My gills were really on the spawn last week. The past few days have been really warm and has caused the shallows to now be covered in stringy looking moss. Do I rake it out the best I can or will that possibly screw up gill beds underneath the moss? Hate the looks of the moss but kind of afraid of ruining nests with eggs in them? Thanks
Depends how much mass you have..
FA dies and decomposes, uses O2..
Best in my mind to remove what you can, taking the excess nutrients with it, but that's my 2 cents.
If you do mess up a few nests initially, the BG will just start over. I have a lot floating vegetation in the shallower part of my main spawning area that I've allowed to stay in hopes to reduce my spawn numbers. They can overpopulate quickly without a lot of predators.
If the stringy looking moss is floating, I'd rake it off the top and dispose of it OR wait and hope it blows to a non-bed shore and rake it off there. The bedded fish will get a bit upset during the raking process, but damage will be minimal to non existent.
If the moss is on the bottom, I'd leave it alone during spawning UNLESS you think you have more than enough reproduction to begin with, but then the question should be "how much should I disturb the spawning process?".
So i decided to take a few swipes of moss with my rake along the bank. What i found were tons of small insects including a few freshwater shrimp that i had no clue were in the pond. I also seen hundreds of fry of some sort that were pry half inch long. Not sure if gills or fatheads? I stopped due to the fact that i hated to be taking out all that forage. Right? Wrong?