Hi All!

I purchased a farm in southern Iowa last year and it has 4 ponds. All of the ponds are really nice except for the smallest, a half acre pond full of bullheads. I pumped the pond dry last week and got rid of the bullheads. I want to stock this pond when it fills back up with only minnows so I can use it to feed the other 3 sport fish ponds. I was thinking about stocking fatheads and golden shiners in this pond. My questions are: 1. Is this a good minnow combo (will they coexist). 2. What do I feed them (if anything). and 3. What kind of structure (if any) should I add to the pond. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Fatheads FHM and g shiners GSH will coexist together. You might want to research here lake chubsuckers which are a larger soft rayed forage fish only available from Todd Overton. overtonfisheries.com NOTE: No longer availabe from Overton as of 2011.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=159317

You might also consider adding some redear sunfish RES to the pond. They are compatable with the minnows -shiners. This will help control snails, a host of several fish parasites in the pond while providing some small sunfish forage for restocking. RES do not reproduce prolificially and should not becomeoverly abundant if you annually thin their numbers when removing minnows.

Expect tadpoles to become abundant in a minnow forage pond. You also might consider stockig crayfish in the pond to provide forage and help with algae control

I feed the minnows/shiners purina game fish chow. Grind it or when it softens the small fish can eat it. I prefer to grind enough for a week supply and hand feed it daily.

Bill:

I don't think Todd will be carrying the LCS anymore. I tried to get some this Spring - no luck. Too fragile in the larger sizes as Greg Grimes found out.

I can speak from experience that just because you pump all the water out of a pond means you killed all the bullhead. They will bury themselves in mud and wait for the pond to refill. Did you dig out the sediment or treat the last few inches of water in some way?

What are the species in your other ponds are you trying to supplementally feed?

I pumped the pond until about 1 inch deep, I saw 200 or 300 bullheads swimming around so I put in 7 gallons of bleach and that killed them. It has not rained since I drained it so it's bone dry now.

The other ponds: 1 is 3 acres and has white crappie, bass and catfish. 1. is 5 acres and has walleye, rainbows and perch and the other is .5 acres and has bass, blue gills and catfish.

Bleach isn't the best fish killer to use, in that case hydrated lime would have been better. However, what’s done is done. Bullheads are tough buggers but it sounds like they should all be dead... Any idea where they originally came from?

Thanks for all of the advice. This site is wonderful!