Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Want to turn my existing pond into a panfish pond

I found this site a month ago, and love it. Just joined today, and this is my first post. Built my 3/4 acre pond in 97. It has a depth of 17 feet, spring, and runoff fed. I`d say 20% of the pond is 1-4 feet for spawning. Have gravel for spawning beds, water plants for the small fish to hide in. Used brush piles for structure.

Started in 1997 with Brook Trout, and 50 channel cat fingerlings from Zetts in Drifting PA.

Around 2001 I wanted to try some different fish, and hence my problem. Many different fish stocked.

Have maybe 6 3# Largemouth Bass, and a few smaller ones I want out. They are almost uncatchable.

I have about 20 10-12 inch walleye, several larger up to 4#

Thirty perch from 8 inch all the way up to 13 inch. They are doing very well size wise, but I am not seeing any fingerlings.Can`t figure this out with all the baby sunfish.

24 Black Crappie caught 1 12 incher recently. I am aware they can become a problem.

24 Bluegills from Zetts. Bunches of sunfish from other ponds with a lot off spawning. I even have 1/2 - 1 inch sunnies now in December.

Finally about 10 Koi to help with filamentous algae from my brushpile structure. Maybe 8 14 - 26 inch CC left. I was removing, but algae problem got much worse. Now I can control manually.

I really just want Sunfish, Black Crappie, Perch, Walleye, and the Koi, and maybe the CC for algae control. Just looking for any suggestions to make it happen.

Welcome to the forum!

In my opinion, sunfish, crappie, and possibly the perch, together in the same 3/4 acre pond is asking for trouble, especially with Walleye as the main predator... overpopulation issues big time. I'm not sold on the CC either, and I don't believe they will do anything to help your algae.

Hopefully, someone will be along shortly to suggest an appropriate course of action.....sorry for sounding so negative, but part of owning a pond is studying, learning, and setting goals that are realistic and manageable. MOST ponds are managed with a balanced scenario in mind, and getting there usually means concessions must be made.... Hang tight, I'm sure better advice is on the way....

19Dave says ""I really just want Sunfish, Black Crappie, Perch, Walleye, and the Koi, and maybe the CC for algae control. Just looking for any suggestions to make it happen"".

I don't think the the existing walleye, CC, and larger perch will be able to keep the sunfishes, crappie, and small perch controlled. Those 3 can be very prolific. Without bass you might even see reproduction - recruitment from the CC. I have seen overpopulated CC without bass present. IMO once these panfish become more established and the offspring is then reproducing, probably in 2-4 years you will have an overpopulated panfish problem. Having reasonable number of LMB will needed to maintain numerous quality sized panfish. With 6 adult and several younger bass you should see a good crop of new youngster LMB in June-July of 2013. I think your pond will produce larger averaged panfish with a good number of the LMB present. In my experience walleye are not that aggressive of predator compared to LMB.

Thanks sprkplug I have been doing 10 years of trial, and error. After adding brush piles for minnows to hide in I started getting FA. Over the next 2 years I probably removed a couple dozen catfish, and the problem kept getting worse. I remembered Zetts catalog mentioning they also eat algae, along with anything else, lol. The problem has leveled off.

Perch are my #1 priority. My friend very close to my pond had walleye spawn in his pond. He has some 5 inch walleye that were not put in his pond. They were all adults. From reading on here that is rare.

FA in ponds after several years of being rare often becomes more abundant due to 10 yrs of nutrient (organics) accumulation -buildup. Presence of other plants can reduce nutrients available for FA - competition. Killing or dramatically reducing the weeds can make more nutrients available to be used by FA or phytplankton. Nutrients mainly nitrogen and phosphorus "feed" the FA. Often nutrients are abundant enough in a new pond to grow FA right away. Not having very much FA may not be due to fish eating FA but due to lower nutrient concentrations.

