investment. You are fortunate that you have a YP production grower where you can purchase pellet trained YP that are well habituated to pellets. Restocking these YP will insure your YP fishery is the best it can be with fast growing, harvestable high quality YP.
I hate to ask stupid questions, but... I'm curious as to why would you remove YP ribbons? I assume just to avoid overpopulation and stunted fish. From what the posts above indicate, it seems like overproduction isn't a problem.
Are there other reasons why you would remove the ribbons? I was seeing schools of very small fish right up until winter. I couldn't get any to trap due to a definite overpopulation of bullfrog tadpoles. Every trap is packed with them in no time. So, the schools of small fish I'm looking at could be anything. FHM, RES, SMB, GSH, or YP. (I hope my HBG aren't reproducing at to high of a rate.
My pond is new. I'm sure it'll evolve over time. I'd like to keep YP as my most numerous fish, and have them in the 9" range. I'm kind of just waiting to see what happens.
Removing yellow perch ribbons is for population control - management. The amount of population control needed will depend on species of predator and number of predators.

If you want to sample small fish that do not go into a wire mesh minnow trap consider buying a standard drop or lift net and your cord attached to a 5-7ft pole and baiting it with bread. See page 3 in the link.
http://www.douglasnets.com/search.php?mode=search&page=1

Or better yet invest in a 20-50ft minnow seine. You will be amazed at what you will catch. Use his: for more lengths Click Here. the 1/4" mesh is a pretty standard minnow seine.
http://www.douglasnets.com/home.php?cat=6
SettlerGuy, your goal for a yellow perch pond is the same as mine. Only thing I was not expecting was how well the shiners ate up the perch minnows. One year might not get many shiners the next we will have millions on to of millions. Not sure if you have seen the video from this year. It was a very good year for common shiners in our pond.
The crickets are loud. This is like this around the north shore just west of the waterfall.

I think the ribbons are laid on the north west side of the pond because it is the first to see the sun in the morning and low wind. Only time that side of the pond sees the wind wave action is if we have an east or south east wind.

I do agree Bill, leave what I have going on with the limited recruitment and just add 100 pellet trained every year or 2.
Another way of sampling at least some species of YOY is go out at night with a 1/4" dip net with extension handle duct taped on if needed. The small fish will be sleeping on the bottom. Drag the net as far out as you can reach towards shore right up to the bank.

I have actually picked up small BG in the cup of one hand while they were sleeping in a few inches of water. It is no wonder larger CC can eat a lot of forage fish. I bet they eat them after dark when a lot of fish are asleep.
""I have actually picked up small BG in the cup of one hand while they were sleeping in a few inches of water. It is no wonder larger CC can eat a lot of forage fish. I bet they eat them after dark when a lot of fish are asleep."" Now you know the secret to the feeding behavior of catfish.
I'll be looking this spring to see if I had any carryover from last year's ribbons. They should be easy to identify by next spring. I'll try all three nets. I have a drop net, I must not be doing it right.
I watched the video of the GSH. My iPad wasn't showing it very clearly. Were they feeding on YP fry? Or just schooling along the bank?
For some reason, I just never considered GSH as a predator. Makes sense, now that I think about it. We've caught a few this year. The larger ones hit a little jig, just like the HBG, and the YP.
I guess I'll leave the ribbons in next spring also. With every fish in the pond going after the YP fry, I don't think I need to worry too much about overpopulation.
(I do run a feeder, but it's a bit on the sporadic side.)
If you had 100 ribbons and you had 10,000 fry or more per ribbon you have potential to have tremendous YOY perch. But also, if predators are cleaning up on them maybe things will balance out.

I would like to see how the GSH and panfish can do against the perch population especially if you also catch the larger YP and eat them periodically.

Bill raised a good point that is going to be very hard to assess, the issue of not enough micronutrients and things at the plankton level to support not only the YP fry but all the other fry that are competing for the same food source. So even if the fP fry get consumed by other bigger fish, you wonder how do you properly gauge if the fry which you can barely see are 'well nourished and plump' or starving based on micronutrients that you also can't see... smile
I forgot to mention that my ribbons were also mostly in the NW corner of the pond at first, but over time the south side had quite a few as the water warmed. My water was super clear last spring due to plant life. The ribbons sqt a long time before hatching due to a return to cold weather after they were laid. I wonder if the long exposure to UV killed some embryos.
SettlerGuy, the video was kind of poor shot with my phone. These are common shiners mostly and the flashes deeper were the emerald shiners being nosy as to what the others are schooling for. These guys were cleaning up the fine food that dropped out of the feeder and picking through the rocks on the bottom of the pond. This mob would move over the shore all around the pond. There is about six or eight mobs like this last summer around our 1 acre pond.
Perch eggs are pretty durable. Most newly hatched swim-up fish fry will starve when hatched in clear water(4'-6'). Too much competition and too little zooplankton.
I did have at least 100 ribbons in a 1 ac pond. The water was fairly clear. The FHM are thriving, so I'm thinking there's enough plankton to support the YP fry. May be entirely different characteristics in those fish, so I really have no clue.
I'm hoping the night time netting, or a larger net will help me assess what survived last year. I have kept a lot of YP to eat. I could have anywhere from 1500 YP stocked to a fraction of that. It's a long story, I've told before. I've gone from trying to determine if I'm way overstocked, to "do I have any?"
With 100 ribbons, there's no doubt I have some survivors, so I felt comfortable in taking out a few hundred to eat. I stocked 60 SMB, and 25 HSB six months after I stocked the YP in April of 2015. The SMB I've caught all seem on the heavy side. I haven't seen a HSB yet. I know it's up to me to find a way to get a good sample. I'm just stretched too thin time wise. In a few years with retirement, I'll be able to properly set up a fish trap an see what's there. Hopefully nothing catastrophic will happen before then.
pellet trained HSB usually are pretty easy to catch. I'm surprised you haven't caught one yet. Your HSB are probably fat and happy just like your SMB.

Can you imagine the growth rate of your LMB and SMB if we could find a way to make those tadpoles the food of choice for the bass?
That is the truth! If anything ate those tadpoles, they'd be off the charts giant. I was up at the pond a few weeks ago, I could see them still moving under the ice.
I've been told chicken liver for the HSB, I'm going to try that this spring. Not sure if mine were feed trained or not, and I can't tell from the flashes what is hitting. I know from cleaning a lot of YP that they are sure hitting the feed.
WOW you have alot of fish in a little one acre pond. 100 ribbons is allot of ribbons. We stocked 400 YP and only get at the most 20 ribbons that we see. I keep the plankton booming in our pond and can only see 12"-20" in the spring as the water warms up. When it hits 55+ it is basically 15"s of visibility all year till first ice.
Dono, what is the 'secret sauce' to maintain a bloom so consistently? My pond may hold a bloom for 2 weeks in the spring and sometimes a bit in late fall but I never dared toy with fertilizer as I feared fighting more FA or other unwanted weed explosions.

Some fertilizer runoff from my front yard which slopes to the pond I believe starts the first bloom but I try to teach the crew that throws the fertilizer to try to avoid the pond area.
Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
Dono, what is the 'secret sauce' to maintain a bloom so consistently? My pond may hold a bloom for 2 weeks in the spring and sometimes a bit in late fall but I never dared toy with fertilizer as I feared fighting more FA or other unwanted weed explosions.

Some fertilizer runoff from my front yard which slopes to the pond I believe starts the first bloom but I try to teach the crew that throws the fertilizer to try to avoid the pond area.


Our pond is topped up with a drainage ditch next to it. The drain has about 300 acre of farm land that is systematically tiled every 20 feet. The pond is fertilized basically all year from the farm land. The only problem with this is atrazine. When there is a large rain event the fill pump gets turned off.

A good part of this could be sediment and not 100% a plankton bloom. All I know is visibility has never been clear any more then 3 feet in the winter.

Guess they are trying to ban atrazine in Canada for use on crop land. Will have to see.

Cheers Don.

EDIT: added a picture from google maps. You can see the drain next to the pond.

Attached picture farm.JPG
Originally Posted By: DonoBBD
WOW you have alot of fish in a little one acre pond. 100 ribbons is allot of ribbons. We stocked 400 YP and only get at the most 20 ribbons that we see. I keep the plankton booming in our pond and can only see 12"-20" in the spring as the water warms up. When it hits 55+ it is basically 15"s of visibility all year till first ice.


