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#293467 05/26/12 11:17 AM
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There are three of them in the bucket. Can you spot them among the empty midge casings? They are smaller than the empty midge casings. Hint one of them is two o'clock a few inches from the tadpole. There is another one at eleven o'clock near the edge of the bucket. I think the third and smallest one is in the center of the bucket.


A closer look, that is a an empty midge casing floating at the top of the glass for scale.


An even closer look. Fathead minnow fry? Golden Shiner Fry? Something else?




Last edited by Shorty; 05/26/12 02:19 PM. Reason: added picture


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Good photos, looks like FHM fry to me.

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I'm thinking fathead minnow as well, the fish in my picture is somewhere around 9-10MM long. I will say at that size it would be hard to say for sure even with a picture. Golden shiner fry are very similar and I do have a small number of them in the pond.

I did find this:


http://www.fishbabies.ca/waterbabies/wbabies4.html

Quote:
Fig. III-3. Shallowwater baby fish possessing pigmentation consisting of 2 lines of melanophores on their back (dorsal maculae as shown in Fig. III-3A) along with mid-lateral lines (lateral maculae).

A. Dorsal view of Fathead Minnow, 7.9 mm, (Illustration by Sally Gadd).
B. Lateral view of Fathead Minnow, 7.9 mm, (Illustration by Sally Gadd).
C. Lateral view of White Sucker, 13.8 mm, (From Cucin and Faber, 1984).
D. Lateral view of Golden Shiner, 8.0 mm, (Illustration by Sally Gadd).
E. Lateral view of Common Shiner, 8.4 mm, (From Heufelder and Fuiman, 1982).




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99.9% certain those are Muskie YOY. Congrats Steve!


Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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laugh

I went and caught two more yesterday, the smaller less developed one is 7-8mm, the larger more developed one is 12-13mm. I released both of into my SMB tank last night.











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Looking more like paddlefish yoy today. Sorry for the missed id!


Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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I think the larger fish is a GSH late fry because it appears to have a concave margin on the anal fin which becomes visible at about 14mm. the FHM anal fin at 13-14mm is shaped more rounded. By the way: very good pictures.


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There are thousands fry of the in the pond right now, even a few larger ones that might be more definative as to what they actually are. I will see if I can catch a bigger one and post a few more pictures.

I put in three dozen GSH last June that were 2" to 2-1/2" along with 5 dozen fatheads that reproduced like mad. I wasn't sure any of them survived my alum treatment to clear the water last July (PH crash) but I did find one dead 5" GSH back in March. I also put in four gallons of fatheads at the begining of December a month after stocking 20 5-9" SMB.



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Gosh, not a nibble on my efforts to stir up some dust? frown

Ok, ok - here are my true observations:

1. I can't ID the type of forage it is, but reproduction is a great sign for your fishery!

2. Those are remarkable photos...you need to teach me how to do that. What type of camera is being used?


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I laughed at your fry identification. grin

The camera is a Sony Cybershot, 8.1 mega-pixal, its few years old. The best focal point is 12-16", from there I am editing and cropping the photos in MS Paint in order to enlarge the image.

Here is an original I took this morning.


The same image cropped in MS paint.


Last edited by Shorty; 05/28/12 04:19 PM. Reason: added pictures


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One other thing, take a lot of pictures that way you increase the odds of getting one or two good shots. I caught some larger fry but had a hard time getting a clear good picture of the fins.



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TJ, here are a few more examples of the larger fry I caught late this morning.










This one kind of shows the fins.


Last edited by Shorty; 05/28/12 05:50 PM.


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Those look more like GSH to me than small FHM. A FHM will have a more slender body shape than those in the last picture. Note you may have both species of YOY in the pond.


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Yeah, those recent photos appear to be GSH fry. No doubt you have both species of fry in your pond...

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Any implications for my pond? Am I predator light in my 1/4 acre pond? I have freshly hatched fry everywhere. I also have flooded smart-weed and grass that the fry can hide in.

Here is what I have stocked so far:

June 2011: 3 dozen GSH, 5 dozen FHM

Mid July 2011: Alum treatment to clear the water and hydrated lyme to bring the PH back up. I had minnows trying to get out of the water when the PH crashed.

Late October 2011: 20 5-9" SMB (mostly 5", one 9")

Early December 2011: 110 4-6" RES and 4 gallons of small to medium sized minnows.
Note: I had to break 1" of ice to these stock fish, I'm not sure if the RES succumbed to a fish fungus or not due to the cold water temps. Never saw any RES floaters but I have tons of snails and fingernail clams for them to eat. I did see quite a few FHM floaters at the end of December with fungus infections.

March/April/May 2012: 11 2-5" YP & 30 4-6" YP (41 YP total), 28 2-3" RES and three 2" SMB

I do have 72 SMB that I am currently pellet training, they are now 3-5" long. Should I stock them sooner rather than later? I was planning to set them loose in about 4 weeks and was hoping to have them close 6" before they putting them in the pond. With this many fry in the pond I think they are going to ignore pellets for a while. I am wondering if I could end up with too many GSH down the road?





