Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Pond Starter

How do plankton make it into a pond? If a pond is built on a hillside with no water source other than runoff and the drainage is normally bone dry, would it be nessecary to add water from an existing body of water to get the plankton started?

No. Plankton will naturally colonize the pond. Adding water from another established body of water will, however, accelerate the colonization process.

That is the answer I was expecting but where do they come from?

Mother Nature abhors a void.

Bearbait, I have to assume they they come in piggy back on crawdads, frogs,turtles,birds and the like.I'd have to say Bill Cody could expand on this. I wouldnt be surprised if they were also carried on the wind. Pollen travels for thousands of miles in the wind. I have read of a small spider that becomes aloft on a small web, and rides storms across the Atlantic.

If plankton must be carried in on duck feet and the wind, that presents a problem. The normal pond stocking plan is to put a bunch of little fish in the pond first and allow them to reproduce to feed the big fish. There must be a healthy plankton community for the little fish to eat or the whole plan fails. Can the fatheads survive while they wait for the wind to bring them plankton?

If you have water, you most likely have plankton. We had a new pond and it got three feet of water in it. Two weeks after it got water, we stocked FHM and they made it just fine.

But if the pond is not connected to any other body of water where does the plankton come from?

Set out a jar of water for a few weeks, check your birdbaths, rain gauges, etc. - all end up with algae. From my understanding rain, wind, etc carries the microscopic spores that are found literally everywhere on Earth. If you have water, you have algae - eventually.

OK I can understand that algae are everywhere but what about zooplankton?

Bearbait, trust us... Plankton will find your pond, no matter how isolated it is. Do not worry about the plankton. FHM feed are many other things than plankton so they will do just fine.

Would you believe "Mother Nature's Magic"?
Nature and the enviornment are complex, very diverse and very fascinating. Microscopically the world is fascinating and amazing. One can create a simple community of bacteria, algae, and zooplankton (mostly protozoans and rotifers) buy putting some organic material such as dried grass, or hay etc. in a jar of clean tap water. A pond is just a very large version of this simple jar culture with a lot more external influences (site specific). As the pond matures more and more of "natures seeds" are introduced via additional natural phenomena and man (i.e. fish stocking water, boat bilge water, etc, etc,etc,).

Previous posters above have provided some ways of plankton introduction such as wind, rain, all types of runoff, even small ones, inundating excavated soil, waterfowl, and other 'piggy back' avenues. Waterfowl and animal manure contains numerous resting spores, seeds, etc. Plankton has unique forms of resting spores each with varying viability. As a water bodies mature, they "collect" more and more of these natural "seeds" from the 'natural pathways'. If the water is acceptable the "seeds" sprout and flourish; if not they perish or subsist until the conditions change to favorable.

In enviornmental work we see newly established species appearing all the time in new locations where they were not previously present or observed. Scientifically these are called 'new records'.

Thanks bill, If all these little critters are going to eventually make it into a pond would it be advisable to inoculate the water with a bucketfull from an existing pond to get it started?

Personally, I don't think so, but lets see what Bill has to say.

My concern is that if there is something in the other pond that you don't particularly want in your pond...... (say Eurasian Water Milfoil fragments)

I agree with esshup. Just let nature take care of it. It will take no time at all for it to be established.

Thanks all, this is just a topic I was curious about and haven't seen discussed here. It is pretty amazing how these critters get around.

At times it is very beneficial to innoculate a pond with water from another pond/lake. It only makes good sense to know what is in that water. You frequently have dormant individuals, spores, or "seeds" present and or 'residuals' from earlier blooms hanging around in that bucket of pond or lake water. Often when water transfer is done the most beneficial species are not 'blooming' nor abundant or you are not collecting from the correct depth where the numbers are most concentrated. The most beneficial zooplankton usually migrate diurnally (daily cycle) up and down in the water column. Trouble is very, very few people have the ability to see how many and most importantly WHO are in the innoculant. When it's done, just about everyone guesses and hopes for the best. Very often 'some nuisance' species are present but are in very low numbers due to conditions are not 'right' for them to bloom. Change their conditions or where they are living and it becomes party time for them. Problematic species may not develop high density quickly but later when conditions are more beneficial. This whole concept is similar to going into the pharmacy blind folded and you mix numerous containers together and then toss a handful into our mouth; and think, I hope and trust this works.

One is not just adding zooplankton but scads of different types of algae, bacteria, possible planktonic parasites or planktonic life stages of problematic species. It can be done, but buyer beware! If the pond or lake has a history of any type of problems the risk of introducing problems is much greater. IMO one gets plenty and usually too much innoculant from just stocking fish. Fish hatcheries pass lots of water around among water bodies - some of it pretty nasty stuff.

In fact most fishless ponds have and develop the best invertebrate and zooplankton communities. If you are going to innovulate first get your water from ponds (permenant or temporary) without fish. Many beneficial zooplankton (protozoans to crustaceans) are able to tolerate and survive dessication, which is how they often appear in ponds created in bare newly exposed soil.