Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Cecil envy

Would you believe that in the very, very coldest part of our winter I never measured my water temperature at under 51 degrees. It's currently 54. I'll let you know immediately what the reaction is.

At 54F the perch should be willing to feed at the surface. If they are not surface feeding, maybe try reducing the light intensity to almost dusk conditions. Also try softening the food and roll a few into small pea sized pieces and drop them into the tank as you stand back a little distance from the tank. Feeding fish will soon move higher in the water column to get food due to competition. I will send you the softening technique.

This evening, I managed to get perch and bgill to feed sparingly at the surface in water temps of 46F. Prespawn perch seem to be real hungry.

Thank you very much. I am opening and examining the attachment now.

I checked the tank yesterday, and let's just say "I wasn't thrilled". There were hundreds of floating and semi-floating pellets churning about the tank. It seems that my setting on the feeder, which had to be altered because of the slightly bigger pellets, was set incorrectly.

I cleaned the tank, reset the feeder, now I have to ascertain whether it's the fact they don't want the pellets, or that they were being vastly overfed. I reduced the setting by probably 60%. I'll keep reducing it until no pellets are present upon reinspection. I'm disappointed that I can't stock the bigger perch yet. The recreational pond is ready for them and is showing DO levels of over 10 ppm. Unfortunately, the 6-7 inch perch aren't carrying eggs evidently, so I can't really risk the stocking yet. I hope I don't have to wait another year! It's a miracle that I haven't been killing them. Some of the posts in other threads about big yellow perch are killing me. I want my Dad to be able to land some big ones by next fall.

I took four more YP out and placed them in the holding tank. Now I have 121 left.

It's nice to see an absentee landlord who cleans up messes made while he's away! :p

I'm glad the YP are all OK, Bruce - I got a little worried after reading the first couple of sentences.

Bruce,

There are seven (7) methods that can be used to sex a BG…….. as per March Pond Boss article.

And..... the only way to effectively sex a YP is by egg laden females?? Gotta be another way (cheap)?

To catch us up on your project once again; you are stocking YP females and male BG into your 1.25 ac. pond, correct?

Thanks,

Ed

Ed,

The end result of the perch growout tank is to provide approximately 50 females for the .15 acre pond on the north side of my property. I'm hoping that by injecting well water parallel to the surface that I will get an aerating/cooling/circulating effect necessary to keep the YP from croaking in the hot Nebraska summer.

Bruce :

Put on your traveling shoes or at least see if you can get the mateerial. You might even talk Bill or CB1 into going.

http://southcenters.osu.edu/aqua/perchschool06.htm

Announcing Perch School 2006 at OSU South Centers - Piketon
This course is sponsored in part by Ohio State Unversity



Saturday, April 8th, 2006, the aquaculture staff members at OSU Piketon – South Centers will hold a one-day Perch School training course. The course will focus on teaching production techniques used in yellow perch (Perca flavescens) brood stock conditioning, spawning, egg incubation, fry stocking and fertilization regimes for fry ponds, and feed training techniques. The full day will be spent in a combination of class-room style presentations in the morning, with several hands-on breakout sessions for participants in the afternoon. The course is geared towards those who currently have aquaculture experience and are looking to improve their current yellow perch production practices, as well as any individuals who have interest in aquaculture and want to learn more about these aquaculture techniques for egg and fry fish production.





Mr. Phil Kemp, Aqion-USA Sales Representative will be available to talk with participants. Aqion supplies fish feed ingredients, feed attractants, and specialty feeds (freeze-dried natural foods, spirulina, etc) to worldwide aquaculture markets.



1:00 – 5:00 pm Hands-on Sessions


- Sex determination, hormone calculation and injection.


- Registration by phone: Call Mrs. Charity Crabtree at OSU South Centers- Piketon. Phone numbers are (740) 289-2071, ext. 110, or 1-800-297-2072 (Ohio only). Questions about course content can be directed to Mr. Geoff Wallat, 740-289-2071, ext. 146.

ewest,

It says the deadline was the 20th.

