Its been a pretty rough winter this year. We have been iced over on the pond for quite a while now and for about a month the pond was snow covered. I am pretty stressed about the RES. Anybody have any thoughts about their survivability in the winter. I was told in new BOW that winter kill was pretty rare, but I am still a rook. The pond is very lightly stocked so I am thinking the oxygen reservoir should have been pretty large for the fish in it.

~2 Acres
30 RES
15-CC
3lbs GSH + whatever spawned last year
3lbs + tons spawned last year

Wow that's a lot of room for just those fish! If that's all that's in there I don't think a D.O. problem should be an issue. I would be more worried about maybe some dying from the cold than D.O. Unless of course you have some real bad water issue that we don't know about. I think you will be fine.

RC

Average and maximum pond depths play a big role as to how long DO will last in a pond under ice and snow cover. Newish ponds with low organic loads generally winter kill a lot less frequently than older shallow ponds.

RES can and will die from lack of DO under the ice, however I don't believe they are any ore susceptible to this than BG. The issue as RC51 eluded to is the temperature. RES are southern fish, with their native range barely making into the southern 1/4 of Illinois. Even there, they were naturally uncommon that far north. In northern areas, RES tend to do best in larger bodies of water where the water volume can regulate rapid changes in water temperature which I believe is the biggest killer of RES. They just can't handle fast swings in water temperature. Larger bodies of water take longer to warm and cool and thus help prevent these swings. Deeper bodies of water also help with this. If your pond has a fairly large area with deeper water, the RES can stay in that area. Water is most dense at just above 39 degrees F. This is right around the minimum temperature RES can tolerate for extended periods. When shallower waters begin to cool so much that the 39 degree refuge begins to cool, I think that is when RES struggle. You can also see this super cooling occurring in ponds that are aerated, especially incorrectly.

My aquaponics got a heavy freeze for the first time last december (2013). I can confirm my redear were not anymore susceptible to the cold than my bluegill... at least with initial survive ability... but the stress did lower their immune system and they all got ick.. i brought them in to my indoor aquarium, salted to 3ppm and the ick fell off, they would have died if i left them outdoors. The couple of remaining bluegill didnt have ick and are still alive today in my ferro tank.




I posted a full freeze report with pictures on my aquaponics forum.. i apologize for linking another forum, i usually at least cut and paste it into a unique post here but i dont have time right now to upload the photos to my web site

http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=19949

it's not a competing forum and no ads

brian

Thanks for all the good info guys. I am hoping that they will be alright.

I'm interested in seeing what ice out brings to the ponds in my area concerning RES. Many of us opted to aerate all, or at least much, of the winter due to extended snow and ice cover. This has apparently cooled the water temps down below the 39 degree norm encountered at or very near bottom, in the "safe" refuge.

Perhaps regional adaptation has led to some slightly hardier RES in my area.....at least that's what I'm hoping for.

We are in the beginning stages of a long term plan for fish stocking. I am going to let the forage base build up for a few years before I put bass in. We are going to put some HSB in this spring but they are supposed to be feed trained. I am hoping that their impact on the bait fish will be low enough that they can maintain their numbers and even grow. We will see. Worst case I catch the HSB and let the bait fish catch back up a litle.

Jakeroo, it's been my experience that if fed, HSB will prey on forage but will not put much of a dent into them. My FHM population which seems to be the most susceptible species to being extirpated from a pond due to predation has maintained itself even after the HSB were stocked. Now if they were not fed, there most likely would be different results.

I'm currently researching the northern most geographic locations where RES can survive, and thought this link might be interesting to some....my apologies if it's been posted here before.

http://www.michigandnr.com/publications/pdfs/ifr/ifrlibra/technical/reports/2003-3tr.pdf

Good reading. It would be interesting to know where the original source came from that Michigan used for planting and broodstock. I'm hesitant to use an Arkansas source which is where many of the redears sold in our region come from.

Yeah I get all my BG, RES and HSB just down the street about 15 miles away. That is nice but they are all born and raised in a warmer climate. Although it's been pretty dang cold here this year for Arkansas.

RC

Thanks for the knowledge here. I am hoping that I can repeat your results. I think my FHM population is pretty solid assuming they survived the winter. I also want to give the GSH and RES a year to spawn. If the lake is enjoyable with just RES/HSB, I will probably leave it like that. The more I read about BG and LMB on here, the more nervous I get about having them in our pond. I just don't think I can commit the time to managing the numbers that is required.

