Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait How many FH to start with?

Here's the plan. Grow FH behind netting this year for forage this winter. The pond has a finger that is now at full pool 4 to 5 feet deep, 3:1 slope on the sides. I plan on closing off an area that would be 50 feet by 90 feet. I plan on stocking the area as soon as I can get fish delivered (Jones Fish), and remove the netting towards the end of October and let the FH's take their chances in the rest of the pond this coming winter.

1) How many pallet piles should I put in that area, and how many pallets in a stack? Standard sized pallets, 40" or so square.

2) How many FH should I put in the area this Spring?

3) Since this area is just a small portion of the pond, is there anything else that I need to do to keep the FH's happy and doing their thing?

4) Would it do the FH's any harm to put in some 2" - 5" Golden Shiners in the same area? I wouldn't mind getting some large enough so when they are released in the Fall that they would make it thru the winter and start their own little broods next year.

Keep in mind that FHM spawn on the underside of hard objects. Males guard areas about 18" in diameter. If you use a 40" by 40" pallet, each pallet will allow two males to spawn as that is all that will be able to fit into each one due to territoriality.

Stacking pallets on top of each other will not add more spawning structure as fatheads only spawn under an object that is on the bottom, not vertical structure. If you can somehow divide the individual pallet rows, that may allow more FHM males to use each pallet as they won't be able to see each other.

If you can find old bricks throw bricks in about every 18" in 6" to 18" of water. A male fathead will spawn under each brick. Cinder blocks can be broken into smaller pieces and used in the same way.

I would say 10 lbs of fatheads will be more than enough. By fall if you place enough spawning structure, you're gonna have a lot of FHM in there.

If you feed them periodically you will certainly help them out. Just toss some fish feed in there by hand.

GSH will prey on FHM fry and perhaps the eggs, but mostly the fry and smaller FHM. Provide cover for the FHM fry to hide in and leave deeper areas of your finger open for the GSH to swim around in and you will be alright. In all likelihood they will spawn in your finger as well... I think the FHM will do fine with the GSH. The GSH will knock their numbers back a bit, but FHM spawn faster than rabbits breed so you should be OK.

Here are some ideas from the archive on structure. http://www.pondboss.com/forums/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=92463&fpart=1

I have used pallets and because of their structured design about 10 male FH will spawn under 1 pallet and there will be many females under it also. They tend not to be territorial unless they are in direct line of sight and near by. Same fro stacked pvc structure.

So, what I'm understanding is that they won't utilize any pallets that are stacked on top of each other, just the ones that are directly in contact with the bottom of the pond?

I could place the pallets 2 feet apart, covering the bottom of that area. If it would create more opportunity for them, I could stack them on top of each other as well. There is a pallet recycler <10 miles away and he has stacks and stacks of pallets that haven't been touched in years.

If I were to stack some pallets, would placing something between the pallets so the FH couldn't see the pallet above/below the one that they were inside help? I have some rolls of black weed block fabric that I won't be using..... I also could take 1" x 3"'s and slip them between the top and bottom of the pallets to make compartments.

Feeding them wouldn't be a problem. I live on the property and have a Stren feeder (that works) on the other side of the pond. Hand feeding every day would be easy.

ewest: Thanks. I plan on putting some of those FH shingles in the main pond, and also a black corregated drain pipe condo from 8" and 10" pipe that is leftover from the pond renovation. I also have about 20 pieces of 4" corregated drain pipe that are approx. 3' long as well.

They will use stacked pallets. It is because one pallet has 2 layers of boards that let more than just a few use it. But they need to be in shallow water so I think more than about 2 or 3 stacked is all you can do. Don't put them on the bottom - floating is better. One way is to stick a stake in the pond bottom in about 2-3 ft of water and put the pallet over the stake. Put them around the pond edge.

Thanks for the clarification. Got a plan now!

Well, the plan has changed. I just realized that the catalog that I was looking at (netting) is 3 years out of date and found out the cost of the netting has more than doubled (almost tripled).

So, I'm going to have to take the netting out of the plan, but install the pallets and see how the FH's like them.

The FH and GS were ordered today, with an estimated delivery time of 3 to 4 weeks.

Are they going straight into the pond? Are there other fish currently present in the pond?

cjbs2003:

Yes, unless someone has a better idea.

Pond had 50 6"-8" cc stocked in 2007 10 have been removed for dinner , 4 cc that are 24" long or bigger (found them when I transferred the fish from one side of the pond to the other and couldn't pick them up with one hand), roughly 300 BG 9" down to 4", 50 HBG 7"-8"(no more are going in and whatever is caught is coming out), and a small population of LMB from 14" down to 6", less than 30 counted. Due to the pond renovation last year, no spawning took place, and if it did, I seriously doubt that anything hatched.

I'm going to try and take out a good percentage of the larger CC this year (they are 16"-18" now), and hopefully build up the forage base this year before adding any more predators. I want to try and see how Tiliapa will do once the water warms up, maybe they will take care of the filamentous algae problem that would crop up every year when the pond was smaller. If they work, it would benefit 2 ways - no $ spent on chemical control and take some pressure off of the BG and other forage this year.

I'm open to any stocking or populaton adjustment suggestions. There is/are no aquatic plants growing in the pond, and before the renovation there was a small stand of cattails, yellow pond lilies and a small patch of Eurasian Water Milfoil. I tried my best to dig them all out with the excavator and move any of the soil that might have any of those problem plants away from the pond. I am aggressively adding structure this Spring.

The pond is roughly 1 3/4 ac in size, up to 15' deep, average 8', AquaPro 75 feeder (I'm switching from generic farm store food to Aquamax 500 this year), membrane type bottom aerator for summer.