I was just wondering where you could purchase peacock bass and could you stock a pond with them here in Texas. I have a newly dug pond, still dry but was wanting to stock with bass. Then all of the sudden a great idea come to mind.Since I cant go to brazil to fish, I wish I could catch them here in my own pond. What A Dream, could this be reality?



This is a 1/4 acre pond with a deepest full pool of around 14ft and the foreground being around 3ft where the small artificial tree is located. First plan was LMB, but now rethinking for something original and great.

www.bigfishcliff.com

IBFishing, congratulations on your new pond! Hopefully you will get many comments on the subject of peacock bass. This is my opinion so take it for that.

Absolutely NO on peacock bass under any circumstances. The number of problems caused by fish species inappropriately stock are huge. Everyone thinks of all the success stories such as trout and salmon spread all over the world. Everyone likes to downplay or ignore the problems. Most of us are the "fools rush in where angels fear to tread". We tend to think that we know more than all these experts and just go ahead and do things. I'm probably as guilty as anyone although I'm much more cautious as I get older.

Ask a fisheries biologist in Texas what they would think of someone introducing Peacock bass on their own.

I like the photo of the pond. I really like ponds about your size. You really do have many, many options if you take the time to size them all up. Do you have a means of dewatering the pond if you have problems or want to restock? This will IMHO have an influence on what sort of options you have.

If the peacock bass is in the cichlid family, which I think it is, I don't see it listed as an illegal exotic species in Texas. Did I miss it in the following list?

http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/huntwild/wild/species/exotic/

Am I wrong?

IBF,

I would first check with T,P,& W. They have excellent, reasonable fish biologists who if they say it's ok, then it is ok. I'm guessing they will say okay, because the Peacock will not survive Texas winters.

The Peacock does not survive at temps below 60F. Unless you have external source of heat, they probably are not for you. South Florida, Dade County, is, I believe, the only area in the U.S. that has a Peacock fishery.

If raising a predator, it does not seem very practical to re-stock every year, but folks in Texas ponds (myself included) stock rainbow trout for a very brief season, so it is not out of the question, in my opinion. If you pursue this dream, please let us know how it goes.

Read more about them at this link:

http://floridafisheries.com/Fishes/non-native.html#peacock

Thanks guys for the replys. I do and can dewater if neccessary, just over the levy behind would run off into a dry creek bed. Im not trying to do the impossible, as I will be the first to admit I know nothing about pond raising. I was looking at a fish tank with peacock bass in it and was just extremly curious if it was possible. I love those fish and if there was nothing but that and forage in it , could I pull this off. As you can see ,I still have time before this pond fills up to do whatever means neccessary and for which order it needs to be done in. Im new to all this, and havent heard of this topic on here before. Gotta Love the idea, just hoping for a dream to come true.

Peacock bass(which is a cichlid) are not only established in South Florida but also Hawaii as well.

Aside from them not surviving Texas winters, they are voracious eaters and will require quite a bit of forage. Not sure what their primary forage is in Hawaii but in FL I believe it to be Spotted Tilapia.

It would be great to have them in a personal pond but as stated, doing so in Texas would be difficult due to their intolerance of cold waters.

Could there be any means of heating the pool in the winter, being its only 1/4 acre. I know Texas isn't extremly cold for very long. I would probably have to sell the farm to pay for some kind of heating bill.

IBF,

Even selling the farm, unless it has oil , probably wouldn't be enough. You are talking about a minimum of .5 million gallons of water to heat in the open air. In East Texas, we are at or below 60F water temps most of Dec, Jan, Feb and parts of Nov. and March. Find yourself property down in the valley and you might have a chance. Snook have returned to south Texas and they are really temp intolerant. Peacock might make it there in a pond.

Well I guess back to the drawing board. LMB it will be. If it ever rains again here in Caddo Mills.

There is one way to economically heat the pond in the winter...

What is the mean annual daily temperature at the location of the pond? The NWS ought to have this information. This would equal the temperature of the groundwater. If this temp is warm enough for peacock bass, you could pump water throughout the winter. It is essentially what Cecil does for brook trout, but in reverse. The smaller the pond the better.

LBuck you still giving me hope. Im not aware of what Cecil does for his trout, but I figure there must be some way of circulating warm water. If you can figure it out please let me know.

I'll figure it out. Where's Caddo Mills, Texas? I need a nearby large town or city also to check NWS for average daily mean temperature.

Bruce the close big town nearby is Greenville, Tx. Sorry for my ignorance but I dont even know what NWS stands for. National Weather Service I suppose.

Weather for Greenville, TX
Average temperature by season:
Daily Mean Temperature, Annual Avg - 65.4 F
Spring: 66 Summer: 84
Winter: 47 Fall: 67
Precipitation, Avg. Annual Total: 33.7 inches

This means your well water (if you have any) should come out of the ground at around 65+ degrees. If your mean winter temperature is 47, then you would have to have someone smarter than me figure out the thermal budget for the following equation...

X amount of water @ 65 F. at Y rate would have Z effect on the number of gallons in your pond.

Then you would need to explore the various subspecies of peacock bass and see if any are more tolerant of cool water than others. Definitely though, the smaller the pond the better. In theory you could do a trial run next winter and figure out how low the temperatures go. If you established this system you could also cool the water in the summer. That's what I'm doing to keep yellow perch alive in my ponds. I am south of their ideal range, but they're doing fine. I've helped Rep. Tom Osborne with his pond in the past and he can keep Donaldson rainbow trout alive throughout the summer here in Lincoln without significant stress. His pond is about .1 acre. Mine is about .15 acre.