I know. Live and learn. I probably would not have put so many in, had I spent a bit more time on this forum before stocking. There was a issue with survival rates on the initial stocking, so I believe I have a fraction of the original 1500 stocked. I did see a lot of ribbons though. Now that I know the GSH eat the YP fry, I'm thinking I do not get all that many through the first few weeks. I have not caught one, very small YP. Yet I have harvested at least 200 adult YP in the last 12 months.
Nature is fascinating and every pond is different because there is so many variables. If your GSH were stocked the same time or even 6 months before and your perch were only 6-8" to start your going to be in great shape. We stocked this way and do not have near any over population after four years of yellow perch only.
Originally Posted By: SetterGuy
That is the truth! If anything ate those tadpoles, they'd be off the charts giant.


I bet the predators do benefit. They just wait till the tadpoles sprout legs and become frogs.

Tadpoles convert algae into frogs into bass when the bass eat the frogs.

So I would think tadpoles would be all upside for the pond foodchain.
Dono - You selectively use water from the drainage ditch as fill or make-up water - correct? I am convinced that shiners eat lots of swim-up YP fry. 100's to 1000's of shiners are capable of consuming very high amounts of YP fry that are not much bigger than many crustacean zooplankton. Thus hundreds of thousands to millions of fry can become food over the course of several days as shiners gorge on fish fry.
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Dono - You selectively use water from the drainage ditch as fill or make-up water - correct? I am convinced that shiners eat lots of swim-up YP fry. 100's to 1000's of shiners are capable of consuming very high amounts of YP fry that are not much bigger than many crustacean zooplankton. Thus hundreds of thousands to millions of fry can become food over the course of several days as shiners gorge on fish fry.


Correct Bill I use the water flowing by to top up the water level in our pond. In the winter I run the pump all winter long giving the pond a big flush. 5000 gallon per hour 24/7 from Nov till March.
Originally Posted By: DonoBBD
Nature is fascinating and every pond is different because there is so many variables. If your GSH were stocked the same time or even 6 months before and your perch were only 6-8" to start your going to be in great shape. We stocked this way and do not have near any over population after four years of yellow perch only.


Good to hear. Thanks, yes the GSH were stocked at the same time. The YP were actually quite a bit smaller than 6-8". The SMB and HSB went in several months later. I was concerned about finding SMB, so I took those when I could get them.
I'm hoping the pond, including the mass explosion of tadpoles will balance out in a few years. Hopefully I'll be able to catch small fish in traps etc, like everyone else.
This summer I'm going to try and get aeration started. That's going to be a pretty large project for me. Pond is 300 yards from the barn. No elec at the pond. Lots of research to do.
I will jump in here too....I am the ecologist (and GIS manager) for a large private property in WI. We have 50ish acres that are landscaped and we have two 0.75 acre ponds that I manage. Our "west" pond is actually a retention pond that we had to put in for our westward expansion, so it gets all the run-off from about 40 acres of land, both landscaped and ag.

My background is in fisheries/aquaculture, and I earned my M.S. down in Arkansas for this. I was born and raised here in WI, so I'm a tried-and-true Yellow Perch guy...with one heck of a scientific bent to life.


So, back to "my" ponds and some background. Our west pond was stocked back in 2008 with YP and a handful of LMB and really had no "management" other than algae and weed control until I showed up in 2015 (this is in the middle of well-manicured landscaping...aesthetics are #1). Well, our winter was fairly hard in 2015, and in May I started seeing LMB turning up on the edges....not just "bass" but real monsters for this area! The smallest bass I pulled out was 23" and the largest was 28"!!! We're talking State record size bass here! And I pulled 8 of these out of there, all dead.

No one had fished this pond really, save for maybe a couple kids on a couple of occasions and then from the only pier on the pond. Well, I hate to see those fish wasted, and man would I have loved to hook into them....but they must have been the last of their kind in the pond because the YP population exploded in 2015 and the fish actually came out of hiding....people here had thought there weren't many perch in there, but I am assuming they were all hiding in more secluded areas with the constant threat from some rather large mouths trolling the edges for lunch.

Our perch spawn in late April every year in this pond. This was taken on 4-27-15, and I counted 27 ribbons in <12" of water that week.

I was able to confirm all age classes of YP during the 2015-16 winter ice-fishing season....and we kept a few of the nice ones.



We have some people coming out this Friday to do some fishing, and one guy just happens to be the head chef of a certain ritzy golf club we have over here....so I'm hoping we get enough for the pan!

I am currently working on some fishing regulations and log sheets for them to record counts and lengths, and a small map for the general areas they are caught. I am thinking right now, for regulations, they can keep 10"+ fish and some 7-8"...thinking 10-12 total perch each. Then leave the 8-10" fish go to become the next size this summer.

Depending on what I see being caught this winter (population structure-wise), I may have to start thinking about putting some predators back in....probably walleye, so they don't have a good chance of reproducing and causing more management work like bass and pike end up doing. I am managing this and our "Friday Fish-Fry" pond, with a goal of being able to catch several classic WI Friday fish frys-worth of 10"+ perch, on several occasions each year.


Anybody else getting hungry right now?!?!

Anyway, I look forward to seeing more data coming in and contributing in any way that I can.

mthompson - Your YP without predators and and without significant population management will soon overpopulate and average catch size will likely decline over the next couple of years. YP are to a certain extent are cannibalistic but IMO not enough to adequately control their numbers (recruitment) were very good growth occurs on only natural foods. Pellet feeding helps tremendously to keep perch growing when recruitment is high.

Also consider using SMB with or instead of the walleye(WE). SMB will likely reproduce that will result in some recruitmen but not to the extent of LMB. YP are easier to manage with SMB than LMB. If you can get HSB they are also very good to use as predator with YP since the HSB will not reproduce. HSB are easier to catch, often survive better, and easier to manage than WE.
MT, thanks so much for jumping in and offering your experience! I find it fascinating that most people are finding the perch are happy to lay eggs in 10-12" water.

I also see that Missouri has March dates and WI and MN have had April dates for first sighting of egg ribbons. Hopefully this spring can post dates, water temps and maybe we can line it up with weather locally to see if fronts, angle of sun on horizon, daylight hours, phase of moon, or simply water temps is the thing that matters to the fish.

MT, what part of pond did you see most of the ribbons, N, NW, S, SW, etc?

Also, what was the forage base that produced the monster LMB? From your story it seemed that the perch went in later and were not the backbone of the forage that the LMB were doing so well on? If they were dining on perch, wouldn't the remaining bass be doing equally well now as there are still plenty of perch of all year classes in there?
Here's an overview of my West Pond, with the bathymetry overlaid with 25% transparency. The outlet is a 12" PVC pipe through the wall of a 4ft sealed-bottom concrete tube in the NE corner of the pond. Inside the tube, the 12" PVC has an unglued/removable elbow that I can use to raise and lower the pond level.

Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
mthompson - Your YP without predators and and without significant population management will soon overpopulate and average catch size will likely decline over the next couple of years. YP are to a certain extent are cannibalistic but IMO not enough to adequately control their numbers (recruitment) were very good growth occurs on only natural foods. Pellet feeding helps tremendously to keep perch growing when recruitment is high.

Also consider using SMB with or instead of the walleye(WE). SMB will likely reproduce that will result in some recruitmen but not to the extent of LMB. YP are easier to manage with SMB than LMB. If you can get HSB they are also very good to use as predator with YP since the HSB will not reproduce. HSB are easier to catch, often survive better, and easier to manage than WE.


Thanks, I am planning on needing some predators sooner than later...and will use what I find this winter to make that decision for this Spring. We have two WE in a 1/10th acre koi pond and they do very well keeping any koi spawning mopped up....and I can easily catch some from our Est pond before winter ends if I need to get predators in the West pond.

I always recommended SMB/YP back in my pond management days here in WI...did private pond/public lake management for 5 years before I got the position I enjoy now. So, that is definitely on my radar. Nothing beats SMB on a fly rod for me!
Originally Posted By: canyoncreek


MT, what part of pond did you see most of the ribbons, N, NW, S, SW, etc?

Mostly the Northern half of the pond...East/West doesn't seem to matter.

Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
Also, what was the forage base that produced the monster LMB? From your story it seemed that the perch went in later and were not the backbone of the forage that the LMB were doing so well on? If they were dining on perch, wouldn't the remaining bass be doing equally well now as there are still plenty of perch of all year classes in there?

We stock Fathead minnows once a year or so, but only if I don't see any swimming around the edges. Other than that, it was only YP and LMB. The company I used to work for did the management here, including stocking...I'd have to look at my records, but the initial stocking was probably only 25 or so LMB...back in 2008. Along with probably 250 YP at the same time.

No other gamefish stocking has been done beyond the initial stocking. I haven't seen anything except YP now in two full seasons...and I looked really hard for any signs of LMB during both summers. I assume there are none left, but I wouldn't be surprised to see some at some point again.
Cool!! A YP and LMB only pond hasn't come up much on the forum. I guess you could say the FHM helped the forage base but from what experts tell us here they usually don't last long in the presence of 250 hungry YP. It sounds like a YP LMB only scenario worked fairly well for the LMB you had. I would think 25 LMB would still create numerous offspring and eventually you would see tons of stunted small LMB too.

Thanks for the input on the location of ribbons. We had thought that S or SW would be preferred due to water temp and sun exposure but at least 2 northern perch ponds (WI and MN) preferred the north shore. The more we try to learn...the less we know.
YP are much more tolerant of low DO compared to bass, especially SMB. The winterkill could have easily removed all your LMB from the fishery. If any survived they would be the smallest ones. Biggest ones die 1st in uniform concentrations of DO shortages.

Be careful of only using ice fishing to evaluate the YP density. Generally the larger YP are most the easiest ones to catch when ice fishing. Set some minnow or slightly larger small fish traps to better assess the size structure of the subadult YP numbers. Or do some angling that targets small fish; small hooks(#8-10), a small float and worms fished 3-4ft deep. This method will give you good evaluation of the YP population.
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
YP are much more tolerant of low DO compared to bass, especially SMB. The winterkill could have easily removed all your LMB from the fishery. If any survived they would be the smallest ones. Biggest ones die 1st in uniform concentrations of DO shortages.


We have aeration year round in the ponds, so DO was not the cause. Plus the Bass died in early May, while ice-out was at the end of March. I have a lot of background in fish health and couldn't pinpoint any acute infections or other environmental causes...but they all had pretty severe Columnaris growth, ulcers, and whatever else.

They were all dead when I found them, so trying to culture them would not really help diagnose a specific cause of death. I walked around a couple times a day for 2 weeks, hoping to spot one that was still alive, but sick enough to net out....never happened.

All I know is that no one had ever caught a LMB in this pond (mostly for a lack of fishing for them), then these 8 monsters showed up dead and I haven't seen any LMB since.

Who knows?

Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Be careful of only using ice fishing to evaluate the YP density. Generally the larger YP are most the easiest ones to catch when ice fishing. Set some minnow or slightly larger small fish traps to better assess the size structure of the subadult YP numbers. Or do some angling that targets small fish; small hooks(#8-10), a small float and worms fished 3-4ft deep. This method will give you good evaluation of the YP population.


If I had boat access to this pond, I would have set fyke nets in 2016 and run a series of mark-recapture sets....but I'll have to look into traps or maybe make some smaller trap nets of some kind?

Any leads on small fyke nets that could be set with an electric trolling motor on a little 10' john boat?
Since the pond in WI has year round aeration and the old timer big bass showed resultant signs of "severe Columnaris growth, ulcers, and etc. it is possible or likely that too much aeration during a cold long Wisconsin winter produced too much cooling of the water below the standard 39F and this stressed the old bass too much, to the point the secondary infections colonized the stressed fish and eventually killed them.

Others here have seen evidence of LMB being stressed due to chilling the water too much during harsh winters. Consensus here currently is, it is best to move diffusers into shallower water for winter aeration to avoid reducing the entire water column temperature of the whole pond to the 33F-34F range. Some fish species tolerate water temps below 39F better than others. Oldest fish may be more vulnerable to the really low temps more than others, depending on the species and length of time the water is "supper chilled".
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Since the pond in WI has year round aeration and the old timer big bass showed resultant signs of "severe Columnaris growth, ulcers, and etc. it is possible or likely that too much aeration during a cold long Wisconsin winter produced too much cooling of the water below the standard 39F and this stressed the old bass too much, to the point the secondary infections colonized the stressed fish and eventually killed them.

Others here have seen evidence of LMB being stressed due to chilling the water too much during harsh winters. Consensus here currently is, it is best to move diffusers into shallower water for winter aeration to avoid reducing the entire water column temperature of the whole pond to the 33F-34F range. Some fish species tolerate water temps below 39F better than others. Oldest fish may be more vulnerable to the really low temps more than others, depending on the species and length of time the water is "supper chilled".


Thanks Bill. I do move 2 of the diffusers into about 3ft of water, and about 20ft apart from each other (in both ponds)... Have to keep a decent size hole open for the Pekin and other ducks. All the other diffusers are shut down to minimize the cooling effect of rolling open water.

An added benefit of moving the aerators is to have open water at the shore, so that the deer don't walk out to get a drink and fall into deep water... They can just walk to the shoreline and drink safely.


As for the LMB... I agree it was likely stress from the winter, stress from being old, pre-spawn stress, etc... Spring is the hardest time for fish, and LMB aren't the best at coping.

If I remember correctly, the ice-out on this pond that year was rapid... It was like 10" on on a Sunday (when we caught those perch on the filet board) and completely gone by Tuesday! That big of a temperature swing that fast is enough to temporarily shut down a lot of fish's immune systems.... And there's a lot of opportunistic fungus and bacteria just waiting for this.

The whole thing reminds me of scenarios my Fish Health professor used to come up with for questions on tests and finals.
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Dono - You selectively use water from the drainage ditch as fill or make-up water - correct? I am convinced that shiners eat lots of swim-up YP fry. 100's to 1000's of shiners are capable of consuming very high amounts of YP fry that are not much bigger than many crustacean zooplankton. Thus hundreds of thousands to millions of fry can become food over the course of several days as shiners gorge on fish fry.


Bill do you think loading a 1 acre crappie pond with gallons of shiners, would help reduce recrutment? (This pond has perch too, so still relevant, hehe)
Originally Posted By: fishm_n
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Dono - You selectively use water from the drainage ditch as fill or make-up water - correct? I am convinced that shiners eat lots of swim-up YP fry. 100's to 1000's of shiners are capable of consuming very high amounts of YP fry that are not much bigger than many crustacean zooplankton. Thus hundreds of thousands to millions of fry can become food over the course of several days as shiners gorge on fish fry.


Bill do you think loading a 1 acre crappie pond with gallons of shiners, would help reduce recrutment? (This pond has perch too, so still relevant, hehe)


NOT and expert but I would expect that it all gos back to the timing of the crappie spawn and perch spawn. If the crappie young are desirable to the shiners over what other young are available. Great question.
With this unbelievable weather, I may be getting temps up to near what the YP are looking for. I haven't been up to the pond in a while, and I won't be there for a few more weeks. I haven't even had time to get some branches out.
Jeff
Unbelievable weather is right! We've set new record highs the last 3 days (high 60s) and they say we will probably set records the next three days as well. We went from 8 to 10 inches of ice a few weeks back to total clear water today.

I also wonder what the impact on the YP spawn will be. Are the eggs in the females mature enough this early should water temps come up enough? Will the weird weather cause them to mature too early as the temp is supposed to drop back to normal next week? If they do spawn, will the newbies starve to death when the water temp drops back down?
As the water warms it accelerates egg development of YP. If the mild spring continues expect YP egg ribbons earlier than normal for your area. I had eggs one year several days after the ice was fully melted. In Missouri and southern IL, and IN YP eggs could occur the last of February or early March. Watch the water temperatures at 2-3ft deep. When they reach 48-50F start looking for YP eggs.
I won't have a chance to even check the pond until March 5. I may find ribbons in the leaves. I had about 50/50 with the ribbons and branches I had out last year. Half of the ribbons were in the, less than ideal branches, I placed along the bank, the rest were on the bottom.
I haven't had a significant rain since last August. My pond is down at least 4'. We may get some rain in the next week or so though. (I've said that at least a hundred times since August, but it always misses our place.)
Ive still got 10-11' of water, and maybe 3/4 ac surface area. But they are definitely more crowded than they were. I'll get the feeder going when I get back there also.

