Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain How Many FHM per acre ?

I was wondering how many pounds of FHMs I should stock per acre to get things going. The problem I have is that it is already stocked with LMB BG and CC. Bass are in the 9" range. They will be going in in Oct when the fish sale is local. Thanks !!!

Well you may want to wait for the experts but I am sure they will tell you the same thing.

Unless you just want an expensive snack the FHM's will be gone in a day or so.

I found this out the hard way.

But then again it all depends on your goals.

MrHello has a good point. Usually the fatheads are stocked BEFORE the gamefish to allow them to reproduce and produce a lot of offspring for the subsequent plant of gamefish. This gives the gamefish a health start and gives the bluegills time to reproduce and provide consistent forage. Adding them AFTER the fact is an expensive snack. The largemouths will have them wiped out in short order. Fatheads rarely sustain themselves in significant numbers in a pond with largemouths, or even smallmouth. They're just too slow moving.

If I put in 30-40 lbs of FHM in to increase the #s. Would that suffice? Or just a expensive snack ? There is a BG base in there now with a spawn of little ones this spring.

Yes Troy no matter what you put do they will not make it long enough to spawn. The math is 10 lbs forage to 1 lb of bass growth, even your getting a good deal at $10/lb then $100/lb of bass growth so money beter spent elsewhere.

Does that mean that you cannot have too many bluegills?. I have seen other posts that talk about removing fish. My lmb's appear healthy and fat but I have been thinking of adding some nice size really pretty bg's from a nearby healty lake.I have had the neighborhood kids catching and releasing very small bgs, and catching and removing some large bullheads. Thanks

Troy:

I threw in 30# of FHM in my 1 1/2 ac pond that already had a few adult LMB in it, along with 8"-10" BG, RES and CC. I put them in the pond in October. When the ice left the pond in April, there were still some FHM in the pond; but by the end of April there were none to be seen.

So, with that said, I believe that even if you put 70# of FHM in your 3.5 ac pond, they won't survive.

The money can be better spend getting a feeder and setting up a good feeding program.

My FHM minnows seem to have taken off fairly well. It's my GSH that I put in that are all gone!! 11 lbs worth ffffiittt gone just like that!! I have some fairly shallow areas in my pond though. So I think that's why my FHM have made it. I also have loads of chara where they can hide.