Comments anyone?

Wow! No I do not have well water. But those numbers alomst sound possible,I really have no clue I wish those fish could stand 50 degree water I think we could definetly work with that. 60 degrees is a bigger problem.

IBFishing,

Playing devil's advocate for a little bit more ( I'm actually a huge fan of trying new things in ponds).

What happens when the power fails in a strong cold front and you can't pump "warm" water?

I don't know about Peacocks, but Tilapia begin dieing at 55F. However, as far as being productive, they basically shut down at 63F. If peacocks die at 60F but shutdown at 65F or something like that, how useful will that be to you?

Also, how many Peacocks can you realistically support in a 1/4 acre pond? They are reportedly very heavy forage consumers.

Heck, I don't like playing devil's advocate. Its much more fun to think of Peacocks in a pond. If you try it, please let us know what happens.

Maybe a Solar Blanket?, I used to have one on a above ground pool. You see Im still guessing. Probably be to much trouble, but what a facinating concept. Meadowlark how far east are you? I am a year round angler and forage is not really an issue during the spring through summer. Close proximities to water for stocking of bluegill no problem. It keeps the kids busy and makes good forage.

www.bigfishcliff.com

"Solar Blanket Bass"

copyright 2005

By: I.B. Fishing

Hardcover $29.95 at Barnes and Noble now.

Now where on to something, and economical for small ponds. I almost smell success.... :rolleyes:

I found "Solar Blanket Bass" By: I.B. Fishing
at Amazon.com for $2.99, shipping and handling $29.95, delivery 10 to 14 working days or expresss shipping $39.95, delivery 10 to 14 working days.
People who bought that book also bought
"Surviving nuclear winter on $25 a day" by A. B.Last and
"Hothouse hybrids" by Y. P. Erch

Im doing some research, its a material similar to bubble wrap for packaging. It just lays on top and floats, light weight and easy to remove. just have to do some testing on how warm it can get. With of course a submerged aeration for circulation of the warm water. You can laugh now But I may have the only peacock bass tank in Texas in the end.

www.bigfishcliff.com

The subject of stocking Peacock Bass presents the opportunity to explore two concepts. The first is being innovative and the second is being irresponsible. It seems like there might be a fine line between these two concepts but there really isn’t.

The difference between innovative and irresponsible is who pays when everything goes horribly wrong.

We sent up a space shuttle when it was too cold. We’d had so many successes that no one was thinking about the possibility of failure. None of us think we’re going to have an accident, fire or illness in the family but we spend good money for insurance just in case.

There is a popular fishing program that ends with the statement “remember, we all live down stream”. While we might live down stream, few of us have lakes that are down stream. If you look at all the posts everywhere, you will see that we tend not to think about someone upstream from us introducing species that would destroy our fisheries.

Like the space shuttle, we might go a number of times stocking Peacock Bass without any problems. However, who’s going to pay for that one time that Peacock Bass establish and start to destroy a native sport fishery. If something like that happened, who here would be willing to stand up and say “I did it and I will sell off everything I have to help pay for the damages I caused”? If you’re not willing to do this, then you’re being irresponsible rather than innovated.

Norm I repect all comments from everybody. As you can tell Im still far from it actually being in effect, heck my pond is dry. But I am the type of person who likes to be different and as it may not be possible to achieve this goal I will have fun trying. It will be at my expense,(which Im trying to keep at a minimal)going to observe a large water trough with this material and keep a tempature log on the difference of the still water warmth, versus circulated water temp. In comparison to nightly lows and daytime highs. Over the next month or so here in Texas we will be going through our coldest period. So no better time than now to get this idea rolling. Hope yall understand this is only a experiment.

www.bigfishcliff.com

IBF,

Dave Davidson once said, and I can't say it nearly as well as Dave did, that experiments are what we pond boss's call our failures.

And I've always said that I learn far more from my failures in life than successes.

Going after a dream adds joy to life. Go for it! Just be sure to tell us what happened.

IBFishing, do you realize how many fun, interesting and innovative things you can do with a lake your size. Free yourself of the constraints of needing fish to eat and depending on natural reproduction.

Raise huge HSB.

Experiment with all male BG, RES, Georgia Giants, Hybrid Crappie and lots of other species, hybrids and combinations of members of the sunfish family. Look at the incredible things Bruce Condello is doing with lakes the size of yours.

Put in just a very few female LMB, feed the dickens out of them and see just how big you can get them.

Have a catfish pond.

As long as you don't expect natural reproduction, you could have an incredible mixed species fishery of over a dozen species.

Pick out some species that are native to Texas but are seldom raised such as Headwater Catfish, Yellow Bass, Flier, Spotted Bass, Guadalupe Bass, Warmouth, Longear Sunfish, Orangespotted Sunfish or Rio Grande Cichlid. Then raise a state or world record fish in your lake.

Some other people can add to this list but you really can do some fun things with a lake your size.

Yes Norm, I know there's lots of fun to be had. I cant wait to get something large growing. I will not be wanting to grow fish to eat, heck I fish lakes 3 or 4 days a week and no problem with fish in the freezer. I do like the sound of Hybrid Bass I love to catch them all summer long at the local lakes around hear. In the begginning I really just wanted to Raise double digit bass by only adding 25 to 30 and loads of BG. And that may end up what happens. But I really do like the sound of record perch. Thanks for the ideas.

www.bigfishcliff.com

IBFishing, let the fun begin! So many people on this forum are doing so many interesting and innovative things. It's great to add you to the list. Keep us informed of all your thinking.