What happened to having winter?
As far as I can tell, Winter will be back some time next week. Just in time to fry everything confused by this warm spell. Should be an interesting spring, just not ideal for a "normal" spring.
No ribbons yet, it has been incredibly warm this last week.


Wow Shorty, it is good the perch in my pond don't get to see your pictures or they will really get an inferiority complex about their size! Those are some beautiful specimens! It can't be long for those eggs to drop.
After seeing Shorty's pics, I had to run up to the pond. I must be getting pretty close to ribbons starting. The water temp is between 45 and 48 degrees. I measured the temp from two places, with two different thermometers. No ribbons yet. I threw in some food, and there was an amazing amount of feeding activity. So, I went ahead and added feed to the feeder, hooked up a battery and the timer. Set it up for 20 seconds a day, split between two feedings. I placed some branches along the edge. Not the ideal branches I intended to place in the water, but all I had time for.
My water level is down over four feet. We haven't had a really good rain, with any runoff since August. I did take the rowboat out and confirmed I still have 10' depth through a major portion of the remaining water.
One huge difference this year vs the past two years. I've previously had thousands of FHM hitting the feed along the banks. Today, I saw very few. Not sure if my YP, SMB, and HSB have matured and fed on them over the winter, or something else has worked them over. There is considerable white wash from a kingfisher on the drain pipe and the fish feeder. And he was screaming at me most of the time I was at the pond.
I'll be back in two weeks. If we keep getting these warm temps, I'll bet I see ribbons when I come back.
Jeff
Great update Jeff! See if you can come back in 2 weeks with some unique ribbon catcher ideas. If you have some larger plastic pipe sections, maybe something T shaped, some 5 gallon buckets with holes in the side oriented upright, or 5 gallon bucket laying on its side half submerged with water, some artificial bulrush or reed shaped items. I'm curious if given the choice between structure, cavities, leafy or sandy bottoms, natural vegetation, or tree tops/branches, which do they pick and why?

Your experience with FHM is like mine. Before predators they go crazy, one season later, they are gone. I only have a few panfish and perch, no predators and they still were gone. I think the perch have been feasting in your pond wink
I have been quite lucky with common shiners keeping up with our perch. Same with us FHM are hard to find in our perch pond any more.
I've got some GSH which were stocked when the YP were stocked. Unfortunately I lost a lot of them right away, as they were attracted to the nylon netting in the grass mats I had put down in areas that I thought would wash. One would get caught and attract another one. There were 100s caught, like a gill net. Most died. I did catch a few last summer on small jigs, fishing for YP. I was surprised at how large they had become. I'm assuming they are reproducing. Probably wrecking havoc on my YP fry, from what I've read here.
GSH grass mat gill net..
[quote=SetterGuy]I've got some GSH which were stocked when the YP were stocked. Unfortunately I lost a lot of them right away, as they were attracted to the nylon netting in the grass mats I had put down in areas that I thought would wash. One would get caught and attract another one. There were 100s caught, like a gill net. Most died. I did catch a few last summer on small jigs, fishing for YP. I was surprised at how large they had become. I'm assuming they are reproducing. Probably wrecking havoc on my YP fry, from what I've read here.

setterguy, I am planning to stock my pond with the same fish you have starting this spring. some things I read about the GSH(bait stealing ) make me hesitate on stocking them. are you getting YP and RES/HBG recruitment?
any other cons to the GSH?
I figured with SMB and HSB and plenty of open water they would keep the GSH numbers down. I also thought if they are easy to catch they would make great catfish bait for river fishing if overpopulated.
Originally Posted By: xraytrapper

setterguy, I am planning to stock my pond with the same fish you have starting this spring. some things I read about the GSH(bait stealing ) make me hesitate on stocking them. are you getting YP and RES/HBG recruitment?
any other cons to the GSH?
I figured with SMB and HSB and plenty of open water they would keep the GSH numbers down. I also thought if they are easy to catch they would make great catfish bait for river fishing if overpopulated.


XRay,
I'm not sure about YP & RES recruitment. I've been totally invaded by frogs, of all kinds. Mostly bullfrogs. Every trap I've used fills up with tadpoles in minutes.
Last fall I was seeing schools of small fish all around the dock, and along the shorelines. I was hoping to be able to catch some, nand identify them. No luck.. I'm thinking that with so many ribbons last spring, and many beds observed with RES, that I had some recruitment. That and the fact that I lost so many GSH when stocked. I hope they are not cleaning up all the RES and YP fry. I don't have much bait stealing going on. Once I figured out how to catch YP, we've had a lot of success. I had never seen a YP, until we stocked them.
Wish I could give you better info. In April my YP and RES will have been in the pond for two years. I added the SMB and HSB in Oct of the same year (2015).
So, I'm still in the early stages of my learning curve. I put in way too many YP when I did my initial stocking, but had a large number that didn't survive, so I don't have a very clear picture of fish density. We've harvested a lot of YP, and have found them to be easy to clean and delicious. Hopefully I will eventually e able to trap some fry, and see what's reproducing successfully. At this time my GSH have not been a problem in any way, at least that I'm aware of.
I do run a feeder, but it's more of a supplementary feed program instead of providing all of what my fish need. (About 50 pounds a month of Optima)
If I get time I'm going to try and build a real fish trap that will funnel everything into a big net. Maybe then I'll see what I've really got. I'm an absentee pond owner, with too many irons in the fire..
Thanks setterguy. That's very good info for upcoming plans for my new pond. I also plan to supplemental feed. What was the fish stocking numbers you used if you don't mind sharing and did you stock all fingerlings or did stock multiple sizes?
Did you harvest any YP the fall of 2016 and what were the sizes at that point?
Sorry for all the questions. Probably will make a post soon about the stocking of my own pond. Can never get enough opinions and advice.
Thanks, Scott
Scott,
I started harvesting at one year. This pic was taken at one year.


I'm bad about measuring and weighing. We've harvested over a hundred, easy. We do get quite a few in this size also.



I let a lot of the larger ones go, but keep 100% of the smaller ones. My original thought was the larger ones would all be females. That has proven mostly true. I also thought that all the small ones would be males. That hasn't held up, as lots of the smaller ones when cleaned have eggs.

The smaller ones are easy to clean, and taste just fine. wink

My stocking numbers have been reviewed on this site, and were way too high. I really don't want to comment on them. There was a water problem during transport, and some "may" have died. I saw no floaters, but the pond smelled funny for a few months. I will leave it to the experts here on recommending fish numbers for you. Judging by the number of ribbons I had, I have lots of YP. I haven't worried about over harvesting. The activity at the feeder hasn't changed much in the two years I've been feeding. The feed gets cleaned up very fast.
Hope this helps. I also hope to find out about recruitment this summer. To see, If any of the YP fry are surviving.
SetterGuy - Great update for your fishery. Keep up the good work. Your experiences with yellow perch in Missouri are very educational for us.
1. Do you have any mid-summer high readings for water temperatures? If not try and get us some of that data this summer.
2. Do you aerate your pond and how much each day?
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
SetterGuy - Great update for your fishery. Keep up the good work. Your experiences with yellow perch in Missouri are very educational for us.
1. Do you have any mid-summer high readings for water temperatures? If not try and get us some of that data this summer.
2. Do you aerate your pond and how much each day?


Bill, I will watch temperatures more closely this summer. I'm not sure why, but just swimming in it, I'm always surprised it doesn't feel that warm. We swim in Tablerock Lake a lot in the summer, and it usually feels pretty warm in August. Our little pond never feels that warm. I suspect a lot of that is due to the trees that grow near the edge. They are big old oaks, hickories and maples. The water stays pretty cool a foot or so below the surface.
The trees present another problem though. In the fall there are days when a good portion of the surface is covered by fallen leaves. I know they are all sinking to the bottom. When diving down to the bottom, in the middle of the pond, I don't find that many leaves. I suspect the wind what little I get, pushes them to the banks. I see lots of leaves in the shallow water along the bank.
This means I need to aerate. I am planning on getting it done this summer, but haven't even started on it yet. I think I'm going to run air from the barn, but that's 900' from the pond, with a pretty good ravine in between. It's too costly to run electric. If I get it done, my plan would be to only run it at night. The pond is just three years old, but it does get a lot of leaves.
Be aware that aerating a lot in mid summer can warm the deeper bottom water. This can cause heat temperature problems for the biggest perch. Depending on the size of your aeration system for 1 acre you may not need to run it anymore than 2-5 hrs per night depending on aerator size.
Originally Posted By: SetterGuy



The smaller ones are easy to clean, and taste just fine. wink



Is that one of those rare blue phase yellow perch? I assume it tasted just fine.
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
Be aware that aerating a lot in mid summer can warm the deeper bottom water. This can cause heat temperature problems for the biggest perch. Depending on the size of your aeration system for 1 acre you may not need to run it anymore than 2-5 hrs per night depending on aerator size.


