Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations YEAR 2 SUGGESTIONS?

I started my 1 1/2 acre Florida pond in July of 2004 with 500 minnows, 500 shinners and 200 brim. There were no fish in the pond prior to that time. Then on November 12th, 2004 I added 200 5" - 7" Florida LMB. I am happy to report that I have recently caught LMB as large as 15 1/2" and weighing up to 2lbs. My question is what do I do now?
I'm guessing that things are going well but I can't really be sure. I try and throw bread each night for the brim and they are like Pirana going after it. I have placed a fountain in the middle of the pond for aerating and there is some cover from trees and some lily pads. The bass look beautiful in color and I'm very happy with their increase in length and weight. Please understand, I am by no means complaining (in fact I am thrilled) but being that it is my one year anniversary of adding the LMB, I was looking at doing something special for my pond.

I plan on sinking 5-7 Christmas trees this January to add additonal cover to the pond.

Was wondering if I shouldn't add more shinners or minnows to the pond or maybe a feeder.

Does anyone have any suggestions for me? Thank you in advance for your suggestions.

Beech

Beech5,

Congrats on the results thus far. One thing I would suggest is to get a bunch more BG, preferrably CNBG and maybe add in some RES. The minnows and shiners have sustained the LMB, so far, but you will need more BG as time goes forward. You could easily add 800 CNBG and 200 RES. At this point with your bass hitting 15.5 inches, you may want to find larger BG in the 6 inch range to avoid predation by the LMB.

If you want to really charge up the growth of the LMB consider stocking 10 to 20 pounds of Tilapia next spring. Depending on what part of Florida your pond is in, they may or may not survive overwintering, but their contributions are nonetheless spectacular. Nothing I know of provides the forage and pond cleaning services like Tilapia.

B5:

I agree RES and more BG would be a good addition.

ML:

Have we seen any Tilapia results from anywhere in the US (or any LMB-BG type ecology) that was warm enough for them to over-Winter? I am wondering (based partially on Rad's experiences in Thailand) if they could be too much of a good thing without the Winter die-off.

I agree about the absolute need for more BG. You will soon have a forage problem.

I would also stock the tilapia if your winter(?) water temps will kill them. They should take the pressure off your other forage base long enough to get them in good shape. They give the bass other choices and toys to play with.

I also think you stocked a little bit bass heavy. You need to get some of them out to let the bigger ones grow and to take pressure off the forage base. It's always a matter of balance.

Beech5 asked in a PM (please excuse me taking public, but these are all good questions and I can't answer them alone):

B5, let me tackle these and pass the harder ones on for more information from others.

(1) [NOTE: Most of us here are "guilty" of using a lot of short hand for commonly discussed terms. Please forgive us as we explain what they mean.] Yes, "BG" is bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus), also known as brim in FLA ("Freakin' Lower Alabama", a friend of mine from Coral Gables calls it) or bream elsewhere. "RES" is Redear Sunfish (Lepomis microlophus), which can grow larger than BG, are fond of eating snails (with the side effect of reducing fish parasites in your pond), and don't spawn as much as BG. "CNBG" are Copper-Nose Bluegill, a sub-species native to FLA which are usually considered superior to "regular" BG in warm waters. Since your BG were caught locally, they may be CNBG. One identifying characteristic of CNBG is a copper-colored band across the snout area.

(2) Tilapia (wrt pond management) are several related species from the Cichlid family (roughly the tropical equivalent of the Centrarchidae family we know best due to BG, Largemouth Bass ("LMB"), Crappies, and other common North American fish). Tilapia grow fast, spawn heavily, and are perhaps the most ferocious eater of Filamentous Algae ("FA") known to Pondmeisters. But since they are tropical, they can't live in cooler waters. Mozambique Tilapia (perhaps the most commonly discussed and utilized here) die off when water temperatures cool down to about 55 degrees F. Other Tilapia species may be available in some locations , and each has their own limiting lower water temperature. "The other guy" (aka my good friend Meadowlark) has been described as "The Patron Saint of Tilapia" (he even used that as his signature for a while, but the SOB who coined the phrase was making him pay a royalty on it so he stopped. I really miss the extra money.) and there are many threads with much info on Tilapia which you can search for using ML's name as one parameter.