Reading this gave me a little more hope for our fish. Michigan is a whole state above, which is a little bit more buffer than I previously thought I had.

Jakeroo

You are right LMB and BG do require a little more effort to keep on track, but if done right they will start to do it for you. Then all your have to do is make sure you cull / harvest correctly. I have a 1 acre pond and I have CNBG/RES/HSB and LMB and they all are doing quite well.

Really the one main thing you need to watch is your RW of your LMB. That in itself will tell you a LOT of how your BG and BASS are doing.

RES don't spawn as much as BG but if you just go with HSB and RES you may still end up with a problem with the RES. HSB I dont think will conrol your RES population and they could still over populate. It's always something!!

RC

You are right there. I wonder if CC could keep the RES in check. Just trying to think of "put and take" options.

If the CC get large, possibly. I've never heard of a RES stunted pond like you hear with BG.

Esshup if all he has in there is a certain number of HSB and RES and bait fish it may take a while but those RES will take over dont you think? Unless he has a lot of HSB in there. I think Eric once said that BG can have up to 35,000 babies each in a summer. So lets just figure low and say the RES may only have 5,000 per female. Sooner or later you would think that pond would get taken over by them without something else in there to feed on them other than just HSB. Or am I off base on that??

RC

Don't forget that EVERYTHING in the pond eats YOY fish. From Dragonfly nymphs to adult RES. You could see recruitment as low as 1% after year 2.

http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1577/1548-8659(1946)76%5B190%3AROSAGO%5D2.0.CO%3B2#preview

I believe that those test ponds were only stocked with BG fry, and they tried to only have BG fry in them. Now throw predators in the mix and think about what the survival rate would be.....

I suspect that larger RES eat way more YOY fish than most people realize. The five 8" RES that I currently have in my aquarium are eating 15-25 FHM in the 2" to 2-1/2" size range every single day.

Redears are more carnivorous than bluegill. No doubt about that.

3-5 FHM a night seems pretty aggressive. Are they growing pretty fast?

Yes, they are growing fast! They were a little over 3" at the end of May last year.

In addition to the FHM's they are also eating four sliced up nightcrawlers and three small frozen blocks of bloodworms a day, they would eat more if I let them.

Just a small number of single sex LMB could help keep any RES reproduction under control. As they get too large, remove them and replace with smaller ones.

What kind of biofilter does your tank have? With all the eating it would seem your fish would be producing a lot of ammonia.

Cecil I am running two Hot Magnum 250 filters, one with ceramic media in the canister, the other with with ammonia neutralizing carbon in the canister that I change once a week. Both canisters are wrapped with mechanical foam filters that I freshen up once a week. Each filter does 250 GPH and is rated for a 55 gallon aquarium.

In addition I am doing a 16-18% water change every two days and I also have undergravel filters running in the tank. Nitrites consistantly test zero but nitrates are a little on the high side.

Water temps have been running right at 70 degrees.

Sounds good Shorty but IMHO you don't need to feed these fish as much as you are, and you could get the same growth rates and get by with less water changes.

Keep in mind that's just my opinion and I'm not trying to be a know it all. You obviously have experience with the species which I don't.

Fish like people will consume more than they need and the excess gets pooped out to increase ammonia levels, which get changed to nitrites and then nitrates. You can only increase growth so much by feeding more.

The fact that you are doing close to 20 percent water changes ever two days, and still have high nitrates tells me you are overfeeding. Your nitrates should drop quite a bit with those kinds of water changes so often.

At about 0.3 lbs a piece with five 8 inch redears for a total of 1.5 lbs. of fish that's only about 0.03 lbs. per gallon in a 55 gallon tank, but like I said that's a lot of feeding.

Did you know they probably only need about 1 to 3 percent of their body weight a day for growth? Granted the fatheads have a lot of water weight but...

1.5 lbs (24 oz) at 3 percent is only about 0.72 oz per day minus the water.

Just saying and I don't claim to be some kind of authority just some experience with fish in small scale recirculating systems with excellent growth rates.

It's only five RES Cecil and I doing it primarily for entertainment and to learn more about what makes them tick.

It's been a great learning expierence and I haven't killed them yet.

Than tank is actually a 75 gallons, I also have an algea eater in with them too which doesn't help the water quality.

No problem with entertainment. And the fact that they are healthy and you haven't killed them says a lot. You would be amazed how many people can't keep fish alive or keep them from getting sick, or don't understand the nitrification cycle. It's all about the water.