Thanks Bill, will that be enough time to get the air into the bottom layers. My concern is getting the leaves at the bottom, and other muck, to decompose. I may have too many fish in my little pond, another big reason I need to run aeration.
Originally Posted By: Shorty


Is that one of those rare blue phase yellow perch? I assume it tasted just fine.


Ha! My grandkids get ahold of my phone. They take tons of selfie pictures, and always screw around with the "filters" in the camera. They must have turned on the blue filter. Either that, or my fishdog, bird dog, got ahold of this YP, and turned it blue somehow. I have to make him sit way back on the hill any more. He loves fishing more than anything.
Bottom aerating in mid-summer can be tricky especially when air temps are 90+F. The warmer the air the more tricky aeration becomes to minimize the largest perch from dying. One may have to sacrifice some anoxic deoxygenated water and organic buildup in the deepest part of the pond to keep biggest perch from 'over heating'. YP tolerate well low oxygen conditions.

Once you start aerating and you have big perch (13"-15"), you will see what I am referring to. We are still learning the various details of midsummer aeration with yellow perch when air temps are above 90F. I think the brood stock source(strain) of the perch play a big role in the upper temperature limit for each group of perch when they get old. My current strain of perch have been raised for 33 years in shallow 6 ft deep ponds that are quite warm during mid-summer. Brood stock has been hand selected for premium perch each year. I think this will help reduce heat stress.
Maybe they weren't messing with the filters on your phone? Let us know if you see another one.

Blue Perch?
Originally Posted By: Shorty
Maybe they weren't messing with the filters on your phone? Let us know if you see another one.

Blue Perch?


Shorty, I have not seen that earlier thread on the blue perch. I thought you were joking. I obviously see you were not. I'll look closer in the future, and see if I can't find another one.
Thanks,
Jeff
Up at the pond Wednesday. Water temp still at 46. No ribbons.
Just curious, will these colder temps have a negative effect on spawn? Other than delaying it? Fish were still hitting the feed aggressively. Supposed to be in the 20s the next several nights. I was figuring it will push timing back a week or two.
Originally Posted By: Shorty
Originally Posted By: SetterGuy



The smaller ones are easy to clean, and taste just fine. wink



Is that one of those rare blue phase yellow perch? I assume it tasted just fine.


I'm not sure about it being rare. A lot of the Yellow Perch I stocked for Setterguy have the cobalt blue colorings.
Here is another thread on blue yellow perch.

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=386837

No ribbons at my pond yet, water temps are still very cool.
Perch spawn update. I picked up 100 yearling yellow perch (2016 hatch) Sunday Mar 19. Nice healthy fish direct from the pond. Females were swollen with eggs and males were oozing milt. Water temperatures ranged from 36F-38F in central Ohio March 19. Ice was on the shallow ponds a few days prior. Only a couple ponds had the first few perch egg ribbons in the areas around Columbus OH.

A local guy in NW Ohio told me today he was sure he saw a yellow perch ribbon today Mar 23 on the east shore of his 0.2 ac pond. Water temp I guess was close to 42F since we had two days of 45F-50F air temps. I will keep in contact with him for updates as to how many ribbons are showing up. Tomorrow is to be 70F and should help get the perch spawn started.
Bill, is that where you and I fished last spring?
Cody Note - Yes.
We've had more warm weather here lately. I'm going to try and get to my pond on Sunday. I am pretty sure my feeder has run empty.
I'm almost betting that I'll see some ribbons. I've got a GBH working the edges pretty hard, will they go after ribbons?
No ribbons here yet but probably getting close. 12"er from last night.
She's a beauty Clark! Er, I mean Shorty. Seriously, I hope I have some getting close to that size.
Keep us posted SetterGuy, if you have time, maybe drop in some random spawning 'devices' to see what the perch prefer (old plastic tubs, 5 gallon bucket, stone rip rap, stones arranged into a U for a simulated cavity, some branches of different types. And of course different depths, track water temp if you can remember a thermometer.

I hope to do the same.
The yellow perch eggs I mentioned above were verified with pictures as YP eggs. I did some water temperature measurements today for this Forum YP egg experiment. Pond water at 4ft deep was 48F, while the temperature probe lying on the bottom of water 12" deep where eggs are usually laid along the shore was 51.4F; 3.4F warmer. Ohio will see lots of YP egg ribbons in perch ponds this coming week.
Ribbons sighted 3//26/17. I believe I missed the first ribbons that were laid. Up at the pond this morning, for about two hours. Then back home. I have not been there for a few weeks. I found five ribbons along the north bank, which is the dam. All in the western end. Then I found two additional ribbons on the south end, near the inlet in the eastern most corner. Water temps were fairly warm. I had a reading of 58.1 degrees down by most of the ribbons, in about 10" of water just a few feet from shore. Water temp off th dock on the south west side of the pond was 54 degrees, 10' from shore, and 12" deep.
I had branches out. But not very good branches with a dense branch structure. All the ribbons were in the leaves, as pictured.
Posted By: CMM Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 03/26/17 06:21 PM
I haven't seen any yet. Would love some confirmation that I still have some yp. Will take another walk about this afternoon.
Since some of the eggs in this ribbon are brighter, does that mean they are older, or more or less likely to produce fry?
Originally Posted By: CMM
I haven't seen any yet. Would love some confirmation that I still have some yp. Will take another walk about this afternoon.

I was surprised at how warm my water temps were. They were ten degrees cooler a few weeks ago.
Brighter white eggs in the ribbon are ones not fertilized which suggests the males are fewer. When your population ages more in-pond hatched males will be present to better fertilize the eggs.

The leaves likely absorb radiant heat from the sun and make that area slightly warmer than other bottom areas.
WE HAVE RIBBONS!!!!!!!!!

last night I walked the pond and nothing, notta. It was cool yesterday and cool over night. Then this morning, 2 ribbons!! Both on the south end of the pond, exactly in the area where the first ribbons showed up last year.

Both exactly like SetterGuy, on the leaves, about 10" water, and I had various branches stages around them, some with tightly clustered smaller branches, some with larger branches and eggs were just laid on the leaves.

I could not make out any individual eggs like Setterguy can, I assume ribbon is 'too fresh'?

It amazes me that Setterguy is much further south with much warmer water temps and his ribbons and mine are so close together datewise. He said his may have been there a week or so but it seems he would beat my eggs by at least 1-2 weeks based on water temps alone.

Maybe phases of moon or number of clear cloudless nights before egg laying makes a difference?

We will be in the 50s for day time highs, will get back down to about 32 tonight. I expect more ribbons this week. Time to harvest them!

Bill C, I have a window of time to get the ribbons out before hatch right? If I take them out now as soon as they show up and store them in something and try to transplant to another private pond when I accumulate a bucket full of egg ribbons, how do I keep them viable? Or is it better to keep them in the pond in place until enough accumulate and then gather all and transfer all at the same time?

Loretta please let us know if you see ribbons soon!