Hi Bill. Thanks for the response. The bass are impossible to catch which is why I would like them out, plus they eat big perch I learned here.

I put 50 CC in 1997, only have about 8 left. We feed them bread sometimes, and have never seen any babies surprisingly.

The sunfish I have had loads of them since 01 with a lot of spawning. So you thing they may get out of control without any bass? Maybe I could stock some more perch as a substitute. They seem to grow very quickly. I am getting pop can thick 12 -13 inchers every year.

I have been trying to identify the 1/2 - 1 inch fish I have now in December. They sure look like sunfish they vertical bars on the side. Awful late for fish that size near Buffalo NY. The pond froze over last week. Water is very cold.

Rereading your post Bill. I am concerned that I have had no perch, crappie, or CC reproduction. I am worried about more LMB wiping out the perch, and crappie.

Dave, any FA that catfish eat is done purely accidentally.

Without an efficient predator to control numbers on the panfish, you will just wind up with 1000's of stunted fish.

Dave I also started with some types of fish and theology from Zetts of PA. in the early 90's and was happy with the results. A fish kill ended that happy pond three yesrs ago. The 1 acre pond had LMB, BG, CC, FHM, 18 GC, 20 KOI, and 6 fish I considered the most important for controlling algae and sold by Zetts was the Isrela carp which I can't find in the US for sale anymore. As you may remember Zetts had the Israela carp listed first for algae control and said they eat different types of algae then the KOI, then CC was third on his algae eating list. What reinforces in my mind that the CC do eat some algae is when I was at a fish seminar a guy told me he didn't have an algae problem until he took out his CC. My pond now has no real preditors and it full of minnows, frogs and tadpoles. Tadples spend their lives eating algae and last year with 105 degree heat days I had not algae. I did have excessive lillies which I intend to take out this spring and see if the tadpoles alone can control the algae mostly by themselves.

The FA is at a level I can handle right now manually a couple times of month with a rake. I`m going to follow what Bill said, and leave the few big LMB I have. Probably add 50 larger perch. Can`t figure out why they don`t have a successful spawn when there are a ton of sunnies of all sizes? I`ll be gone for a few days. Thanks everyone. Any more ideas I would sure appreciate.

Probably because the shape of the perch goes down the LMB throat alot easier than the sunfish. If I had my preference, I would target the perch too.

John:

What you are seeing in your pond in regards to FA reduction isn't because of the fish, its because of all the other plants that you have in your pond utilizing the nutrients that the FA would. Could you fish with a hook and bobber, or throw a crankbait in your pond and not have it hang up on lilypads or other weeds like Eurasian Milfoil?

Dave, use a small BG to yank out the largest LMB after they spawn this spring. To grow lots of large panfish you need an overpopulation of LMB that are 12" long. They will eat a LOT of small panfish, but that allows more panfish sized food to be available for the ones that survive to grow. The large CC are eating the smaller fish at night when they're sleeping, and they'll also eat them during the day. I'd yank them out too if you can. If you want CC in the pond, catch them out when they get 18" long or so and replace them with smaller ones.

If you aren't feeding a good food to the panfish, you should read up on it.

It is possible that your YP are having a small spawn and hatch and the abundance of sunnies are eating most all the YP fry. The few YP fry that survive get eaten by the bass and CC.

Esshup, I love to experiment with the pond, so this spring as the lilies come up I will spray them and see if the tadpoles along with the golden shiners can keep the algae away. In this crazy weather two days ago I had frogs swimming on top of the water when I should have been ice skating. So I look for a really hot summer again. The almost only underwater plants I have is the curly leaf pond weed which thins out later in the summer, plus I have 6 weed eating grass carp, so it will be up to my tadpoles mostly to keep the algae down. My English Springer Spaniel similar to yours catches frogs by the gross in the summer and is now catching tadpoles. Great dog.

