Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain golden shiner fish fry and crayfish

in summer of 09 i put in 3000 fhm .this spring i have my order placed with anderson fish farms for 250k golden shiner fish fry coming sometime in april, should i put any crayfish in also. pond consists of lmb,bluegill ,bullheadcats,channel cats, rainbow trout, and yell perch pond is 1 acre

Do you have any rocky areas or some other sort of structure for the crayfish to take cover in? If not, they probably won't take hold and will just be a quick snack or on a rainy night will move to another body of water with more friendly conditions...

How well established is your pond? As in, how long have the listed fish species been in there and what size are they now? Do you have any shallow areas that are vegetated? These are very important if you want to establish a population of golden shiners. LMB are voracious predators and love to eat golden shiners, without this shallow refuge, your fry will struggle to take hold. When you stock the fry, hope you have a good zooplankton bloom going, as that is very important... Otherwise, the fry will either starve or have such slow growth rates, they'll be easy pickings.

Do you see any of the 3000 FHM you put in? If they are mostly gone by now, you're going to struggle to establish golden shiners.

What are your goals for the pond?

native to the pond was lmb ,blugill and bullheads . I added 70 y/perch 4-5 inch ,40 channel cats 6-8 inch ,106 rain/trout 14 inch.in spring/ summer of 09. there is a area of the pond with cattails about 150 long and about 2 feet deep. this pond is just for weekend fun . could u tell me more about the plankton thanks

I am assuming you are referring to zooplankton? Zooplankton is a broad categorization spanning a range of organism sizes that includes both small protozoans and large metazoans. It includes holoplanktonic organisms whose complete life cycle lies within the plankton, and meroplanktonic organisms that spend part of their life cycle in the plankton before graduating to either the nekton or a sessile, benthic existence. Although zooplankton are primarily transported by ambient water currents, many have some power of locomotion and use this to avoid predators or to increase prey encounter rate. Most zooplankton is just large enough to be barely seen with the naked eye, but some are quite a bit larger. The smaller zooplankton sizes are the most important for young GSH as they are the size they would be feeding on. A more fertile pond will have a bigger zooplankton population and therefore a bigger and usually healthier fish population.

The majority of fry you throw in there are toast no matter what. You will merely be feeding the established predatory fish. Defenseless, disoriented baitfish fry last about two or three days. They won't have time to get hungry. If the crawdads are new at first the fish might not know what they are. I planted several batches, 50 at a time. They did manage to take, and I especially looked for egg carrying females. But they need cover, rock crevices, holes, something. They really thrive on rip rap banks. I have a spillway with stacked pond rocks, they do well there also.

thanks for the info i hope the fry have some kind of chance ,i hope i didnt waste $250.00

Andy,
I have stocked millions of golden shiner fry from anderson minnows into multiple different bodies of water and have had great success each and every time! You will find your investment to be a very good one!!

I would also suggest supplementally adding some aquamax 600 to feed those hungry trout!

Andy, looking at the photo's of your pond it looks like you've got a great area for the GSH to survive and multiply, your trout and bass are gonna love those fish snacks as they get bigger.
I like to watch the trout zoom in on the GSH near some structure where they hang out, and the GSH have really thrived in my pond since putting them in 4 years ago.

To those who have had success stocking shiners, what size did you stock? What would you say led to your success of them sticking.

To the guy planting a quarter million fry, did your fhm make it? Have you seen any left?

PF, the first year of my pond I stocked it with 5lbs. adult FH, and 8lbs. adult GSH, pallets and large branches were added to aid spawning, no predators the first year. Small fry were observed the first year but not identified.
The second spring 200 10-12 inch trout were stocked, and each year since. The second year I never saw any FH again, this could be from low PH, predation or both. According to my info FH critical PH is 5.5 and the pond was 5.0-5.5, GSH critical PH is 4.5. Since increasing my water inflo the PH runs 5.5-6.0.
The GSH have thrived but they did get that first year to get established. I think the shallow weedy area that Andy has should allow a decent percentage of the fry to survive, but it wouldn't hurt to put 5 or 10 lbs. of adult GSH in to start a spawn this year. Just my 2 cents.

Most guys build ponds with steep banks, 3:1 or even 4:1 slopes. That's hard on GSH. Not much shallow area for them to take cover in and not much flooded vegetation for them to spawn in. The ponds I have seen with the best long term survival of GSH are ponds with some shallow areas(less than 18").

I have never tried the fry method for stocking GSH, so I have no experience there. I think there is a lot to learn. Some studies should be done to see where the fry should be stocked into the pond. Shallow areas or out in the middle where it is deeper? Since GSH spawn in shallow areas, it would seem to me that the fry would do better in shallow areas but it is hard to tell until some studies are done...

Another important factor is if there is a good zooplankton bloom occurring when the fry are stocked. No bloom, and your fry will die or have such a slow growth rate they will be easy pickings.