DonoBBD and you folks in Minnesota, please tell us when you see your first ribbons!
Canyonck - Let the ribbons accumulate and then harvest all when you want to transplant. One option is to harvest ribbons as you see them store them in a laundry basket in the pond - then transplant. Expect ribbons to be disintegrating and hatching in 7-10 days after they are laid. Their close-up color of light amber will darken when close to hatching.
Bill, I got same ribbons from a fish farm yesterday and placed them in my pond and a friends pond. They were like wet toilet paper and were ripping apart. Ended up being a lot of short sections of eggs with the longest being maybe 8 inches or so. I had to throw them a few feet into my friends pond to get them to lay on a submerged pine and then use a longer branch to wrap them in between branches. Are the eggs pretty resilient with some handling like I did? How long until you can minnow trap them and identify there survival?
the first year my ribbons were not visible, not supervised, and certainly not draped over branches and they hatched just fine smile

The second year I removed as many as I could and the few I left laying on the leaves in the bottom hatched just fine based on my prodigious number of YOY perch.

i wouldn't have stressed about winding them into branches or tossing the egg ribbons. Just lay them on the leaves close to shore where you can watch them hatch smile
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 03/28/17 07:59 PM
No ribbons yet, BUT I just rescued at least 50 4-5" YP from below my exit pipe. I only added 10 SMB and am thinking adding another 10 now cannot hurt. Advice is welcome.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 03/28/17 10:27 PM
Hearing no decent, I ordered 10 more SMB.
IMO good move. With that many 4 to 5 inch YP just at the pipe, you can probably use the extra predators. Heck, I would probably stock some non-reproducing predator like 10 WE in there as well!
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 03/29/17 11:56 AM
I have been thinking about that. I want big SMB but also reproduction. If the YP take out too many SMB fry, I may need another more efficient predator. What do folks think of me removing some larger YP if caught? Do YP tend to go for the drain pipe or does this mean I likely have a lot of YP in the 1 acre pond?
I thought I had alot of yellow perch in our pond but never see any young from shore in the 4-6" size. I am wondering if farther south they really populate fast. I am not seeing much recruitment at all and we stocked our pond with 400 in 2012. Shiners did get more time in the pond then the perch and the very high population of shiners could be eating the perch fry when small.

We only have five walleye in the pond too as of last year.

No ribbons yet but ice has been out for only a week.
No toads thrilling yet.

Cody Note: When you hear the toads trilling the perch spawn in usually done.
xrayt - says "They (eggs) were like wet toilet paper and were ripping apart. Ended up being a lot of short sections of eggs with the longest being maybe 8 inches or so. I had to throw them a few feet into my friends pond to get them to lay on a submerged pine and then use a longer branch to wrap them in between branches. Are the eggs pretty resilient with some handling like I did? How long until you can minnow trap them and identify there survival?

If the egg ribbons were easily breaking apart then I think they were very close to hatching which is normal that they easily break apart. Eggs as they are hatching are very durable - handling actually speeds up the hatching time. I've never had much luck trapping small perch until they are around 2" long.
Update, 2 ribbons yesterday am, 10 sets of ribbons today. All grouped close together along the S shore. None on SW or SE shores. One feature unique to S shore of pond (outside of no trees so better sun penetration and warmer temps) is that the grade of the slope on the pond bottom is steeper there. I suspect perch can get from deeper water to shallows and back again more quickly on that side of the pond.
ccreek - do you have water temperatures surface and where eggs are? This is your thread of suggested experiment for yellow perch spawning.
49-50 degrees but my probe doesn't go deep enough to check temps say at 20-24". I also wonder if you are on to something that the temps measured right at the top of the oak leaves with sunlight might be quite a bit warmer than the pond bottom right next to it...and only an inch or so deeper.

Also my pond bottom texture and sand composition is much different this year than last. I have enough soilfloc in my sediment now that when you touch the pond bottom with a stick it clunks like concrete. You can't even push a stick into the bottom, you have to pound or drill it in. I used to get a plume of silt when I scratched the bottom sand but now no plume. I don't know if that polymer concrete material heats up or not but it seems that the beds of oak/maple leaves are very popular. All of the ribbons are laying in 8-10" of water on leaf beds, none on dirt, so far none in the reeds nearby (sedge) none in the sticks
Just a quick note on my pond and ribbon production. We've had 2 1/4" of rain in the last 36 hrs. I went by the pond today. It was still raining, and water was still flowing in the inlets. (Although it was more of just a trickle.) The good news is, my water level has come up 18" with the rain. The bad news is, I did not see a single ribbon. Water temps were still in the mid 50s. Clarity was greatly reduced with the runoff. About 12". I'm still about 4' below full pool.
Not sure how this event will impact the YP survival, or if those, now much more submerged, ribbons will hatch.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 03/30/17 09:18 PM
No ribbons yet visible in my central Indiana pond.
One small ribbon in the shallows, about 8" down on the west side of the pond. Water 4' down is a balmy 43 degrees. First visible ribbon.

A few dead young BCP here and there, looks like starvation if I were to guess. I suppose that is common when you have 3 different ice-outs over this crazy winter, and the last one rather late.
No ribbons spotted here but I did catch a female YP a few days that appeared to have to have done her thing. I will keep looking.
I had 75YP stocked on Tuesday, there were ribbons in holding tank when they removed them ,fish were held at 50deg water temp at hatchery...

Water is pretty murky now with recent rain but will try and get a water temp reading when I notice some in the actual pond.
I still haven't seen any ribbons yet but I did catch a 12" female YP yesterday that had done her thing. I also found a not quite dead yet 9-1/2" male YP floating on the surface that was oozing milt, spawning stress? It has been cool and overcast this week, reported water temps have been 48/49 degrees.
We did a little fishing yesterday. Only caught the shiners on worms. The perch I find hit really hard on worms after they have spawned. Will check water temps here tonight.
Dono - When you are catching mostly shiners on worms and when the water is cold try fishing deep close to or on the bottom. See if that helps the catch success for perch.
Bill, we have a water temp in the 36-37*F at the surface with the air stations running today.

I was fishing right on the bottom with a worm. Caught another white sucker too, but mostly very very large shiners. They were all of 6"s if not more. Found a crayfish hiding under a rock and dropped him on the hook for a good hour moving around the pond placing him on the bottom with no perch action.

I do wonder if we feed them too well in the fall. We have never been able to catch any perch through the ice. They do hit really hard after the spawn. No need to cast just dip the worm in and pull out a fish every time. Just a 1" of worm works with white jig head. Most luck with white or orange jig heads.

Need a few more heat units and I expect to see ribbons around the pond.

Cheers Don.
How long should it take to pellet train perch? My good friend has a very large 10 acre pit that was stocked with yellow perch 20 years ago. They put in about 10,000 so now we can catch a minnow trap full of last years young in minutes.

The plan is to train a bunch to add to our pond and to add to two other friends ponds. Currently have some large tanks set up with big filters at our place here.

Just wondering how long it takes for the young to get imprinted with floating feed?

Cheers Don.
You should be able to get them to eat softened sinking pellets in 7-10 days. However the longer you feed them pellets the better they will stay to eating pellets after they are released into a pond. Just because you have them eating pellets does not mean they will resume eating pellets when released back into the pond. One factor that helps them resume eating pellets is to not have much natural food present when released, so the main food available is just pellets. IMO you should try to feed them pellets for at least 2 months or until they start getting stressed for some reason and you start to see some deaths.
Well that Texas low brought in an nice warm rain last night with temps at 51 degrees as it rained. This triggered our first ribbons. I didn't check the water temp in the pond. Found two ribbons this morning here in Ontario.

My son and I set up this year to hatch them our self's. Here is a few pictures of the ribbons. We used galvanized wire fence 1/2"X1/2" squares rolled in a 1.25" tube. We placed the ribbon inside the tube to hold it down. This was one ribbon that we have split up into three tanks.

Cheers Don.

Attached picture perchribbon.jpg
Attached picture percheggs.jpg
Attached picture placed in tanks.jpg
Attached picture first ribbon of 2017.jpg
Now that is just too cool! Should be a very interesting project. Please keep us updated as they develop.
Originally Posted By: Bill D.
Now that is just too cool! Should be a very interesting project. Please keep us updated as they develop.


We will for sure. We are going to feed them brine shrimp after they hatch. Not sure yet how the sifting from the live swimming perch from what is left from the ribbon is going to go yet.

I am very familiar with hatching brine shrimp for angel fish so it should go well if the young can choke it down. We need to watch for mold and keep the water temp down. We are lucky to be keeping it at 61*F so far. After they hatch we will bring it up to 70.

Keep you all posted. laugh
Any concern the filters will suck the newborns in? Maybe an air stone while they are hatching and growout a bit. Just a thought....I'd hate to see your hard work end up in the filter floss. Sounds like you have a lot of aquarium experience so just ignore my ramblings, I usually over think things! smile
I am just guessing that we have tones of extra little ones. I have the air stones inside the glass filters on a valve and will keep an eye on the flow. Yes it is best to just run the stone. With the angel fish we were working with only 200-300 eggs and always run just the stone. Man this ribbon is well fertilized with less than 2% white eggs.