Since Tilapia are so prolific, DD and I would both recommend them IF your Winter water temps will kill them. I personally do not have enough info on long term warm water Tilapia interaction and effects in a BG/LMB pond to endorse them if they would live year round in your water (not saying they would be bad, saying I just don't know). Many of us would be really interested in finding out what those long-term results are, if you want to be a Guinea Pig (with only one pond, I wouldn't do it). I can easily see a Pond Boss Magazine article coming out of such an experiment.

(3) I would guess that any diseases that could be introduced by bringing BG from that particular body of water are already in your pond. Whether to stock wild fish or not (due to the possibility of disease and parasites) has been discussed many times. I think the consensus answer here would probably be "don't transfer any fish that look or act sick, and be aware that you COULD bring in problems this way." But there are certainly benefits to this approach (lower cost, genetic diversity, fish adapted to your local climate) which are in it's favor.

Like I said, I think these are all good intermediate questions which deserve open discussion, so I hope you don't mind me posting them openly.

-Theo

Theo, if you are asking about posts on this Forum, the only person I know of that has reported Tilapia overwintering is Texas715...and he has not mentioned any negatives, that I recall. Casca believes his Tilapia may overwinter this year, but outside of them I'm not aware of any other Forum reports of overwintering Tilapia.

Three years ago, when considering Tilapia, I did fairly extensive research on them. Other than the occasional ad hoc negative from someone who had never stocked them, the only hint of a negative I found were reports regarding overwintering Tilapia on LMB lakes in Mexico. These reports agreed, anecdotally, that lakes that had extensive commercial netting of Tilapia experienced higher recruitment of LMB. The causal theory was not related to overpopulation of Tilapia, rather it was that larger, more mature Tilapia may feed on eggs and/or small fish fry. Presumably, commercial netting removed these larger, more mature Tilapia.

About five years ago, my wife and I were in Hawaii. While we were on Kauai, we took a half day Bass/Peacock Bass fishing charter on an inland reservoir.

The guide described the body of water to us. As the water was fairly clear, you could see that there was no vegetation whatsoever. The guide said that this was because tilapia were introduced and because there was not enough predators to eat them, they basically took over.

Every once in a while, you would see a school of tilapia in the 3-5 lb. range zipping past.

I would suppose that there was no winter kill-off for the tilapia there.

We only caught one LMB and a few peacock bass with none over 5 lbs.

I have no clue as to whether the tilapia were "good" or "bad" for that body of water.

There was a good amount of rubbish dumped around the shores of the reservoir (supposedly by the locals). I was not too impressed with the whole thing.

Theo :

I think you did very well on those questions!! A few points. In central Fla. you would see mostly Fla. strain BG which are CNBG. They often have light (white/gray) pencil striped outlines on their fins/tails when small. I would also use tilapia (except it is not allowed in Miss.) if the water temp. got cold enough to kill them in winter. Many pond managers not on this forum use and recommend them and have written articles about the results. Florida is one of the most restrictive states on exotic species ( green sunfish GSF for example ) but I don't know there stance on tilapia. I will check. Brim are generally said to include all the lepomis varities-- BG, RE=RES , GSF , PS , RBS , LES. See the link under sunfish for pics. = most all except the basses and crappie

http://www.cnr.vt.edu/efish/families/centrarchidae.html

My best suggestion is to learn to do lake population surveys by using a seine in conjunction with catch data and viewing . It is fun and interesting and you will learn a lot. If you need info on this repost and I can give you a link. ewest

Beech5 - What are the goals for the largemouth bass in your pond?. Good numbers of all sizes 1 to 5or6 lbs which would mean only a very few above 8-9 pounds; or do you want numerous really big bass above 8 lbs? Numerous really big bass would probably be 8 - 12 bass above 8 lbs in 1.5 acre. You can't have it both ways- go for numerous mid sises or several in the trophy class. You chose and we can help with advice to then manage for your goal.

