Well here we go with a new pond and new questions for all. As you may recall my sister recently built a new pond about 1/10th acre and 9 ft deepest spot and about 5-6 average. It was just built prior to winter and is still filling.

The pond is primarily used as a decorative pond and will eventually house my mothers fancy gold fish she has in a 10' by 6' by 3.5' deep pond. She is moving about 50 fish out of that pond to the new pond.

When spring rolls around she wants to start adding fish in the pond. I have suggested starting with the fathead minnows maybe a pound or two to jump start the pond. I think the gold fish will be put in around mid summer 2007. She will have frogs ...etc all natural things that show up in the pond. She is trying to make Mom happy by finding other fish that won't eat her gold fish that have been around for about 7-10 yrs.

Thus the question is, what would you recommend for other fish in the pond? Are we looking at some YP? ( If so I can take some from my pond to help out ) Any ideas what might be a good mix?

They do not plan on truly fishing the pond, but their grandkids may want to drop a line in the pond in about 3-5 yrs. Thanks!!

Eric how big will the goldfish be when added?

A YP will eat a small goldfish. A Few male BG may be the way to go. FH may over run the pond if there are no predators.

Eric,

The goldfish tend to be in the 5-11 inch range. She has a few that are about 8 yrs old and fairly large for such a small puddle. I am sure most of them would not be an issue for YP eating right away. They have spawned many times and as such do eat their own. Thus the Fatheads I am sure could have some pressure on them from the goldfish but not much. Thats why I was thinking of something else. My sister is not really interested in BG, but if a case can be made she might consider it.

An average sized YP would not eat a large goldfish as they are gape limited. I was thinking a few male BG for catching. An option might be some male PS as they are colorful and hardy. Not sure what is available in other lepomis in your area (Redbreast or Longear Sunfish).

Eric, glad to see you posting even with the weather conditions. Give us a report for your area. Are they really predicting 4-6 inches per hr. for this storm? That is making some of the Valdez, Ak. snows seem puny by comparison.

Thanks Eric !

Burger the bad stuff hasn't hit us yet. But they are saying about 28 inches by Wed night. Not bad considering a bit away ( 90 miles) they got 12 ft of snow in just 6 days.

Hi all. I'm Laura, Eric's sister. I would like to thank you for all the help. I've been sort of shy about jumping in but I've been doing a lot of reading of posts. Lots of great info. I've always wanted a pond but never thought I'd get one. Eric has been a great help [instigator]with ideas for the pond. If spring doesn't come soon Eric will have increased the pond's size twice over!!! Really it's been fun to plan but hard to see what it will look like seeing the snow covers it and all it looks like is a slight dip in the yard.

Laura shares a down side to her new pond:
...tell Eric to get out of the way so you can see your new pond! Jeeeesh...that guy, huh? :p
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btw; congrats

HEHEHE Brettski, How did you know she was calling me the dip in her yard?? Its her nick name for me lol. Ahhh such is life with older sisters!!!

Welcome Laura to the PB forum. Ponds really are a lot of fun. Learn here and do it your way. With a helpful brother like Eric (I like that name ) you should be in good shape. Here is a pond Lily pic via Bill Cody to help you northerners survive until spring.

Eric-Laura, My experiences with goldfish in earth bottom ponds without predators is the goldfish will continue reproducing and when food becomes limiting they will feed heavily in the bottom sediments for food items. This always causes the pond to become murky-muddy colored. All species, even water lilies, tend to cause problems when they become overabundant in their habitat.

Thanks Bill, I sort of figured that. I know my mother doesnt want to lose her big goldfish. I dont think she cares if the young end up as snacks. Thus we were trying to figure out what to use as a starting point where we didn't lose the big goldfish. Thats why I thought of YP. I thought that maybe after a few years and beore the YP became stunted we could add some SMB to the pond as well to help the YP. I am not sure that SMB would be good in her pond as it is not as deep as mine. But I wanted to see what would make the most sense.

To me it would be easy to take the excess from my pond to help hers out, but I didn't know what would be best for her pond with the mix she would start out with.

Either way all thoughts are appreciated.

i've been following this nice story, congratulations to you laura and nice work instigating eric.

my experience with goldfish and ponds = racoons + missing fish. perhaps yer dip is deep enough and large enough in area that this wont be a problem....but a small word of caution....once you start naming them and get attached, the coons can spoil everything.

This may be too flippant, but I don't think a smallie wants to live with a goldfish.

I only say this because after I stocked those 50 or so larger smallies (I already had smaller classes of SMB), I saw one larger smallie torpedo-ram a bullhead who was trying to eat some of the feed I had thrown out.

Sunil,

Not flippant at all. I think that SMB are just very wise and very cultured!!!

Eric,
SMB can survive in our sister's 1/10 ac pond. If the pond has just a primarily mud it will reduce but may not eliminate the spawning success of SMB. If SMB reproduction occurs you may need to thin their numbers. However, I expect the goldfish to reproduce faster than the SMB can control them. If the pond turns muddy you may have to help your sister manually thin goldfish if she desires more aesthetic waters.