Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain What do you think about starting small,real small?

With a new, hypothetical, small, pond lets say (2 - 2 1/2 acres)
Instead of immediately adding various types/sized minnows, waiting and adding perch/sunfish, waiting, and then adding your predator fish (bass) What if you start micro?
Start micro by adding things like daphnia, green hydra, clam shrimp, fairy shrimp, seed shrimp, glass shrimp, triops, dero-worms and the like, scuds, freshwater clams, mussels, sponges, Red Ribbon leaches, bryozoans, various snails, salamanders, tadpoles, and crayfish then let these establish and then add your various types/sizes of minnows and on up the food chain.

Now, there will be other various forms of natural micro life that will find its way into a new pond, some of the ones mentioned in fact. Some of the added life I'm guessing will compete with the natural micro pond creatures and some will not. Either way, it would seem having more micro life than normal in a new pond to start off could really help to jump start the pond and potentially help to increase the initial carrying capacity of the new pond. Some of these could be self-sustaining I would imagine and thus adding more diversity on the micro level. I would think this would be all around a good thing.

Is something like this worth it or so insignificant that its not worth investing time and money into it where you could benefit somewhere else instead. Also, some of these may or may not be good choices. Are there other possible drawbacks for really starting so small and giving that stage of the pond time to flourish? (I know some microworms can cause problems but I think I know which ones do).

Also, you would probably need to have some established aquatic vegetation present before adding some of these.

1.) Add Micro -- wait 2 months
2.) Add various minnow species-- wait 3 months
3.) Add Sunfish/Perch -- wait 7 months
4.) Add Pred fish (LMB,HSB,BC)--

stang, as you mentioned, many of your smallest life will enter your ecosystem naturally, especially the macrophytes and planktons. Your "carrying capacity" will be whatever the pond can support based on what can consume nutrient present, and in turn be consumed by higher life forms. If 2 species compete for one food, the total weight supported will get split between the two...say 2 shrimp species eat the same food and that food supports 10 pounds of shrimp....you will always have ~10 pounds, regardless of how many species or the individual sizes of them.

For any given fish to thrive and grow, it needs quality foods, AND, in the proper sizes. For example, a LMB needs roughly 10 pounds of food, in the optimum size to gain one pound of flesh. If that LMB can hunt/eat 10 pounds of food, 10, one pound meals will burn far less calories than if it has to hunt/eat 160 one ounce meals....The smaller meals will result in considerably less weight gain due to it expending far more energy capturing it's meal.

I forgot to add...I think it would be great to add as many small starter species as possible...Hopefully, the strongest, most prolific will survive and thrive to build the higher links in the food chain.

Here are three old threads about grass shrimp you might be interested in.

PK shrimp order 2010

Freshwater shrimp

PK shrimp 2014

Thanks snrub! Actually, Ive already read all those.

Rainman- Thanks for the reply, I understand the 10 to 1 ratio. Im curious about the smallest stuff feeding the smaller stuff not the bass directly. Some things will get into the pond but a lot of the various shrimp species will not as well as a few of the others I mentioned. If you were to fertilize, feed, the natural addition of detritus materials, along with algae blooms, could that feed the different kinds of small organisms. I get that there is only enough food sources in a pond to feed what it can feed, is there any information out there discussing if most ponds especially fairly new ones have a maxed out carrying capacity on macrophytes and plankton feeders. I guess what I mean is, if you want to grow big bass and your pond can sustain 1 100lb bass or 10 10lb bass and so on but if you feed, fertilize, etc. you can increase the carrying capacity. You could in turn add more fish or leave the numbers the same and possibly increase the micro organisms and they would be at larger sizes and thus increase the ultimate size of your LMB. (of course there are many other factors, just curious if this could be one thats overlooked) Could you start this at the micro level and increase the initial levels of bigger food for baitfish thus allowing more to be added and held, then bigger/more prey fish which would translate into to bigger/more predator fish? Or will none of that matter because most ponds are going to have as much natural diversity at the maximum carrying levels that they can hold regardless of adding extra or non-typical creatures. Also, are you saying that there would be minimal correlation to increase size of bigger predators even if the addition of the non-native micro organisms are of substantially larger sizes than than the local micro aquatic life? Im not sure if all that made sense!

First off a disclaimer: I'm no expert. Far from it.

But I always have an opinion! So here goes with the non-expert opinion.