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72 SMB seems like a lot for a 1/4 acre pond to me. But I am not a smallmouth expert.

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Thus the pellet training program. grin



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Originally Posted By: Shorty
Thus the pellet training program. grin


Ahhh. I guess I missed that. Makes it justifiable.

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1. I think you're fine stocking whenever you want, due to lack of predators. It's up to you, but I'd do sooner than later with more friendly water/air temps=less stress.

2. You will have a big population of GSH, this I can safely predict as my HSB and SMB can't keep my population down. This is not a bad thing - since you don't have BG fishery they fill their niche and will keep the SMB healthy with plenty of forage options in addition to crayfish and pellets. You're likely to experience schools of GSH that hammer pellets and make it difficult for the SMB to keep up, but I find my SMB are focusing as much on the smaller GSH taking pellets as they are to the pellets themselves. An adult GSH can take AM 600, but the LM pellet is obviously beyond their gape. As soon as your SMB make that 12" mark they can start taking hydrated AM LM pellets, and soon thereafter dry pellets with no competition and it's then that they really start improving WR.

3. Your stocking rates are heavy on the SMB, but with abundant forage from GSH and pellet program you may be okay. Might need to cull a few fish that don't take off, but that's no big deal. I see a population of 35-40 15" fish in a .25 AC bow a reasonable goal, maybe more.

4. If you are not seeing the RES you want to, I have a local source for free RES. Guy wanted BG stocked, the fish truck was out of everything but RES, and five years later he has quite an established population. No more buying RES for me!


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I wouldn't mind a few more RES just for insurance purposes. I suspect most of the ones I got in December didn't make it. I know the ones I held back in late March (weren't sure if they were BG or RES) all but one died from fungus infections in my tank when the water temps were still in the mid 50's. A few locally sourced RES would be great.



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Quick question. I am seeing another recent large hatch of GSH/FHM fry all over my pond right now. Is this normal after the hot water temps we had? Is a GSH spawn tied to the moon phases?



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Good question, not sure if GSH spawn is in relation to the moon phases or not... I do not have any GSH stocked in my pond yet, but my RRFHM and FHM have been spawning like crazy the last week or so.

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Golden shiner (Notemigonus crysoleucas) egg production and effects of water temperature, lunar phase, and weather on spawning
by Clemment, Troy, M.S., UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS AT PINE BLUFF, 2003, 65 pages; EP25754
Abstract:

This study was done to determine the number of eggs produced by golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas) over the spawning season and the relationship of daily egg production to environmental variables. Eight, 5.9 m2 plastic-lined pools were each stocked 15 March, 2000 with 50 golden shiners, 9.2 ± 3.7 g (mean ± SD) in body weight each. Fish were fed once daily at 5% body weight with a 40% protein, 9% fat, extruded (pelleted) feed. A spawning substrate was placed in four randomly selected pools, while mats were not placed in the remaining four pools. For a 111-day period (16 March–4 July), spawning mats were collected daily and replaced with clean ones. Eggs were removed in a 1.5% sodium sulfite bath and the total volume of eggs from each pool was recorded. The mean number of eggs per mL, based on counts of 27, 2-mL samples, was 704 (SD = 109). Spawning commenced within a day of stocking at mean water temperature of 15°C and continued until the daily temperature averaged 30°C. The number of eggs collected daily from individual pools ranged from 0 to 33,792 with season-long averages of 4,986 to 7,284 per day. There were only 4 days when no eggs were collected. The number of days separating peak spawning events varied throughout the season. In some cases high numbers of eggs were produced 2 or 3 days in a row. Egg production peaked in May, when an average of 14,339 eggs were collected daily per kg of golden shiners. The mean number of eggs collected daily increased with water temperature up to a peak at 22°C, then decreased as water temperature continued to increase. Approximately 2.75 million eggs were produced over the 111-day period by 2.4 kg of fish (mean of stocking and harvest weight). Egg production was not correlated with lunar phase, barometric pressure, and rainfall. Fish growth, condition, and gonadosomic index did not differ significantly between fish held with and without spawning substrate.
















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I figured the GSH would quit spawning once the water temps got hot, I remember reading about it. We did have three to four weeks of one hundred degree plus days, I am sure the water temps were in the upper 80's to low 90's during that time. Once the hot weather hit I did not see any newly hatched fry around my pond during that time, I figured the Gshiners were probably done spawning for the summer.

Things have cooled down quite a bit in the last two weeks and now I am seeing freshly hatched fry everywhere again. Do GSH start spawning again once the water cools?

See ewest's post here: Golden Shiners

Quote:
Golden shiners spawn in the spring when water temperatures rise above 68 oF (20 oC). They quit spawning when temperatures exceed 81 oF (27 oC).




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Thanks Eric! smile



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