We are going to take lots of pictures. The boys thinks this is just great. We hatched out some shrimp three weeks ago and fed them to his aquarium in his bed room. I have never seen tropical fish so fat in my life. Thought the zebra danios were going to pop.
At the pond today. We had 1 3/4" of rain in the last few days. The pond is up about 12".
Temp is at 58*. No ribbons observed. In fact, I haven't seen any ribbons for a few weeks. Just the original 4 or 5 I observed a few weeks ago. Hopefully, in my absence, more ribbons were laid, and they will hatch even with the additional 2.5' of water.
There's still very aggressive feeding going on when the feeder goes off.
We also had a big wind and rain event the last 48 hours. The pond came up at least a foot and is past the 'high water' mark. I had to leave town from last Fri till yesterday. I wanted to protect eggs to see if they hatch but not have them go in my pond. I put them in a kiddie pool and left. I came back and the kiddie pool was underwater. So much for that idea.

I didn't see any fry, but most egg ribbons also looked pretty much as I left them. THe water was bitter cold so perhaps the eggs don't hatch till it warms a bit again? Some of the strands did have the 'empty look' with some straggling white eggs left so those may have hatched already.

I moved them all to a 5 gallon bucket, probably will just dump them now. I did see one ribbon that looks more fresh, but with the water up so high it is now in about 2 feet of water, I'll leave that one.

Setterguy, the 4 or 5 you saw before will give plenty of opportunity for YOY perch this year. THere will be other ribbons you don't see, always. Glad to hear your pond is still filling. Send pictures if you can, also how much to go before full pond?
Here's a pic of the pond from yesterday. My dog is retrieving a dummy. It was about his 20th trip. Trying to wear him out. He's a bit on the hyper side. The pic shows I still need to come up about 2.5'. I'm up 2.5' this month. We are finally near normal rain for the year. Not sure about overall for the last 12 months. Before the recent rains, we hadn't had any rain (with runoff) since August.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll280...7DA195CED7D.jpg
I caught, and kept eight YP yesterday. Made a delicious lunch! I caught a few SMB, then it went 100% HBG. I should have taken a pic or two of the YP. They all actually seemed smaller than last year. While my HBG seem to have doubled in size.
I'm feeding Optima. Maybe it's not helping the YP? It sure is helping the HBG.
Are these normal looking HBG?
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll280...802AD5E7D5E.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll280...CA119E6CDBB.jpg
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll280...CDBFA95B83B.jpg
Not all are this large, so maybe I've had some recruitment.
http://i290.photobucket.com/albums/ll280...66DACC454C7.jpg
Lots of perch ribbons up here in Ontario. Water temp is 45 and we are seeing 3-4 per day.

The ribbon we placed into some tanks for hatching was laid April 4th and yesterday 5 days in we are now seeing a black speck starting to move in the eggs.

The main key is time without heat. If the water is too warm the un fertilized eggs will mold or fungus. This mold will move to the good eggs if the mold can get heat and move fast. Cooler water slows the mold allowing the good eggs time to hatch before the mold finds its way.

After day two we checked each ribbon and pinched off as many white un fertilized eggs as we could. Then placed the ribbons back into the tanks. Too much ribbon in the wire tubes to keep them under water will not let good water flow past the eggs and the clump will start to heat. Once that starts that chunk of ribbon is junk and full of mold. We learned this because the ribbon we had was very big. My son was loading up the wire tubes with ribbon and as we got to the end we run out of tubes with lots of ribbon left. He just stuffed the last two tubes full of ribbon.

I think if you lived in a warm climate and could not get the tanks heat down you could use a good dose of Methylene Blue and raise the heat to speed up the eggs. The Methylene will keep the fungus from living and the extra heat will move the eggs along quicker.

We are just using the pond water at 62*F and good air flow. Should see some hatch this week and will post some pictures of out little ones.

EDIT: Yes now that the spawn is just about over the perch are smashing the worms in the evening.
SetterGuy... I'm no HBG expert but I don't recall them having the red/orange around the opercular flap???
Good new good news the perch have hatched over night. I can see some swimmers but not all have hatched. I expect to see many many over the course of this week.

Going to have to start the shrimp hatchery up.
Originally Posted By: djstauder
SetterGuy... I'm no HBG expert but I don't recall them having the red/orange around the opercular flap???


Thanks, I have no clue. I bought them from a local hatchery in NE Mo. He told me they wouldn't reproduce too..
Hello.

Wow, here in south of Québec, we still have ice on the pond,I just have Yellow perch in my pond.

A+
Dono,
can you post pictures of the swimmers? Probably hard to photograph, maybe put in a glass jar? I'd love to see what they look like as soon as they leave the egg.

I tried to save some ribbons to watch for swimmers but I think most of my eggs hatched before I got back in town to tend to them. Only one new ribbon mid way through last week. WE had cold, rain and wind so hopefully too warm of temps was not a barrier for a good crop of new YP for us in MI.

Any Minnesota folks with an update on ribbons?
Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
Dono,
can you post pictures of the swimmers? Probably hard to photograph, maybe put in a glass jar? I'd love to see what they look like as soon as they leave the egg.

I tried to save some ribbons to watch for swimmers but I think most of my eggs hatched before I got back in town to tend to them. Only one new ribbon mid way through last week. WE had cold, rain and wind so hopefully too warm of temps was not a barrier for a good crop of new YP for us in MI.

Any Minnesota folks with an update on ribbons?


I will take some tonight. The little guys are just so clear with two dark eyes or what looks like eyes. I bet there is 20 or more in the one tank that have hatched now today. I will see if I can put a white back ground behind the tank and shoot some pictures.
Here is some of the best pictures we could take of the little guys. They are really really small. Just luck that the air stone was in the back ground.

Started the shrimp last night will start another batch at noon today so we will feed every 12 hours.

Have not been to the shop today yet but do expect many more to have hatched over night. It has been exactly 7 days with tank temps at 63*F

All the little black eyes in the ribbon are going to be good viable young. The only problem of massive amounts of live will be if they can fit the brine shrimp into their mouths and get to the stage where they can take crushed pellets.

Cheers Don.

Attached picture 20170410_163019_003.jpg
Attached picture 20170410_163019_005.jpg
Dono - Perch fry will range in size from 5.5-6.5mm long. The larger, stronger fry will be the main ones to be eating your newly hatched brine shrimp. I suspect many of the smaller fry will perish which is a good thing because you could have a hard time hatching enough brine shrimp eggs to feed thousands of fry. Brine shrimp probably grow fairly fast so the optimum size for fry to eat are the newest hatched shrimp eggs. Perch fry that are eating should also grow fast and could gain 1mm(1/32") per day.
Few more pictures. There is thousands of these little guys.

Attached picture about to hatch 5 days.jpg
Attached picture 7 days.jpg
Hello.

Wow, good job. Did you thought give them infusoria (Paramecium).

A+
Short video of the hatch after we fed shrimp.

No infusoria just brine shrimp. I was shocked at the number of young that hatch from one ribbon. We threw out 60% of the ribbon and have thousands of baby's. We can loose some of the smaller mouthed ones in the next few days.

We cranked up the heat to 70 this evening for the tanks to help the little guys along.
in natural lakes/ponds, the water won't get close to 70 for weeks. How will or how do the eggs laying in 50 degree water hatch in natural conditions? Not sure I follow how the 70 degree water helps them hatch when there is concern about fungus at warmer temps too. Newbie for sure here...
Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
in natural lakes/ponds, the water won't get close to 70 for weeks. How will or how do the eggs laying in 50 degree water hatch in natural conditions? Not sure I follow how the 70 degree water helps them hatch when there is concern about fungus at warmer temps too. Newbie for sure here...


Yes so we took the ribbon out when the pond was 39*F and placed it into tanks that we held at about 61-63. The warmer the better this is why we see young hatched in 6 days and the most on day 7. The warmer the temp the faster they will incubate and hatch. We bumped the temp tonight because we have five tanks full about 25 gallons total and there is millions of these and all we are targeting is 500 max. That is giving away 300.