I try to look at things from the perspective of the down side and the up side to an action I'm proposing to take.

To me, what you are proposing to do assuming you don't put something in the pond that will actually harm it, the only downside I see is perhaps a little time wasted by not getting other fish in there in the case if what you want to do does not ending up helping much. In other words, not much downside at all.

The up side is it might really work well. And if it "floats your boat" and keeps you interested in your pond project I say go for it. And keep us informed on how it goes.

I know my opinion is not what you are really looking for. You are likely looking for some of the experts saying "yes your idea is absolutely the way to go and it will increase the size and quality of your fishery". Seeing a lack of those acknowledgements by said experts I'm guessing there may not be enough data to support them saying such a thing.

It seems you have a well thought out plan and a logical progression of how you believe a pond should operate. You have my encouragement to try it, for all that is worth!

stang, feeding, fertilizing, aeration, choosing fish species that feed on otherwise unutilized nutrients (ie. tilapia eating FA, Golden shiners filter feeding) and in turn become optimally sized prey fish would be bound to increase carrying capacity. It can be extremely difficult to say what impact one forage species will have on the rest of your pond's ecosystem. There are almost always unintended consequences from everything done in a pond.

Crawfish and shrimp can be great additions, but I think I would personally avoid any leeches (though most ponds have them appear sooner or later naturally). Clams and mussels may over-populate and keep your water TOO clear, which reduces micro-organisms in a pond. Nature will always balance out, but it may or may not be a balance you want....

Snrub-Rainman- thanks I really appreciate your input.

Rainman- I agree with you on adding things and there being unintended consequences. I tried to do a lot of research on the choices of organisms I put up.... like the leeches, they are non-blood sucking leeches but still get to be a fairly large size. The clams are fingernail clams which are non-parasitic and with a simple addition of RES could ballance out. But I do read your point loud and clear and that makes a lot of sense to me. So, thanks for your help with my understanding of this topic

Snrub- I value your opinion also. I appreciate the vote of confidence. I kind of had the same opinion. Like, Rainman said, there are unintended things that can/will go wrong with a pond you manage but I feel like if you research the additions to your pond, add them at the right time and keep good records and cull appropriately you can change the game a little in your favor. With the micro things I mentioned it may only be in your favor for awhile at the beginning perhaps until mother-nature makes changes but I think the reward outweighs the risk here, and it could possibly a make a difference in a fishery.

As to the statement:

"You are likely looking for some of the experts saying "yes your idea is absolutely the way to go and it will increase the size and quality of your fishery". Seeing a lack of those acknowledgements by said experts I'm guessing there may not be enough data to support them saying such a thing."

That would be nice to hear. lol I hope there is some interesting data on this subject that someone has out there.

Also, is there anything to be said for these various species filling a niche by feeding differently or at varying levels of the water column which in a non-stocked small species pond may not be max capacity at every level of the water column. (Kind of like Catfish vs. LMB vs. HSB etc.)

Thanks again for the responses.

Stang, I like the idea! I don't recall anyone creating a discussion such as this about creating the smallest links of the food chain like you are. If you plan to swim, daphnia could become a really itchy problem. Too many snails would host grubs that could negatively affect larger fish.

What are your long term goals for the pond? What habitat have you considered for all the little critters mentioned?

Well, I haven't started the pond yet I know it's location and approx. size. Just want to make sure I do a lot of research to get exactly what I want, which I have for about 4 years now. My goals would be big/trophy LMB with some bonus fish thrown in there. LMB will be the main target, big ones (I could spend a long time talking about the ins and outs but I'll save that for a later post). The eventual site of my pond is in a wooded location. I found that, there will probably be a lot of detritus materials produced by the surroundings of this site that will end up in the pond so I tried to find things that could help with that and it led me to find all kinds of things that are native but probably won't end up in every pond unless you add them and this got me thinking about the benefits it could bring. With the abundance of detritus materials (feeding the fairy shrimp, Triops, Red Ribbon Leeches, scuds, snails, etc.) you could add a few straw/hay bales for a few of them (daphnia), there would need to be established, appropriate aquatic vegetation in place for the Grass shrimp etc. the Green Hydra, Crayfish, and Salamanders, feed on some of the others like the worms and scuds etc. The clams, mussels, and sponges are all filter feeders, needing plankton which would be manipulated by the fertilization, etc.

