Here are a few pics from my recent smallmouth fingerling harvest at my first attempt at producing my own fingerlings.


A 3 1/2 to 4 inch smallmouth that was hatched just a couple of months ago. I removed some up to 5 inches. Perhaps the record high water temps had something to do with some of these shooters?



On the other end of the spectrum is this 1 1/4 inch fish of which there were many more. Note the orange section of the caudal fin.





One of the RAS tanks with the smaller of the two size groups.



The other smaller RAS tank with the larger of the two size groups but less in number.



So far with several seine pulls I've taken out 615 fish in this 1/10th acre pond. Once I drain down completely I hope to remove at least a couple hundred more. This pond is extremely steep sided and not optimum for seining.

I think my numbers would have been higher if not for significant cannibalism by the larger of the to size groups (I witnessed it on several occasions), and the accidental introduction of yellow perch fry. Some of the perch were the plumpest I've seen.

Some of those smallies should be nice sized by October. Good job for the first attempt. Numerous fish farms can't manage to do what you did.

Nice pictures, Cecil!

You the man Cecil! now if only you were in Illinois I would have a home for as many as those babies as you could ever produce.

Quite the size range!

Nate, it'd still work as long as he gets his testing done. (well, that and the miles to pick them up).

yep the closer to home, the way easier and more economical for end user to get er done.

that being said if he cant find homes for them, I surely can!

LOL - He is better taking a focused picture of his shoe than the fingerling smallie.
I couldn't resist the opportunity of payback for the trash can fish cage comments.

I was gonna mention something too. Both shoes loud and clear!!

My dad took that photo and the first one.

Hey, at least the shoes are on his feet and not in the pond!

Not yet.

The pond will be down in a day or two (it's taking longer because I'm pumping in well water as I drain down).

Not looking forward to walking around on the bottom in the muck and going up and down a ladder but I will be in waders.

On another note, the 8 foot poly tank I attempted to sink to the bottom after seining won't sink. My metal ones did when I used them. The plan is to use it as a clean water reservoir to drop the fish into I collect off the bottom.

Completely full of water it just sits there just below the surface. I had to put a concrete block in it to get it to sink, and even then, it still sits at an angle because the block slid to one side. Hopefully as the water level goes down it will rest on the bottom and be at least mostly full of water.

I realize the plastic is buoyant but I was sure full of water it would have sunk like a rock.

Yeah they can go anywhere once I get the testing done. I have not had anyone interested in Indiana.

I have one farm in Ohio that really wants them but it's not written in stone.

If you get testing done I will be very interested for Fall of 2013!

Very nice Cecil!

How are the smaller fish doing with the feed training?

I'd be happy to but I'd rather get rid of them in one sale via wholesale.

They seem to be eating the feed but it's hard to really tell for sure with sinking feed. At least with floating feed you can see them hit the surface.

I put a belt feeder above the bigger tank with the smaller fish which I will use along with broadcasting feed periodically.

Specific Gravity of the plastic tank material alone is pretty close to what water is. That is why it would not sink, even full of water.

Doing a great job with the smallies!!!

Yes that's it. It just seemed like it would sink like a rock.

Thanks for the kind words. Not out of the woods yet. I need to get them voraciously feeding on floating pellets at some point not only to get them sustained and healthy but to reduce the mess sinking pellets create in the tanks.

I would have preferred a flow through for feed training but with the temps outside there it would have been risky and salt would not have been an option. Salt has been a life saver for me after I've stressed fish as in seining.

I haven't lost a single one yet...

BTW I had visitor to the pond this morning; A Kingfisher.

I got up at the crack of dawn to check for the Kingfischer and run him off. (While pond is low and fish are vulnerable). No Kingfischer the first three checks. Took a short snooze, went out and there he was. LOL

As I've stated here before I no longer shoot anything unless there is no recourse. As soon as he sees me the little devil is gone for the day.

Today, what fish I can salvage while draining will be out and he will be out of luck.

BTW bigger smallies in a separate tank, which are probably cannibals, are eating pieces of redworm AND hydrated feed. Bill Cody's method. Soon I hope to get them on all pellets.

Smaller fish seem to be eating pellets but it's not clear cut as I try and keep it fairly dark in that room. I did lose one.

Big water changes once a day due to all the waste lots of small fish produce and the uneaten feed.

The remaining SMB in my RAS system still prefer hydrated sinking pellets to floating pellets but I haven't forced the issue yet, it's coming though. I am waiting on a fresh bag of AM500 to come in, hopefully next week. I do have a handfull of SMB (biggest ones in the tank) that have no problem eating non-hydrated pellets off the surface.

Ended up with 754 smallies. Turns out the most common fish in the pond were not fatheads but sticklebacks, which no doubt were mixed in with the fatheads I got from a bait supplier. Next year either no bait fish added at all for the broodfish smallmouth or I will be sure to remove any sticklebacks before planting the fatheads.

