Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Clams for forage...

Yeah, I think if you have a pond with a healthy RES population, they will keep the clam numbers down.

My plans right now for the 1/3 acre pond are 100 RES of both sexes, 20 male BG, 10 SMB stocked per year, as I doubt there will be any natural reproduction(all mud/clay bottom), and 5 HSB per year along with my special potion of forage fish. My goal is to grow some huge RES and some decent sized BG along with the occasional nice SMB and HSB. So hopefully the only fish naturally reproducing will be the RES and forage fish.

What kind of special potion are you going to use? They will be the key to the entire "cycle". The Res won't produce enough offspring to influence anything and the occasional decent SMB and/or HSB will be hard to come by without 4 to 6 inch groceries.

Absolute gender identification of BG would be a slippery slope for me. They would have to be larger for a positive ID and even then....

I would be VERY cautious about purposely adding any kind of snail, clam or other mollusk. I don't want to stock anything that attaches itself as a parasitic fluke to a fish. Caution: What I don't know about RES would fill a much larger book than what I do know. Likewise on clams and snails.

Do redears actually NEED things with shells or will/can they thrive on a fish diet alone? I see snails and other hard backed thingies as something that redears can help control but not really need as part of their daily bread. Give me some help here.

I see the addition of mollusk type life forms as a potential for harm to the well being of the entire fish population. Elimination of them can be pretty questionable if it doesn't work.

If it is an experiment and you acknowledge the present and future potential for damage to the pond and all area ponds then have at it. I don't believe that birds introduce fish but do know that they introduce parasites to area water holes.

The Asian clam I am considering adding does not have a larval stage that attaches itself to fish like our native mussels do. So that is not a worry of mine. I realize the risk and if the clams do something haywire, well life will go on. Many of the ponds and lakes around here have them already and they are doing just fine.

The pond already has two species of snail, which I am sure the RES will enjoy once they are stocked. I am sure RES will eat zooplankton, other larger invertebrates such as the grass shrimp I am stocking next month and to an extent small forage fish. Without heavy BG competition, they may use more of the "softer" food sources.

I am very familiar with BG and how to sex them. I have a source of healthy adult fish to select from.

Last year I stocked bluntnose minnows, golden, spotfin, satinfin and spottail shiners, banded killifish, tessellated darters, eastern mudminnows and creek chubsuckers.

This year as I source more of the above I hope to add them. I also am trying source some inland silversides and if Overton's has a good spawn, in the next year or so I hope to obtain some lake chubsuckers to work with.

I am sure a few of these forage fish won't take hold or will be eaten to extirpation once the predators are added, but with all of last year to spawn and all of this year to spawn I think I am giving them a good chance. The RES maybe added this year, but I am thinking of holding off until next year to add them to give the grass shrimp a full year to get established and if I do go with the clams the same deal...

The low numbers of non reproducing SMB and HSB shouldn't pressure my forage nearly as much as numerous juvenile SMB being born every year.

My biggest concern is if my RES and BG hybridize and then cross back to produce female BG. That and the darn otter I have been seeing lately!

In the end this pond is a giant forage base experiment to "practice" with for a future larger more diverse pond.

I'm not familiar with any of your forage concoction. How large do they get? I'm referring to the suitability of proper sized forage for the SMB and HSB.

You should gone to Medical school. That way you could consider everything you do as practice.

Sounds like an interesting experiment and lots of fun.

All are roughly the same size as FHM, maybe an inch or two larger so maybe 5" tops. Except for of course the golden shiners and the creek chubsuckers which are about the same size maxing out around 10-12".

I think RES do just fine without mollusks as long as other slow-moving and bottom-dwelling forage is plentiful. If their preferred mollusks and insect larvae are scarce, the downward gazing eyes of the RES may put them at a disadvantage. That's just an educated guess.

