Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations For those of you that have yellow perch

I'm still pulling up egg strands in my all female perch pond (except for maybe that one male &^%$#$#@). However in the other pond where I planted about 20 females and 40 males to produce a few fertilized ribbons the egg production stopped several weeks ago.

I'm thinking since the females may not have any males or that lone male, they are holding on to their eggs longer?

Thoughts?

BTW as far as I can tell NONE of the egg ribbons I'm finding in the all female pond are fertilized. I'm hoping Mr. Male died from a fungus infection just as did about 20 percent of his brothers in the cage due to excessive handling.

In my all female perch pond I'm still seeing new ribbons each day.

Interesting.

My first ribbons were found on April 15 and 16. Then it was quiet for two weeks. One lone new ribbon found April 30. The first ribbons broke up after about 10 days.

I have no idea how to tell if they have been fertilized. Anyone care to share???

Chuck

I don't know the answer, Cecil. However, you have an interesting hypothesis. It certainly is feasible.

The excessive rains that the midwest received have left my water extremely turbid. I doubt that I have much more than 12" of visibility. My perch are 2 years old right now. There are plenty of submerged reeds and grasses around the perimteter of the pond, so I gotta guess that they would use them to hang egg strands...? I have not spent significant time examining the entire shoreline, but I have tried to peer into the murky waters to see if I can identify any egg strands in vegetated areas. I can't see a thing.

I'm sure YOY YP would be readily apparent later this year.

If the eggs weren't fertilized you will see white specks in the egg mass where the material is dead. This also happens if the egg dies for whatever reason.

Even earlier if you use a light to attract them. They are "phototactic postive" (strongly attracted to light) until they reach about 1 1/2 inches at which time they become "photoneutral." Lights are used to attract the fry and will aid in feed training.

Here is an interesting article on the subject and even shows how to harvest them using light.

http://www.fws.gov/midwest/ashland/mtan/mtan_14.html#Using%20Light%20to%20Harvest%20Fingerlings


I will be setting up some lights very soon in my perch production pond to see if I have had any success at producing fry. If some show up I will be attempting to get them started on krill powder and starter mash.

When yellow perch eggs are laid in turbid water from suspended sediment expect low hatching success of eggs due to excessive amounts of silt/clay settling on the eggs in the strand and reducing oxygen absorption to the embryo which in these cases usually suffocates.

No new egg strands the last couple of days. I think the reason they were so late is because the perch were kept in tanks all winter, then transferred to my Dad's pond when we were already in April. This probably threw the females off a little bit.