I guess I'm too serious as I always look at contained systems from an RAS standpoint like pounds per gallon, capability of the biofilter, ammonia and nitrite readings, how good the mechanical filter works etc. I'm not a mathematician by any means but more and more I find myself crunching the numbers.

I want to set up a huge aquarium in my show room above my customer counter imbedded in the wall to hide everything, but my pole building and coldwater system takes priority now. When I get to the aquarium I'll know who to contact for help!

Keep up the good work!

Has there been any fighting or territorial behavior exhibited?

Yes, I have seen two very aggressive instances in the last two months. One of the instances lasted 3-4 minutes with two very "dark" colored males fighting over who got to sit on the sweet spot on top of a piece of wood. They flared their gill tabs and were pushing each other around pretty hard. It upset my wife enough that she went over and tapped on glass to put a stop to it. Once it was over the one that left the wood instantaneously went from being "dark" colored to a lighter creamy color, you could literally see the dark colored lines in its fins suck back up into its body as it went from dark color to lighter color.

I think there would be more occurrences if there were no FHM in the mix. IMO having smaller fish in the tank lets them take aggressive behavior out on the smaller fish rather than each other.

Or the fatheads are a temporary distraction from their territorial behavior? I know giving trout a current to swim against in an aquaculture setting among other benefits can reduce territorial behavior. In my trout pond I feed all around the pond so some trout do not keep others from feeding. Trout are very territorial hence the fin nipping in high density situations. Contrary to popular belief it's not the concrete raceways that cause the horrible fin stubs but it's the nipping.

As I'm sure you know unfortunately territorial behavior is a given among the sunfish species, and is stated on the NANFA website where the members put native fish in aquariums.

I've even heard of male bluegills killing a perspective female mate just because she was a new arrival regardless if she was a female and he was guarding a nest. I've had some females mysteriously float up dead in my hatchery pond just after I added the males and females to the pond. I wonder if that was it?

You could see this behavior pick up as the photoperiod increases? Or they could establish a hierarchy and be done with it?

Travis (CJBS2003) could chime and perhaps give us some more insight?


As I'm sure you're also aware territorial behavior is interesting as it varies among species, and with some species it goes up with increased density and others it goes down as there is no territory to defend.

Did you know that even songbirds are territorial and birds fight over landing spots such as tree branches etc?

What Cecil said is accurate in my opinion and experience. Probably the most aggressive species of fish I have raised had been red devil cichlids. Those things are just plain nasty. You stick your hand in the water and they will attack it. Especially if you put it near a nesting pair.

I am not sure anyone has written literature on RES in aquariums and what does and does not precipitate aggression. My experience with RES is they are middle of the road for aggression when it comes to sunfish. My experience is most species become more aggressive in general when exposed to live feed. If just fed pellets, they are less aggressive. I do not have enough experience with RES to say if this holds true for them or not.

I can say, success rates of RES preying on FHM in an aquarium setting would be substantially higher than in a wild environment such as a pond.

This all sounds reasonable.

I have some feed trained RES in two aquariums and neither are showing any aggression. They also have larger more dominant tilapia in one tank and blue gill in the other so maybe they just havent had the chance.

I still have my light period at 12 hours and the water is room temp ~70. Once it warms up outside and i can move more fish into my outdoor tanks, I will start a thread because i may need help sexing my BGxRES and RESxBG breeding pairs. At which time i will heat the aquariums closer to 80 degrees and expand my light to 16 hours. This year i have an algae and zooplankton strategy so hopefully i can keep the larva alive.

Oh and not to derail, i will be able to report better on my limited, small sample size RES behavior.


Brian

I agree CJ, there won't be near as many FHM available in a pond setting to go after. Hopefully mine will convert to eating YOY GSH and other types of YOY when I turn them loose in a few months.

Over the last few months my aquairum RES have become quite good at eating FHMs in the first 10 minutes after they are released in tank. The RES don't chase FHM around the tank when the light is on but simply wait until one swims close enough to grab. The bulk of the FHM get eaten after the lights go out for the night. I have seen a single RES eat two FHM 30 seconds apart just sitting in the same spot right after the FHM are released. I suspect that that RES mostly graze on small things during the day and become more predatory after dark.

They do seem to express more agressive behavior towards each other when when I feed them nightcrawlers as opposed to FHM or bloodworms.

Even if the pond was full of FHM, just like the aquarium. RES are not going to be as successful in catching them. Without steep walls to contain the FHM, they're not quite as easy pickings.