On adding more bluegills. Since you are probably not a fish nerd and do not know the differences among the several species of sunfishes, I would not transport anymore sunfish into your pond unless you absolutly know what they are. You can easily get unwanted and troublesome sunfishes and hybrids introduced into your pond by adding hook and line fish. The longer a fish lives in the wild the better chance it has to becomming a host to some sort of internal or external parasite of which many are not obvious to the trained and untrained person. For no more fish than you are talking about adding, if at all possible I would go to a reputable fish hatchery and buy a known species for you pond. The risk is yours - you chose.

Golden shiners are common in FL and often used for bait for the trophy bass in many of the FL lakes. Adding more of them would be okay. You should try to establish a group of resident breeding shiners in your pond. Weed cover will help perpetuate the adult breeders so all of them are not fish food.

The cover will serve as fish attractors where angling success will usually be better.

I suggest stop feeding bread and switch to feeding fish food. Look for a brand with 32% or higher percentage of protein. Your bluegills, shiners and tilapia will grow better on protein food compared to carbohydrate bread. Redear sunfish will not eat bread or fish pellets. You will likely only see them when they are spawing in the shallows. Catch them with live bait and they will grow to 12"-13" long. Harvest a few 50-80 brim, tilapia and sunfish each year for good eating.

Decide on the bass goal and we can provide more advice on that part.

Beech,

Looking back at your original post, I see we didn't answer the above portion of your questions.

Adding more minnows is generally just an expensive snack for the LMB, once they reach the sizes you report. That is why we recommend adding CNBG , coppernosed blue gill, now because they will grow to sizes to support LMB of all different sizes and will reproduce in sufficient amounts to be self-sustaining.

The other part of your question addressed feeding...remember I mentioned to you in a PM that you may get many different answers to the same question. . Feeding is one of those questions.

Feeding....it depends on your objectives for your pond. If you enjoy watching the fish come to the feeders, if you want to raise generally larger BG and in turn larger LMB, then feeding may be an option for you....but you should consider high protein feed and not bread which adds little to the fish condition.

Personally, I prefer either limited feeding or no artificial feeding. I want a natural self-sustaining environment in my ponds. I want fish that are aggressive and that have to fend for themselves. I want to avoid the use of any chemicals, if at all possible. I want natural balance...in the both the water and fish. Of necessity, I feed in one pond out of four, because that pond has HSB(hybrid striped bass), a fish that vigorously responds to artificial feeding.

If you are happy with your results and you are not targeting trophy LMB. and just want a high quality fishery, without intensive management, then I'd suggest you think very hard before committing to an artificial feeding program.

First of all I would like to thank everyone who took the time to answer my question. I had no idea that within 3 hours I would have 2 responses and 6 within 24 hours.
I have contacted a local hatchery and been told they only supply 1" and 2" CNBG (and now I know what that means) and that they will not have those until next spring. He thought I was crazy to tinker with my pond at all if I was catching 16" LMB that weigh up to 2lbs already. He suggested I speak with the local wildlife commission and get their take on my situation. I have contacted them and they are out till Friday. I will let everyone know what they have to say.
What I am doing now is going over to my large lake and catching CNBG and RES. All I have to do is put a piece of bread on a small hook and it gets hit immediately (making me wonder if the lakes BG/RES population is out of control). Last night in 30 minutes I was able to catch 7 6" to 8" BG/RES. I will keep adding them to my pond until I get around 100 to see how the pond and the LMB respond.
One response I received asked "what my goal" was with my pond. I'm not looking to raise the biggest LMB or trying to set any records. My goal is a pond that provides me and my family a fun fishing experience and an occasional 8lb to 10lb LMB would be heaven.

Thanks again for all of your responses.

Beech

Beech5 - I sounds like you want a general fishing pond with a balance of all sizes of bass and panfish. If so, do not harvest any bass until the first hatch of bass is large enough to spawn. In FL this may be three years after your first bass stocking. Example: I assume that your 2004 fall stock of 5"-7" bass were not quite big enough and did not spawn this spring in Feb-March of 2005. So your first bass spawn will be spring 2006. This 2006 bass hatch if not too crowded will have a long growing season and grow fast (9"-12") to probably spawn in spring of 2007. In 2007 you can start to remove some fish for eating. If your bass spawned this spring by current evidence of 4"-6" bass, then bass harvest should begin in 2006.

