Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ran a siene survey this afternoon

I was suprised to find this, that is quite the ear tab.





I also found some small 1-2" (I assume) are YOY RES, lots of GSH in a variety of sizes up to 3", a small number of FHM, and good number of recently hatched bullfrog tadpoles.

That's a nice looking male RES!

I wonder if I plucked him off a bed?

What was interesting was that 90% of the "minnows" in the net were GSH with only a small number of FHM present. Most of the fry in the pond right now are small enough to slip through the 1/4" mesh in my siene but I am pretty sure the smaller ones are mostly GSH too. Most of the GSH are below average body condition and a somewhat thin, there is a ton of competion in this years hatch.

I did catch 15-20 small RES, at least I think they are RES, they are too small to tell what they are at the moment. I did put 3 dozen GSH and the RES in my smaller tank out in the shop.

What are you going to do with them in the tank? What are you going to feed them?

I have GSH, FHM, tadpoles as you do but BG instead of RES. I have seen BG hunt small minnows as the pray fish of the pond and so with this combination it looks like one could have a great blue gill fishing pond. I always thought BG were a better tasting fish then LMB anyway.

Wow, that is indeed an impressive tab. Cool picture. Thanks for sharing.

The GSH can nibble on pellets. My initial GSH stocking was pretty light, 3 dozen GSH in June of 2011, add in a little natural mortality and I might have 2 dozen adult sized GSH in pond right now, the rest are all small. I am thinking it wouldn't hurt to have a few more adult sized GSH in the pond next year since I am probably a little predator heavy at the moment.

As far as the RES I would like to make sure they are actually RES, they do look like BG fry.

If you can get some FHM in the tank and they spawn the RES may eat them. I have thought about getting some RES just to see if they would eat the Tilapia fry I have, then I could grow them out a little bit.

Next year I may try to get some snails to reproduce in a tank and see if the RES will take care of them. Would be neat to watch them eat a snail.

I would caution against introducing snails if you don't already have them - they can really create an infestation...AMHIK...

I was just going to add them to my tank and then add some RES to see if they would enjoy them or not. I would never intentionally add them to a pond. Then again all of my ponds already have them which most do in my opinion. RES should help keep them in check but I doubt they could ever eat them all. I know mine are not doing as well as I would like and plan to locate some large fish to stock, just have to decide how far I am willing to drive and how much I am willing to spend just to have a few larger RES, now if another pond owner or two want some as well then we can split the cost and be in good shape.

The YOY RES I siened earlier are starting to look like RES. Here are two of the bigger ones I have in my small tank, the smaller ones you still can't tell.

The top one is a male, and the bottom one is a female.

Also, the bottom one is 1/8 GSF.

No - only 1/16 GSF.

ROFL!