Personally, I think the stocking of advanced adult GSH just prior to spawning is going to be a better way of getting GSH to take hold in an established pond. If only a dozen adult fish survive, they'll be producing millions of fry. Fry that are not in shock from being in a plastic bag for several hours and released into a pond. A new pond with only FHM and sunfish present, the fry option may be a cheaper and better option.

I have been able to establish GSH into ponds with adult predatory fish by stocking advanced sized GSH. GSH 6"+ in length. The bigger the GSH the better.

I'm thinking the same exact thing. Might be better served putting in spawners. Those adults know where to lay the eggs, and usually the fry emerge with the plankton. Plus you don't have to worry about tempering, ionic shock and other gotchas. It's not just the lmb that eat the fry, everything does. And even if they miraculously dodge every hungry fish bigger then them out there, which is everything that has homepond advantage, they just don't have that varied diet yet. I'm not trying to rain on your shiner parade, I think it is a great fish to establish. But I think in an already populated pond you are fighting an uphill battle with fry.

Andy, the NY DEC lists a hatchery in afton that carry's GSH if your interested in getting some adults.
http://pond.dnr.cornell.edu/Pond/NYDEC_2007_Private_Hatchery_List.htm

Andy,
You wont be disappointed with the shiner fry. Whether they will reproduce in your pond or not is something I cant answer, shiners are just very unpredictable in small ponds. What I can tell you is that pound for pound you will very likely provide way more forage for your fish this season by stocking $250 worth of shiner fry than you will by stocking $250 worth of adult shiners.

Nate you ought to do a study on stocking GSH fry for a PB article... See where is best to stock them and what time of year, etc... I am sure a lot of guys would be interested as the fry stocking thing becomes more popular.

Would be interesting, but not really worth any significant extra time or effort beyond the normal observations at this juncture of my life (right now there are bigger fish to fry)

The shiner fry isnt rocket science by any means though, I just simply get em shipped in when they are born in the spring, pick em up at Fedex the next day when they open at 7 am, drive to the ponds and cut open the bags and let the fry swim out into their new homes. Later in the summer when I pull a seine or do an electrofishing survey there are thousands of shiners. Sometimes its best not to overthink or overtheoritorize a fish stocking situation.

I guess they have better survival percentages than other species' fry. Walleye, perch and striper fry have very low survival rates even under great conditions.

It sounds like more of a volume thing to me. If 1% make it to adulthood, that's a lot of shiners for 1 acre to begin a good shiner forage base.
I would also suggest putting some food in the shallows for them. Range cubes(20% protein so they sink) and alfalfa cubes for horses. A few will feed a lot of small fish. Range cubes are actually shaped like giant rabbit pellets.

You write "Born to Kill" on your helmet and you wear a peace button.

I find this response as intriguing as this topic. I see you just pick them up at fed ex and throw them in. May I ask how large your pond is and do you have shallows with cover for the fry? I am still on the plant spawners in side of this debate but I can experiment with different ponds with different conditions.

TPF,
I suggest you contact Jamie and IF Anderson Minnows to discuss. I suggest the fry on new ponds for sure. Great bargin. We have had marginal success with existing predator populations. Jamie is good with the math on survival of fry vs. large size cost and survivial. It is not a bad "gamble" to tryout the hihg number of fry in a pond. Lots better than 5000 fhm that cost you $250 here in SE. They will be gone in 2-3 days for sure and proabably the first day.

BTW I heard the cost this year would be $275 not $250.

Thank you Greg. We are on the same page. Have had that fhm experience, not exactly something to be proud of. But at the same time as a professional pond manager I really feel I can't gamble on my customer's dime. I think yes, new pond, no predator infested pond. If my goal is to attempt to establish an ongoing population.

I do have a new pond ready to go with forage, and I would like to try shiners. I think the gamble is almost nil on reproduction. If they can get to breeder age, they will, almost anywhere. Thank you for the contact info as well. I have to run it by my guy and see if that would work for him.

Pretty much got blown out of the water by my ol pals at CA F and G. They decided to ban all out of state imports on shiners. Just another what are they thinking decision to add to the rest of the braindead moves they have made over the last three decades, when they were actually required to manage something. I think this might just be the start. Pretty soon it could be tough to import anything here from out of state, or get anything to plant in a pond. I have to establish my own bait ponds sooner than later.

So how did your Shiners take?

Thought I would share my shiner fry experience to date for all to read. I did a siphon and refill of my pond over the winter of 08/09. The pond (1.5 acres) refilled quickly so I added 15 lbs. FHM and 250K shiner fry in May 2009. I hand feed when I can (maybe twice a month). I added 1000 bluegills in the fall and 75 bass this spring. I can't say how many shiners survived but there are a bunch of them. A whole bunch! They range from 2-4". So seemingly in my particular scenario, they did pretty well. I do have pretty steep banks so time will tell if they can maintain a population. The bass I stocked were 3". I will wet a line this fall and see what kind of growth I got first year.