It will be interesting to see what kind of numbers I can get with no other species in the pond.

I was relived to know I did get all the broodfish out as none were present in the drained pond.

I wouldn't be suprised if some of the sticklebacks ate some of the YOY SMB too.

They are common in the FHM from bait dealers around here. When I was buying FHM for Crappies, I'd say I got a Stickleback per 2 dz. FHM.

I've gotten sticklebacks in my bait bucket before as well. From what I've heard said, fish don't care much for them. I've also noticed they have a much higher tolerance to low oxygen than FHM.

Cecil - I would be very interested to see what effect the sticklebacks had on your offspring numbers. I have heard and read so many conflicting things about stickleback minnows.

We have done numerous beer sponsored studies with different types of bait fish native to our ponds. The goal was to see what species of bait fish were preferred. All "studies" have been conducted from May-Aug with a minimum of 6 cold beers per guy.

Using the same location, same time, and same rigs, we tested: Fatheads, Bluegills, Mud Minnows, and Sticklebacks side by side. Here is how they rated, listed by most preferred in my ponds by BCP;

1) Sticklebacks
2) Bluegills
3) Mud Minnows and Fathead minnows pretty even

The crappie preferred the sticklebacks?

Yep...I couldn't believe it the first time we did the test! We have repeated the test enough times now, with the same results, that we almost use exclusivley sticklebacks and BG's when using live bait for BCP.

My ponds were loaded with them before stocking fish so maybe its just what they are use to chasing. I don't know. I know they eat young fish but I haven't had any issuses on fish recruitment.

I hate hooking those sticklebacks but they are one tough minnow.

I had a few smally fingerlings die from choking on a fish a little smaller. I'm starting to wonder if the fish they were choking on were sticklebacks. (the raised spine).

Shorty,

I would bet once they got hungry enough they would all feed on the dry pellets especially with some of them already doing so.

Perhaps initially not pinch the hydrated pellets to allow them to stay a float and then go to dry pellets?

I'll force the issue when the new bag of feed arrives. I do know there is an interesting dynamic between food deprivation and choosiness that will need to play itself out, it might take a few days.

Every couple of days one of my larger SMB grabs a finger tip when when I'm dropping pellets in the tank.

One thing I have noticed is that with big water change outs also comes significant drops in the tank temperature, it seems like an 6-8 degree drop in tank temp really seems to put them off eating for several days, so I avoid doing it.

Shorty once your filter gets established you shouldn't have to do more than a 10 percent water change per day which shouldn't drop your temp too much.

OTOH, have you considered letting make up water stand for a while in a separate container to get the temperature up?

I will soon have two makeshift iron filters which also warm up the water at the same time. The one I am using now is two barrels side by side with one stuffed with bunched up deer fence netting and filter pads.

The water is pulled up through the filter material via a pump that rests on top of the material in one tank which takes the water to the adjacent tank that lacks filter material. It then gets pulled back up a u tube siphon tube back to the bottom of the filter material in the other tank. Once you get enough iron build up in the filter material the filter works even better. At it's peak I can produce 50 gallons of crystal clear make water in 24 hrs.

The last time I ignored the iron it built up and caked terribly on my RBC.

On another note I have noticed I have a indeterminant number of smallmouth fingerlings in my big pond that were produced with no effort on my part. They seem to be perfect size for feed training at about 1 1/4 inches.

I'm going to do some seining of the shoreline and see if i can pick up enough to come up with 1000 smallmouth.

[quote=Cecil Baird1]I got up at the crack of dawn to check for the Kingfischer and run him off. (While pond is low and fish are vulnerable). No Kingfischer the first three checks. Took a short snooze, went out and there he was. LOL


I had one take an albino cat 10 minutes after I stocked it

Very cool! Let us know how it goes.

Cecil right now I am doing 10-20% water change outs daily and the water temp only drops 2-3 degrees. I was doing bigger change outs (20-33%) daily before the bio-filter went in in early May. I have only done big water change outs (60-70%) when the tank walls need some scrubbing. One thing I should mention is that my tank is insulated so large drops in the water temp take while to rebound. So far this year I haven't seen waters temps get above 78 degrees in my tank. My SMB do seem to take pellets best when the water temps are above 72-74 degrees. The AM500 I ordered came in yesterday, I just need to pick it up.

As a novice I am really interested in hearing how your pellet training goes, keep us up to date.

I'll keep you posted.

I use a couple of aquarium heaters for my system. One is 1000 watts that goes into the big tank and I'm not sure what the smaller on is off hand but it goes into the biofilter
smaller tank.

What I'm dealing with is at the feeding rate the fingerlings need, dirties up the water quickly. I am doing two water changes a day right now. Can't wait until they are a little larger and on floating pellets.