I realize the snails could cause problems but would try to get as close to a balance with snail predators as I could. Some snails of course are better than others. I did not realize that about the daphnia, what causes that? I'm sure there are several small creatures out there that I didn't mention, anyone have any to add?

One other one would be the addition of a malaysian shrimp grow out pool, which will be in the works for my "imaginary" pond. It wont be too big, probably around 12ft radius X 4ft deep. I think you could get some benefit from that too. Plus, additional, larger, seasonal, forage of 150 Tilapia and 200 RBT starting about year 3-4. There's a lot more to the pond as far as bigger forage but thats another post.

With feeding, aeration, fertilization, aquatic vegetation, various detritus materials present, the addition of all the various micro species as well as the natural ones that find their way in, the addition of time to multiply, it seems to me that you could in turn add more numbers of minnow like species, (Redhorse Shiner, Fatheads, GSH, Bull Minnow, etc.) This could help add more and support more RBS, BG, LES, YP, etc. Thus producing bigger bass. A lot going on but thats the theory. Any more suggestions?

It makes sense to me from a theoretical standpoint. Do you have a source for those "non-standard" micro forage items? Are they tolerant of your water temps and conditions? Would they be considered invasive?

Yes there are several scientific websites that sell most of them, the Malaysian shrimp you can get from several suppliers, the fingernail clams and salamanders would be local harvest (which I know could be kind of risky and is frowned upon), Red Ribbon leeches (non-blood suckers) I think I found from a bait supplier.

From all the research I've seen they are all tolerant to the water conditions. I do not think any would be invasive they are all native to the larger area, just not found in all ponds, and probably would never make it to mine, especially not at the beginning when they could mass produce, become self-sustaining and feed my food chain.

Also, there's no runoff into other waters. You got to do some digging to find where they sell them, and find information on them. I can PM someone who's interested. I'm just not sure if it's worth the trouble to add them or not. They are not real expensive or anything, so you wouldn't be out much. I'll be the guinea pig and keep good records and let everyone know how it goes since I haven't heard much push back.

Most will think I'm crazy but I actually inoculated my mini-forage pond with snails. And yes I'm aware they have a parasitic stage. The main goal of the pond was to raise FHM's and fingerling RES. So for the RES to successfully spawn and grow it seemed important to me to have a good food source for them. So I took FA laced with snails and snail eggs along with some rocks with snails and eggs on them from my main pond and put it in my forage pond at first fill. My philosophy was all that would eventually end up in the pond anyway via birds or other vectors, so I was not putting anything in there that would not eventually be there anyway. Just giving it a head start to provide a food source before stocking the RES.

I've observed fingernail clams in a aquarium before. At first, not knowing any better, just thought they were "baby" mussels. After observing them a while and doing some research found out I actually likely had adults as they were smaller than the size of a dime. It is amazing how far their mussel comes out of the shell and would probe down in the aquarium gravel to find nutrients to eat. This could be easily observed if one of the clams ended up along the glass wall. Also interesting to watch them move around.

I would be interested to know more about them if you have additional information. They are common in the small seasonal creeks here. They may well be in the main streams also, but never looked there. The first ones I found was while netting crayfish with our grandkids. Some of the fingernail clams would come up in the net with the mud. I would be interested to know if they would be a good forage source in a pond for RES. It seems like they might.

My new pond (couple years old now) has some mussels 3-4" long. Don't know how they got there. A small seasonal creek is on the back side of the dam and I would bet the mussels are in there. So perhaps an animal could have brought them over. I suppose they could have brought there via host birds, but to get to the 4" size in less than two years? I did not think they grew that fast. Maybe tiny ones in water from the fish I stocked? But again, grow to 4" that quick? Found one dead one near the shore that a coon or something had ate. Thought maybe it had drug it from the creek. Then later found one in a few feet of water alive while scuba diving. That one was alive and healthy. Stuff gets "stocked" in ponds in ways I don't fully understand.

Snrub- I think that the snail thing is smart from the way I'm thinking now. (some will certainly disagree) The clams are definitely eaten by RES. As far as the mussels, I've learned that there a lot of different kinds of freshwater mussels that have various life cycles and can be good for your pond or horrible for it so if you are going to add them like me you better be sure which kind you are adding.

1 way they could be in your pond is they could have been attached to the gills of your fish, frogs, or salamanders that you added or came naturally to your pond. That is part of some of the life cycles of different mussel species.