As we get die of we will siphon them out of the bottom of the tank and will pull the rest of the ribbons soon.
Everything is hatched out today. The next three days will let use know how many will live. The fry will live off the yoke sack until gone for three days after that any that are alive will be eating the brine shrimp.
please take detailed notes and lots of pictures. Even if someone else helped you do the write up and you provided the rough notes and pictures, this would be a most helpful article to include in the PB mag.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 04/13/17 11:05 AM
Did I miss the YP ribbons in central Indiana, or might they still be coming?
Hi Rah, I saw my first few ribbons on March 25th with more over the next several days. They were mostly on pine branches I had put in for that purpose but I did see one on the pond bottom.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 04/13/17 12:27 PM
Thanks Gary - Looks like I must have missed them.
Originally Posted By: RAH
Thanks Gary - Looks like I must have missed them.


Do you hear or see toads singing? They are all done spawning if the toads are singing every night.

Interesting note. We caught some perch to eat the other day after the spawn. One female had eggs in her but they were very un developed. The female was 12"s long with three crayfish and one worm in her. I was thinking she was much younger then her size or will spawn later in this year. I don't know for sure but maybe after they lay the ribbon they are ready with more and start to develop them for next year right away after.

Cheers Don.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 04/13/17 01:00 PM
Most of what I hear are spring peepers, I think. Not sure what toads sound like. With all the 4-5" perch that have come out the drain pipe, and seeing schools of 1-2" fish that must be YP, GSH, or FHM, I think my planned addition of 10 SMB will be OK in terms of them having plenty to eat.
Toads have a long trill, several seconds or more per toad. Sort of like small bell being continuously rung.

We have yet to have the toads come out, or any more than the small ribbon. i suspect this weekend though when we are supposed to have some warm high humidity weather and rain. That will warm the waters quickly.

Due to the later spawn than the last few years, I think this one will be highly successful. Previous years they spawned very early and it got cold again, so the eggs just sat. I did not see ANY hatched spawn last year. No BCP or perch due to the bizzaro weather.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 04/15/17 07:04 PM
Added 10 more SMB to the YP pond today. Now its time to wait. Tons of small fish schooling, so they should not go hungry.
Well we are past the big hump. Most fry are now 10mm in size and are feeding well on brine shrimp. I would normally siphon off the hatched shrimp from the eggs when feeding. This would keep the brood tanks much cleaner. What I have found is that giving the shrimp 24 hours to hatch I am pouring the whole container through a fine mesh net. From there we are spooning the shrimp and un hatched eggs into the tanks. The eggs that have not hatched are soft enough from the salt brine to hatch in the next 6 hours in the brood tanks.

This is giving the young much smaller shrimp over all to eat. We have gotten past the big hump now where we are loosing only 5-10 per day.

There is a noticeable difference in the fry that had warmer water temps when the ribbon was still in the tank. I think they may be more defects from the warmer water because those fry tanks have the most of bottom dwelling fry. They are not dying but they are not swimming using the whole tank like the fry that had cooler temps longer with the ribbons. At first I thought they were over eating and sinking but I am thinking more like defects from to hot of temps right at the end before hatching.

All in all for our first crack at hatching perch fry I am very pleased with our shot. The kids love going out to feed them.
Hello.

Yes, the Perch spawn since 3days, I let them hach in the pond and with a light (spot), I bring lots of the larvae in a big hole 8x20feet near the pond.
If I have a chance I will make a video to explain what I mean.

A+
Originally Posted By: liquidsquid
Toads have a long trill, several seconds or more per toad. Sort of like small bell being continuously rung.

We have yet to have the toads come out, or any more than the small ribbon. i suspect this weekend though when we are supposed to have some warm high humidity weather and rain. That will warm the waters quickly.


I was able to record the toads at our house with my cell phone. I'll try to attach a zipped audio file that hopefully you can open and listen to. (see attachment below)


It is a wonder where all those toads come from. They all seem to come out of nowhere to congregate in the pond. Then there is 3 days of furious thrashing and swimming, ducking each other and horsey-back rides. The toad trills continue day and night for about 3 days. Then the activity stops and the shallows are full of strings of toad eggs. All the parent toads are gone too.

Then soon there will be billions of black 'toadpoles' and in about 2 weeks millions of tiny brown toads all struggling to make it through the grass heading in all directions back towards the woods.



The turtles were busy coming up behind the mating toads when they are preoccupied and grab the toads by their hind leg and try to drag them into the deep.


The circle of life is fascinating to observe.

Attached File
Toads.zip  (241 downloads)
Opening and listening the sound recording of toads trilling worked for me. Good work.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 04/20/17 02:30 PM
My thanks as well.
Update on our perch hatch in tanks.

The first hatch is doing well but not as well as I had hoped. We are confident that brine shrimp only is not enough to hatch as many fry as we would like.

So we have set up two 2.5 gallon green water tanks to grow some Infusoria and Paramecium or what ever little goodies we have growing in our planted tropical fish tanks foam filter. We set the two tanks up in the window of the shop and loaded them up with our seed from our planted tank and crushed up some pleko pellets for some dry feed.

With a microscope we can see lots of little swimmers in the water at 300X. They do seem to be attracted to light and easy to siphon off with out taking the food out of the tank too. Feed some to the slow hatching tank from our April 4th hatch and they are eating like crazy. You can see the fry flinch or dart then feeding.

Now we have set up another two chunks of ribbon to do another hatch. I expect from todays pictures they will be hatched tomorrow. These fry will see the Infusoria and Paramecium for 10 days or a bit more then switch them over to the brine shrimp.

We think we will have more young living past the first week and a half feeding the smaller feed to them.

Keep you posted.

Cheers Don.

Attached picture EggsApril21.jpg
Attached picture Fry from April 4th.jpg
Attached picture GreenWater2.5g.jpg
Infusoria and paramecium video. This video is after three days under a microscope at 300X. These little buggers are all in one drop of water.

Cheers Don.
I forgot to update this thread...I had a few ribbons sighted on 4/25/17 with a water temp of 51°F.

The only reason I saw them was because some ducks were making a ruckus and weird sucking sounds around the corner in the rocks...walked over to see what they were up to found them fighting over the ribbons and then eating all the broken up chunks of ribbon (weird sucking noise as they inhaled water and ribbon so fast!) scattered around he pond edge.

Never saw any other ribbons this year. But I grabbed the leftover bits I could and let them sink in water deep enough the ducks couldn't dabble them anymore.

I'll post a separate thread on my successful in-pond feed training of yellow perch.
It is good to know that ducks will destroy and eat yellow perch ribbons. Thanks for the update.
Posted By: RAH Re: planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment - 06/27/17 11:33 AM
Maybe that is why I did not see any ribbons this year?
Very interesting I now will keep an eye out next year.
DonoBBD,
Any updates on your perch hatching venture? how many would you say survived? how many got planted back in your pond? is this going to make a difference long term over just letting egg ribbons hatch on their own?

Also Liquidsquid, if you see this, you said on 4-14-17 that his might be a good year for your YP ribbons, did it turn out that way?
Originally Posted By: canyoncreek
DonoBBD,
Any updates on your perch hatching venture? how many would you say survived? how many got planted back in your pond? is this going to make a difference long term over just letting egg ribbons hatch on their own?

Also Liquidsquid, if you see this, you said on 4-14-17 that his might be a good year for your YP ribbons, did it turn out that way?


I still have them tanked up the big perch are about 1.5" now and the smaller are at 1 to 1.25". I guess I must be a fish farmer now because I did kill thousands and thousands but learned so much. There guys are nothing like tropical fish at all. Heat when young is very very bad for these little suckers. The Daphnia update in your other thread is more info.

I currently have a good batch. The biggest expense is the salt for the brine shrimp. Two table spoons every 12 hours for a few months adds up.

All in all because we want a few fish for our green house it will work out. If this second batch makes it, that I think they will now, we will have lots. All in all I think it is much easier to let them hatch in the pond but how many make it depends on what minnows you have in the pond.
Originally Posted By: Bill Cody
It is good to know that ducks will destroy and eat yellow perch ribbons. Thanks for the update.


Protein and Fat, doesn't matter the source to them. When I rake weeds out, I'll have them following behind me and picking through the piles to pull out the snails, small fish, crayfish, tadpoles, and whatever else they can find.
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