Edit:
Ammonia and nitrites dropped to a trace today. Apparently the biofilter is adapting.

I'm interested!!!!!

This morning ammonia was zip as were nitrites. Now I should be able to go back to a 10 percent water change per day.

I've got a homemade iron filter on line to keep iron out of the system and will have a second one on line soon, which will make one for each tank.

The iron doesn't hurt the fish at the concentration I'm adding but it builds up on the RBC which reduces space for the beneficial bacteria. It also looks disgusting.

The fish seem to be eating the artificial feed but not as aggressively as I'd like yet.

No morts after just one and no moribund fish.

Feeding better on dry feed today;both size groups. Some of larger ones even snapped the sinking feed off the surface before it sank. They must have been extra hungry after a night of no feeding.

Ammonia was 0.25 and nitrites zip this morning. Considering how much waste I dumped out of the filter that's pretty good.

That is what you want. Eat , grow and go. Kind of like a hog farm.

Thanks for the reports. Pics are helpful.

Eric,

I will take pics ASAP. The water seems to stay cloudy though and I'm not sure how much one would see. It may be the well water I've been adding that is only partially filtered of iron due to only recently only one homemade iron filter on line. I've got two iron filters on line now and once there is enough iron build up in the filter material I should be adding crystal clear water for every water change in BOTH tanks -- if iron is the issue. It could be the fine feed that is clouding the water too.

One issue with pics is a flash is needed due to the low light conditions and the flash spooks the fish.

Cecil, Mike found out last winter that cloudy water in the RAS led to a ammonia and Nitrite spike a few days later. Once the filter caught up the cloudiness went away and the readings dropped considerably.

Scott,

I don't believe that is it in my case as I've been monitoring ammonia and nitrites and they are very good. Ammonia may get as high as .25 ppm and nitrites stay at 0 but sometimes go to 0.25 ppm.

It's probably a combination of the fine feed and the iron. I should have bought a separate filter to polish the water. I'm hoping I don't have bacterial gill issues as typically one uses flow through due to the high feeding rate and fine feed that is fed to fish of this size. I can't wait until I get them on floating and there won't be as much waste and mess!

Here are a couple pics of the smaller ones in the larger tank. They stay low until I start throwing in the feed and they they come up for it. Here some have come up and are feeding.

That water IS cloudy!!

It also looks green from the flash but it's brown.

Cecil, are you feeding AM400?

It looks a bit funky Cecil. Any idea what the TDS are in the pictures?

No or low natural light will change the way the color appears. Could be iron as it responds to light as brown in water. Does look a little turbid. Thanks for the pics. Those guys have grown a bunch.

Thanks for the clarification Eric. I did ask a legitimate question tho.

No but I have some on order. I'm still feeding 200 to the smaller ones and 300 to the bigger ones.

No don't have any way to measure it. However I am doing at least one partial water change per day and the filter is catching a lot of waste.

Once the homemade iron filters can produce gin clear water in 24 hours the water should clear up. Also once I get them on floating feed that will reduce a lot of the waste.

Yeah it's deceptive.

BTW the board of animal health is picking up 60 for VHS testing Thursday morning. At least $300.00 worth of fish that will be slaughtered and $300.00 in testings fees. Gotta love the government. No VHS has ever been found on a fish farm but we are the ones that have to test.

'Come on, I know you were just looking for an excuse to see Jennifer again!

Does that mean you will be able to ship SMB ?

Yes; but it looks like I will sell them all wholesale in one shot out of state as I have an interested buyer. Didn't find anyone intrastate that was interested.

Tank water was filthy this morning. Did a major water change and clean out of screens. Even found a few snails blocking the drain.

I decided to move the larger better feeding fish in the smaller tank to a floating cage.

This makes for less suspended and settleable solids in the system and more filtration capability. I now have the capability of 100 gallons of iron free, room temp, and same PH water per day for the one 300 gallon tank.

I have a cleaning siphon coming any day I will use religiously daily. Or it will show me how to build a larger more powerful one Home Improvement style!

Next year if temps are not so hot I will probably opt for a flow through where one continuously gets fresh water and only has to lift a stand pipe occasionally to flush out waste. Feed training a high densities of small fish it just to messy without adequate filtration and flow! Very labor intensive!

You should get a good price.

I've been offered a good price. If that should fall through I have two other parties interested.

Cecil, any progress on getting you SMB to take dry feed?

I forced the issue with the remaining SMB in my RAS system and most of them are now taking AM500 off the surface.

Shorty,

Start out with hydrated feed and pinch it so it sinks. Then go to hydrated feed that is not pinched that floats. Once you get a good response with each of of these you go to mixed floating hydrated and dry feed. Then progress to dry feed. You may have to get them hungry for the last step. Don't feed for a couple of days and see how they respond.