Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Hybrid blues

I've got a population of 1 to 4 pound channel cats. In May I added 350 6 inch hybrid blues to my big tank and put a hundred in a small 2500 square foot ( but very deep ) tank. There grown to about 10 to 12 inches. I feed daily in warm weather. I've been told the hybrids well grow quite rapidly in their second year. What would be realistic expetations?

It sounds like you are going to have a lot of catfish on your hands. What type of tank, size, depth, what other fish, do you have ? What are your plans for the fish, and the tank ?

Hope you are monitoring the water quality, especially when the weather warms up. That is equivalent of putting approximately 1,700 in a one ac pond.

Big pond is about 11/2 acres x 10 feet Deep when full.
Small pond is about 2500 square feet by 16 feet Deep.
Too many fish?
They appear healthy
I am having a problem with green sunfish and pollywogs (Mudcat) was going to get to that. Like I said in intro I have lots of questions , trying not to ask to many at once

That was in reference to the small pond.

If the pond is not aerated, I would be leery of having more than couple hundred pounds per surface acre (maybe 400# max of all fish species combined)

Water quality issues is a large umbrella. That could be low O2 levels when the water gets warm, algae, etc., etc.

The small pond is roughly 1/17th acre.

Understood, my plan was to harvest a good amount of fish from big pond this spring and then restock from small pond. Restock the small pond with fingerlings. Basically using the small pond to grow fingerlings big enough to be somewhat safe from bigger fish in main pond. Does that sound reasonable?

Sounds like a reasonable plan. Just keep an eye on the small pond, if you see fish gulping air at the surface, have something available to really stir up the top of the water to get O2 in there or the fish could die within a few hours, or less.

Fence, I don't feel at all good bout that many cats in a `1/17 acre. IMO, you risk a fish kill over 40 or 50. And, I'm being generous with that #.

If I understand the plan, you will be removing the 100 hybrid blues (HBC) from the small pond this spring and moving them to the big pond to replace the ones you are going to harvest from it. Good move IMO. Do you have green sunfish (GSF) and mudcats (BH) in the small pond? If so, IMO that would be a good time to go ahead and drain it down some and kill off those unwanted fish. (How did they get in there in the first place?) Then you could restock 2 to 4 inch HBC in the small pond and grow them out to the 10 to 12 inch size again. I agree with everybody else, aeration would be a big help and maybe reduce the number some.

Welcome to PBF!

Yes sir that's my plan exactly. The fish did quit eating good during the middle of summer. But I caught and released several back a couple of weeks ago. They were fat and healthy and larger than the same stocking in big pond. I kinda suspect they started feeding on the clouds of mudcat fry that showed up at the same time.
Somebody please tell me were the green sunfish and polywogs come from. My.place is basically hilltop. Ponds are filled from water diverted off my pastures, not creeks or draws. I'm.sure everyone's heard the bird theory. True?
They get there some.how

The bird theory is just that: Theory. The odds against it working are larger the recent Power Ball odds. The best bet is from a hatchery that just doesn't do its job.

That said; gambusia and fatheads wind up in places that make no sense.

GSF will swim in 1" of water, and swim a LONG ways from where they are. I've seen them show up a good 1/4 mile from where they were, all because of some flooded ground during a large storm.

I'll comment a little differently here...more from a production pond perspective.

1700 cats per acre is not all that dense for a catfish production pond, but I do agree that without aeration or surface agitation, once water temps go over 90, there will be a low dissolved oxygen issue.

I'm actually more surprised that hardly any 6" hybrids survived predation with 2-4 pound cats present.

All the fish mentioned, BH, CC HBC and GSF are all pretty tolerant of low DO and other crappy (technical term) water quality issues

There is a study where GSF were observed jumping 20 ft into an inlet pipe to get to new water up stream.

Did you actually hand stock and examine all the CC and HBC?. Ideally,,, stocked fish should be introduced by small netfulls to search for unwanted tag-along species if unwanteds are a concern. Very often tag-along fish and critters are present in fish stockings depending on the fish farm. Others are providing good advice, have accessory splasher aeration available especially in the small deep heavily stocked pond in the summer when temps are high and when cloudy days & cold fronts with rain are occurring. As the fish grow the ever increasing body biomass causes water quality to deteriorate much quicker. Often most of the water quality issues are apparent at sunrise or during mornings.

Rex, CC are the first thing I see die here in a low DO situation. Not sure about bullhead or crappie.

GSF and fatheads could stay alive in a dust bowl.