You may find this hard to believe, but perch school came to Nebraska first. Trust me, nothing comes to Nebraska first. We had the Michigan people here for an all day perch seminar last winter. I was one of thirty or so in attendance.

That's all well and good, Bruce, but what can you use now as an excuse to go to lovely Pike County, Ohio? :rolleyes:

ealong59 I have never seen a seminar that would not let you register late or at least sell you the material. Just trying to get all you guys together for some fun.

Ewest, you beat all I've ever seen. Do you have a secret agency that emails you links about anything 'fishy'? Truly amazing!

Bruce, I just talked to Dave. I think you are going to have 50 females as quickly as you want them.

Ohhhhh my goodness what will happen to the RAS cannibal YP - are they doomed ? Will they take over the prospective RES location? Or Or Or heaven forbid will they go back in the hot tub.

The end game is here.

This weekend I decided to look at some of the fatter perch and discovered that the biggest ones, which were 7-7.75 inches were with eggs. They had really taken off the last few weeks as the water temperature came up into the low 60's. Here I thought they were fat because those were the ones eating all the pellets. Thirty fish with eggs, and another two bigger ones that were milting.

My goal achieved, I took the females and stocked them--their tails clipped so I can tell them from some females from a source about an hour from here. I have some pictures that I look forward to sharing. The males were fileted and eaten. This left 89 fish. 74 of these were placed in a holding tank for my partner, or anyone for that matter, to claim, maybe in exchange for two cases of Diet Mountain Dew. Beautiful feed trained yellow perch, of indeterminate sex waiting for a home. Probably almost all female, but risky if you were trying to have an all female pond.

The remaining 15 fish were left in the tank, aerator on, water inflow decreased to a tiny trickle. I disconnected the feeder and will hand feed these perch when I'm at the farm and see what happens. I want the water to warm significantly, hence the decreased water flow, so as to evaluate the upper limits of survival and growth. These fish are expendable, but I'd like to see them live. They were the fifteen biggest ones that I couldn't tell their sex, ranging from 5-8 inches. It was phenomenal how fast they grew once the water temp jumped up and the solar heating began to permeate the room due to the longer days.

I've really appreciated all the help from everyone, but now Cecil Envy is Cecil Endy.

If anyone is interested I'll start another thread to document the trevails of these fifteen perch, and my transition to bluegill and redears for next winter.

Bruce

Bruce, it has been a remarkable journey, I'm sure for you and for we that take pride in that those little eggs are partially ours. Dont dare leave us hanging now. Continue the updates. Thanks for all the detailed progress of your po boys RAS experiment. It was a huge success.

Please keep us posted as our little ones go off to the pond (they still have a story to tell). Start a new thread on the RES/BG and continue here on the fab. 15.

Lovey: I don't know how we're going to explain to our friends that we
spent several years with fish who aren't even in the social
register.

So far my yellow perch that have been released in the horizontal aeration pond (Coulee), have been thriving. They voraciously consume pellets and some are as big as 8.5 inches.

My water temperatures are 71.5 F. and rising. I'm adding 16 gpm of well water to buffer, but I know at some point I'm going to have to crank the well up to keep the perch from dying.

Does anyone know at what point a yellow perch starts to stress, and then die, as far as water temps are concerned??

Cecil??? Hint, hint....

See http://aquanic.org/publicat/state/il-in/as-495.htm

Another study showed growth to 25C or 77F. One source showed upper range 30C or 86F. One study showed the 2 common methods of measuring energetics in YP showed skewed results (aka something going on wrt growth and energy use) starting at 22C.

I think you have this study.

Field Test of Two Energetic Models for Yellow Perch

Any indication of temp sensitivity differences with different sized YP, like large HSB stressing in warm water more than small ones?

Just a little bump to get closer to 300 posts.
Bruce, how dare you put your dirty fingers in our little YP's mouth!

Just for you Bruce - go to page 3 and top of 4 for info - can't copy to here it is encrypted.

http://ag.ansc.purdue.edu/aquanic/ncrac/fprojects/proout/Grant2/PP1/YPpro.pdf