Harvest rates. This can vary depending on how fertile your water or pond is. The general rule is to remove 5 lbs to 10 lbs of brim for every pound of bass. I like to error of the low side of 5 lbs of brim for every 1 lb of bass.

The main variable that you control is feeding the fish. Feeding the fish will produce more fish to allow a larger fish harvest. Another variable is water clarity. If your water is naturally clear (visibility or transparency of 3 to 6 ft then the pond will naturally produce about 2-3 times fewer fish. Certain areas of FL have natural deposits of phosphorus and ponds are fertile with greenish water. Visibility in these ponds is low - abt 2ft or less. Fertile ponds and greenish water grow more fish pounds per acre.

A beginning harvest rate for you can be 30-40 pounds of brim and 4 lbs of bass per ACRE. Remember to decrease this about 2X or 3X if your water is clear or you do not feed the fish a protein pelleted food.

You should keep in mind that if you do not harvest any fish the numbers will naturally and gradually increase to a point where it will become out of balance fish wise. The fish growth will start to slow down due to crowding (too many survivors). What ever species is able to do best in your pond, it will have the best survival rate then the other species will gradually decline. This will cause a unbalanced situation and the quality of the overall fishery will decrease. The overabundant species as a group will tend to get skinnier. These fish are telling you thay are too abundant and some should be removed. As a pond owner you have to monitor the fish's general body condition and densities. When necessary you need to adjust the numbers to maintain the proper balance to meet your goals.

Is there a way that you can send me a digital picture or post a picture of the fish (BG?/RES)that you are catching from the local lake. I want to be sure of the type (species) of fish you are adding to your pond. This could affect the numbers of offspring that are available to be harvested and to feed your bass. If you can get a picture, take it of 3 to 5 fish and fairly close up so I can clearly see the fish. Include as little background in the photo as possible. I am not interested in background, just fish.

BC:

Good advice. You noted I was happily surprised this year to see my first Bass spawn outgrow the original stockers over an equivalent timeframe. From May - Oct 2003 my original LMB stock went from 3"-4" to a max of 8". In contrast, the largest 2005 YOY LMB went from zero to a max of 7.5" by last month.

Would the explanation for this excellent first spawn growth be the extremely numerous forage fish in every assorted small size they need to eat vs. the more limited forage fish size & number availability in a newer pond? I assume the first LMB spawn may also do better than subsequent years due to lower numbers of spawning bass resulting in lower numbers of LMB fry, in addition to no competition from other year classes.

Beech5:

Please post pictures of your brim as Bill noted if possible. We love to play "ID that fish" here and it is usually a learning experience for many of us.

I will attempt to get some pictures of the CNBG and RES this weekend. Not sure how I would post them but it should be no problem emailing them to you.

Thanks again,

Beech

Bill and Theo :

Bill that was one of the best short explanations of pond balance I have ever read. Thanks. I would be interested in your answer to Theo's question wrt the first 2+ years of pond growth.

Theo interesting question !! I understand that the first 2 years of a pond's life (or renovated life) are its most productive for growth rates of all the various pond critters and that it works up the food chain in year 3+. I also know that there are a number of factors which effect the size and quality of each LMB year class. For example , forage of right size and amount, water quality, weather, condition of brood stock over the preceeding year ( related to but not the same as forage base) and I am sure others. There are also factors subsequent to the spawn which have an effect like weather , competition , predation etc. For example if you have a large spawn in numbers but heavy predation by say LMB, BG, shiners ,YP etc. then at spawn + 6 mths you may have a small in # but great conditioned (less competition among them for food and space) year class which have exibited a high growth rate. With all the possible factors and situations wrt this question it may get as complicated as lepomis genetics. I will be looking forward to Bill's or anyone elses thoughts or ideas on how all this fits together. Great question!!! ewest

quickly if you decide you need 4-5 inch bluegill you can try Dave Waylen 386-935-0473. He is out of Gainesville and I have to warn you he is a strange dude but he did have some big bluegill.

I think the faster growing 2005 YOY LMB in Theo’s pond did indeed have more and better sizes of forage than the original stocked fingerling LMB who are now adults. Abundance of small forage could have been enhanced for the first spawn due to the original stocking of LMB (parents) which were currently larger and selectively preying larger sizes of forage items and essentially ignoring the smallest prey. This behavior helped cause higher densites of smaller prey fish.

