Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat Mo' Bettah Bed Pix from SMB repro pond

TJ,

Cool stuff. I too will be attempting spawning smallmouth this year in one of my steep sided 1/10th acre ponds. Mine has limestone boulders in the water with pockets I will fill with landscape size stone very shortly.

I will also attempt to seine them out at 1.5 inches or so and feed train them in a flow through tank on site.

My smallie broodfish are feed trained so I think I'll preclude the planting of fatheads to sustain them. I'm thinking the fatheads could compete with the smallmouth bass fry? Maybe not?

I noticed you had a lot of filamentous algae on the bottom. You weren't able to get a good algae bloom going before it took hold? I've found in my perch and bluegill production ponds if I get a good algae bloom going ASAP the algae won't take hold. If not, the algae continually robs nutrients from the phytoplankton and you never get a good algae bloom going, which is imperative for high survival of the newly hatched fish (at least this has been the case for my bluegill and yellow perch.)

As far as silt shouldn't the male keep the eggs fanned until they hatch?

Please keep us posted. I'll start a thread on mine if no one minds.

Thanks Cecil - and that's exciting to hear you're going for it this year. I stocked 5,000 FHM last year and they didn't last more than 4-6 weeks, so I don't think they were competing with my SMB YOY. But that may be in large part due to the fact I couldn't remove all my brood fish at one time, either, and they may have hammered the FHM. At one point I'm certain I had well over 2500 SMB YOY present in the pond, and while they weren't in great shape, they were taking AM 400 pellets even at 2" or so.

I have never fertilized - the FA showed up so early this year it was crazy. Imagine when the pondweed starts up it will tie up all nutrients and the FA will pretty much abate. But that still doesn't leave anything for the YOY to feed upon, and I need some ideas there.

I am planning on treating the pond with Whitecap in Mid June, and seine in late July or early August. Fish should be 2-3" by then and I'll cage them and start feed training. I anticipate seining will be much easier by treating the vegetation and I should also end up with many more SMB.

I am concerned when I treat the rooted vegetation that I may incur a FA explosion. I would prefer an algae bloom, obviously, but not sure how to navigate this situation. I have thought about adding pond shading agent after whitecap treatment in hopes it would help prevent FA, but not sure that would help or not. Seining through FA is a pain, but not nearly as bad as my American Pondweed. My water is so clear in this pond it grows 8' from bottom.

TJ:

Whack the rooted plants earlier. Once they die back, whack the algae with Cutrine. Once the algae is killed, (should be a couple of days max) fertilize to get a bloom going. That should take care of your problem, give the YPY SMB a good food base to start on, and makeig seining easier.

Yeah I agree with Scott. You need to have an algae bloom ASAP for zooplankton food, and no filamentous algae or macrophytes to impede it. I have already added some whitecap to my pond and have been treating FA and some Chara with Cutrine Plus although it's not very effective on the Chara.

Do you have any problems pulling your seine over your spawning structure? I'd be worried my seine would get caught on the pallet or blocks.

When do you start seeing ovary development in your smallmouth broodfish? I haven't transferred mine yet but hope to soon. My fish are 12 to 16 inches now and three years old so they should work.

This thread is awesome! I am waiting for my pond to fill up so I can plant some spiral eel grass and hardy lillies, next weekend I will stock FHM, GSH, RES, crayfish, banded killifish, and hopefully some other diverse minnows and eventually some Grass Shrimp. The plan is to have a SMB/YP pond. I made some smallmouth beds similar to yours but larger, I don't want to overpopulate mine since it is not a repro pond but I do want a sustaining population so I only put in two beds.

Since you drained the pond out and removed all the fish will you put a forage base in and let them marinate for a year before adding SMB or will you just put SMB in and feed them pellets?

Oh and I forgot to ask: if you are raising feed trained SMB can you possibly ship them to Virginia? I won't need them until next spring but I would love to get 25 feed trained SMB that can become my brood stock! I know it is tough to find a SMB source so I want to figure this out early.

I have no rooted plants now, that's why the FA is blooming, and way earlier than normal. I don't know if a whitecap treatment now or later makes more sense. I'm not convinced I need to treat the FA now, but I may become so. I'm not familiar with the process of using Cutrine - is it as easy as adding to the water and circulating like it is with Whitecap? What I'm not willing to do is apply cutrine to the entire pond bottom it's a fairly large BOW in which to do it. I would love for there to be a nice plankton and subsequent zooplankton bloom, but just not sure how to get there. So far I've done none of these things and had success - but I'm always open to improving my results.

Spawning beds are elevated so when the drawdown for seining occurs they will be high and dry and out of the way of the seine net.

TJ,
You can use either the Cutrine granules (using a hand spreader) or liquid Cutrine(mixed with water in a sprayer) to spot treat the area that you are seeing FA.

I have been told that the cutrine will kill the good algae so you don't want to disperse in the entire pond, I wouldn't think.

If you are referring to me I'm not sure I will have enough to sell as this is my first effort, and the pond is only 1/10 acre so the number I can produce is limited. It could be a flop for all I know as I've been told smallmouth fingerling production can be boom or bust depending on the weather. I was told if a severe cold front comes through at the wrong time the drop in water temp can wipe the fry out.

Even if I did have enough to sell, as In indicated in another thread regarding Condello/Baird bluegills, I have to do expensive health testing to export out of a Great Lakes state (Indiana) not to mention what the receiving state requires. I primarily raise fish for my own niche market and sell any extras within the state so i don't have to deal with the expensive health testing. Apparently the virus only activates if it crosses state lines! Gotta love the gubernment that uses politics instead of real science!