Bill, from the Global Invasive Species Database:

Ecologically, C. fluminea can outcompete many native clam species for food and space (PNNL 2003). The introduction of C. fluminea into the United States has resulted in the clogging of water intake pipes, affecting power, water, and other industries. Nuclear service water systems (for fire protection) are very vulnerable, jeopardising fire protection. In 1980, the costs of correcting this problem were estimated at 1 billion dollars annually. C. fluminea causes these problems because juveniles are weak-swimmers, and consequently they are pushed to the bottom of the water column where intake pipes are usually placed. They are pulled inside the intakes, where they attach, breed, and die. The intake pipe become clogged with live clams, empty shells, and dead body tissues. Buoyant, dead clams can also clog intake screens.

Would this relate to pipes used in water level management systems people use in their ponds?

Also, from the Global Invasive Species Database:

C. fluminea is found in lakes and streams of all sizes with silt, mud, sand, and gravel substrate (INHS 1996). They can tolerate salinities of up to 13 ppt for short periods (Aguirre and Poss 1999) and temperatures between 2 and 30 degrees Celsius, or 86 degrees Fahrenheit, (Balcom 1994). It prefers fine, clean sand, clay, and coarse sand substrates (Aguirre and Poss 1999). It is usually found in moving water because it requires high levels of dissolved oxygen. C. fluminea is generally intolerant of pollution.

It mentions how it usually found in moving water because it requires high levels of DO. I have also found them in several small reservoirs. Might this requirement of high DO, help keep the population in check or perhaps preclude it from establishment in the pond I am thinking about adding them to?

Now we know a little more of the story. Thanks for finding that bit of info. I forgot about these clams floating when dead. Limiting disolved oxygen conditions of the sediments will depend primarily on the tolerance levels of the species and condition or features of the sediments. Water depth and pond morpology will also have an influnce. Numerous variables. Any info on that lower DO tolerance topic available? Surface or subsurface sediments often have DO levels droping to 0-1ppm - depending.

Presence of weak swimming juveniles could result in them colonizing pond intake structures depending more variables.

It's all the more info I could dig up, and I have been digging! I will have to take a picture of the overflow pipe this pond has, but I don't think these clams could cause an issue with it. I think I will add the clams. Either they will not take hold because of low DO issues, they will flourish a little too much and make a mess, or they will help grow some huge RES. Won't know til I try it...

I would like to see some data or studies for RES stocked with Corbicula. IMO Corbicula have too thick of shell for optimum foraging by RES. IMO a thin shelled snail would be better in several ways or just as good a Corbicula. Many individuals of Corbicula in a mixed population are too large (0.5"-1.2") for consumption by RES.

I can't find any studies. Just anecdotal evidence, such as the two world record RES were caught out of Santee Cooper a few years after the clams found there way in there and many local fisherman said it was the clams that caused the boom in RES sizes. My pond will no doubt me an experiment. If I see good results maybe I can catch a few and see if we can't do a food study on them...

"Boom" in RES sizes if true and due to Corbicula, then IMO it was due to the new or initial colonization population growth phase of Corbicula which resulted in a very high percentage or proportion of small individuals for a few years. Once the population stabilized and a big percentage of the population became adults the numbers (%) of small sized calms droped dramatically and growth of RES leveled out and is now probably back to normal growth rates.

That might be the case... I guess I'll find out as I am gonna give it a go.

They didn't actually come out of Santee Cooper did they? I thought it was a channel between Sante Cooper and another body of water.

CJ:

With the negetatives that are being brought to light about the Corbicula fluminea, what makes them a better choice over the native fingernail clam? I'm probably missing something here, but in my mind, the fingernail will still be a food source even at the adult stage, where the Asian will be too large.

What did I miss??

Cecil, it was a navigation channel as I recall...

I am not sure I can find a source for the native fingernail clam. I am definitely going to give it a hard look this year... If anyone has fingernail clams in there pond, let me know and send them my way! I have seen them before in the area, just a matter of finding them again and collecting them. The Asian clam is all over the place, no problem finding it...