Depending on survival, subsequent LMB spawns will have competition from other year classes and future spawns will likely grow at a slower rate. As the density of small bass (less than 13”) increases they will likey be forced to feed on the less than desirable smaller fish, including small bass, due to lack of optimum sized prey. This is a common occurrence in ponds with too many bass. As the density of small bass increases it puts a very high amount of predatory pressure on the forage base. In many instances the forage base, especially low diversity forage bases, cannot maintain its abundance under heavy predtion pressure. Heavy thinning of each year class of young bass helps overall growth of younger bass.

Question about the tilapia. I just read this post over on the mississippi farm pond forum and was wondering what other states are taking the same stance on tilapia?

I'm not sure what native fish they say are getting outcompeted. Tilapia are basically a filter feeder so I guess they are talking about fecundity. Now, that might be possible in Southern Miss. but in Northern Miss. they wouldn't survive the winters. It sounds like a "one size fits all" law.

I guess they could be talking about predators switching over to tilapia instead of eating other forage fish and getting the predator/prey relationship out of balance. That might make sense.

Texas sorta regulates Grass Carp. You have to get a permit and the TPWD makes a phone call and asks if you are sure they can't get out of the pond. The TPWD has stocked tilapia in several power plant lakes where they overwinter. I'm not aware of any problems but I don't keep up with that kind of stuff.

I think Dennis's comparison to the Snakehead is a little over the top.

Comparing Tilapia to Kudzu and fire ants shows complete ignorance on the part of that poster. Where's the proof? Where's the research that support those conclusions?

On the other hand, testimonials now abound from Texas farm pond owners who have stocked them. A threat to outcompete BG...throw any kind of bait in a pond with BG and Tilapia and the BG will get to it first everytime. In every pond, in every season, in which I have stocked Tilapia the BG have IMPROVED.

Someone should invite Dennis to this Forum. I'd sure like to understand his position and the proof he has to support it. How about it, Burger or somone who frequents that forum, invite him to post and show his proof.

ML- you think Dennis' response is bad you should see what GA DNR say about Tilapia. It is a predictable stance from state gov't. Surprised by his attitude they even allow stocking in the state. Here in GA you can not even raise them for aquaculture in a pond. Has to be in indoor reciruclatin system only. LIke I said before if legal in GA I would be stocking the heck of 'em.

Where does that come from Greg? What data are those states basing those positions on? Just curious.

The TP&W has top notch fish biologists on their staff who have thoroughly researched this question and they even recommend stocking them in lakes in which the Tilapia overwinter. Must be something else at work here...politics perhaps?

p.s. could they be answering to lobbying from large catfish growers trying to protect their interests?

ML, it is fairly simple...tiliapia are exotic species. Many states restrict use of exotics more than others. Florida has so many already in their waters you can stock about anything you want. Alabama is pretty laid back as well. Maine will not even allow bluegill b/c not native to that state. I guess comes from past/current politics. Texas has led the way it seems on many cutting edge ideas.

I have discussed this at lengths with DNR and they said no way no how are they ever going to allow their sotcking in a sportfish pond. Here I have to buy a $236 license to sell grass carp. Bama you can use diploids much cheaper and no extra license. Some others states require even larger paper trail for them with permits required for every stocking.

IN some ways I understand the concern in general over exotic introductions. However when research like you mention is there to support it be a little more open minded about it. GA does have some coastal areas where tiliapia might ovewinter but no way in North GA. I will keep asking/buggin them and maybe on day we too can brag of improved bass growth from tilapia.

I think most of the hoo rah over tilapia is because it's easier and less risky (politically) for the poiticians to restrict species than to do research on their compatibility.

Many mistakes have been made, horror stories abound, and the politicians are pretty shy about introduction of new alien species. I suspect it would take a large-scale campaign to educate the politicians enough to where they would feel comfortable with (example) tilapia.

Yea, the catfish lobby may be a factor too, but I for 1 would rather raise tilapia commercially than catfish. For 1 thing, they taste way better.

What is the least productive form of Organization? Government!