Ditto!

I would use the Cutrine Plus granules ASAP for the algae so that the phytoplankton can get hold. Or maye even better would be Green Clean professional so there wouldn't be an copper residue? Otherwise you will never get rid of the FA and never get a good algae bloom. At least not at first when it's needed the most to feed the zooplankton. At least this is what I've been told by a yellow perch producer retired Ohio State extension agent in Ohio, Bill Lynch that really knows his stuff. I can't imagine why it would be different with smallmouth bass.

When the fry use up their yolk sack they need zooplankton of the right quantity and size right away or they are done for. At that point they are fitting any zooplankton they can in their tiny mouths 24/7. If it's not there in the right quantities or size, your survival rate goes way down. Same goes for later, and if they over graze the zooplankton due to not enough or too many fish they starve or if large enough resort to cannibalism.



I can't speak for that as I don't know. I do know copper can effect the benthos but would rather refer to Bill Cody on that. If it wasn't so darn overpriced I'd prefer to use the Greenclean Plus. I tried the regular and it was ineffective on my FA./

Cecil

I have tried the SMB reproduction for two years, and have been moderately successful both years. I think you are selling yourself FAR too short. I'm confident you will see great results...it only takes one batch of eggs to result in thousands of SMB! I guess it's possible I've had dumb luck, but I still have high hopes for your successful experiment. I wish I could provide some guidance for you - but you've already forgotten stuff I haven't even learned yet about raising fish. I can, however, provide a LONG list of things NOT to do for anyone interested. I'm rather a resident expert in that field.

Thanks DJ - good info. Honestly, I need to determine if using herbicides to hit the FA is a worthwhile expenditure of my time/effort/money. I've left the pond alone for two years and had moderate success, although I certainly don't doubt the wisdom of what's being prescribed here. If low effort results in 300-500 SMB annually and that fits my needs, maybe I just continue on that course.

Thanks for the kind words but I'm still a smallmouth virgin at this point and you you've been around the block a couple of times.

I'd love to know what not to do. I prefer to learn from the mistakes of others. Let's hear it.

BTW I have become so computerized when you typed "FAR" I had to stop and think what that meant in computer lingo. For a second there I thought, "Oh God he's letting me have it!" Then I realized it was a word!

Cecil

Here's what I have learned thru trial and error:

Create beds at different depths. I'm not a fan of pond bottom as I'm worried about DO levels that deep. Take the time to create them between 3-6' even if it means some alterations like I had to do. This will ensure your best chances for bedding SMB.

I also honored Bill's advice and used a 30' spread between beds as they can be territorial.

I only saw one bed being utilized last year, and still resulted in thousands of fry.

I am using 12-15" SMB - to improve my odds I'm stocking 20 in a my .3 AC smb repro pond as I can't tell right now if they are gravid or not. I figure with 20 I have to get at least 25% females. Sexually mature I think around 9-10", but I go with bigger fish exhibiting good genetics AND pellet trained - that last part is critical. Crazy weather here has everything upside down. I know my perch just spawned last couple weeks, so SMB are sure to follow in a week or two I'm guessing.

Get your brood fish out as soon as you can after the spawn, I think I had some serious cannibalism going on. I think pellets help, but they aren't available at all times. I was unsuccessful at keeping the pond full of FHM forage long enough to make a difference.


Try seining early at smaller sizes to help ensure survival of higher numbers...which you are already planning on I think.

To add context.


From the SMB nest building thread with my drawn in logs




Actual wild SMB on nest 2 ft deep – not a pond fish – try to mimic this – note I am standing on the dock which acts as the big log








Another wild fish right above the bed





SMB fry – black dots

Sounds like a nice fishery plan you have brewing good work. Can't wait to see how you do, please keep us in the loop with updates and photos!

I have tried establishing a forage base in the past, but the cost outweighs the gain due to my time constraints. A perfect scenario would be to have two SMB ponds and alternate years producing SMB. The other pond would sit for a year developing forage. I guess I have that option but I'd have to quit my RES/BG reproduction project in order to do it and I haven't reached my goals on that project yet so I'm reluctant to do so. So I'll just pellet feed the SMB and get them out ASAP following the spawn and return to the main pond.

Thanks for the info TJ.

Do you use a surface aerator in the pond or have one on hand in case of an emergency? I'm asking because one saved my butt last summer in the yellow perch production pond. I had an intense algae bloom far beyond what I needed and started getting diurnal oxygen depletion. I will probably have two production ponds going this year so I'm a little nervous about only having one surface aerator. I'd have three if i wasn't combining the perch with the bluegills.

On the other hand if I seine them out for feed training I can drain and refill and may not have any issues. I could also do an alum treatment when refilling and restocking as long as they are feed trained.

My problem is the ponds are only 1/10th acre and harder to control. I also may get some law fertilizer into the pond as both of my neighbors behind me are into the lawn care thing with beaucoup fertilizers and herbicides.

Gotta love the way the Government makes laws about our natural resources that are based on fear and not facts!

I don't use or have an aerator - but I do run the well often in the Summer which works through rocks so it's oxygenated and also circulates the pond in a circular manner which also probably helps. I've never lost a fish to date in any of my ponds due to any O2 problems, but they are young yet and those risks probably increase daily without aeration which I want to add this year to all ponds.

Sweet set up, let the romance begin!! well done.