John, didn't you plant EWM in the pond too? I was under the assumption that you have more than just Eelgrass and CLP (along with the Spatterdock)

Esshup I planted the Eurasian Milfoil when I first built the pond 15 years ago but it finally took over the pond in the first 5 years. I put in 18 grass carp that completely took out the EMF and everything else. To this day not a strand of EMF has comeback which is a big happy surprise to me. A year ago I had American Elodea show up that I said I like and you said becareful what you wish for. Later I decided I really didn't want it. It was mostly in a 10 foot dia. area and my grass carp took it out, leaving the plant I really like, the Curly Leaf Pond weed. Also I have a little Naiad and a little Coontail Hornwort that I planted three years ago but the GC are keeping it in check. The Spiral Eelgrass has been severely affected by my pond dropping 4 feet because of the drought. My good patches died, but I still have some small patches I transplanted into deeper water. I also traded some Spiral Eelgrass for some Redtip Eelgrass and will see what it will do. Since I do not have predators in the pond that I know of I have huge amounts of tadpoles and large amounts of Golden Shiners to see what they can do with the algae this summer. I have two predators that I allow to eat all they want and that is a Heron and a Kingfisher. The Spatterdock Lilies were nice for many years but they finally took over as did the EMF. No I couldn’t cast a plug in it and could hardly row my boat through it. I let it grow even thicker last year because two families of Wood Ducks were raised in it and got their food from the Spatterdock. And I even built and put up the Wood Duck house, but they didn’t show up this year so the lilies will be taken out in the spring to get on the algae experiment.

NOW I understand! Thanks. How big is the pond again?
Also what is the maximum depth and average depth?
Also how many grass carp did it take to eleminate the EMF?Evidently grass carp don't eat spatterdock very well.
John yours is good information about features of some of the submerged plant species in ponds.

I didnt realize that tadpoles, which are larval of frogs and toads. Is there any information that support this use of them

Bing here is some information on larval tadpoles.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadpoles

Essup the Pond is about 1 acre when full and the maximum depth is 10 feet with an average depth I would guess 5 feet with normal rain fall.

The EMF grew really thick and fast. I tried to take it out by hand in a bathing suit and a float to pile it onto but that was over whelming. So I started with 6 GC and soon added 12 more. Soon I could see the EMF start to disappear in small spots that slowly spread into bigger spots. It’s hard to remember but I think the EMF was gone in two, maybe three years.

It is interesting about the spatterdock. The spatterdock I think is beautiful in small amounts, the same with cattails. As I started to worry some about both getting out of hand, nature many times comes to the rescue. For a few years Muskrats moved in and the spatterdock thinned out as did the cattails. The muskrats I think were eating the spatterdock right down to the roots and also working on the cattails, which kept the pond very beautiful without me lifting a finger. Remember I don’t spray but will this year. So what changes. With thick spatterdock and cattails here comes the Wood Ducks, Redwing Blackbirds and other wild life but the muskrats quit coming and the spatter grew thicker as did the cattails. My dog Dolly hunts everything and I think the muskrats stay away along with the Wood Ducks because of her. But Dolly is my friend and what she wants she gets. So I have noticed over the years that very slight changes can make a pond completely different.

Quick hijack, then back to thread.

John, the Corkscrew eel grass I got after we PMed month's ago did very well for me. I thought it was dead, but it spread laterally extremely well, and I hope to start separating and replanting clumps next Spring.

Vender and general plant advice was right on target.

I wish I could plant it in my big BOW, but the water fluctuates to much.

Now back to thread.

I think the Spiral Eel grass is just great. I lost a years growth because of my pond level dropping so much. What I have left is now in a foot of water and doing well but if the water rises to the old levels I wonder if the ell grass being in deeper water will grow OK. I would think for anyone with a fairly stable pond water level this plant would be good.

Spiral eel grass along with numerous other submerged plants will grow to depths where it receives enough light for photosynthesis. As the plant numbers increase the water usually becomes clearer and clearer unless there are regular sediment disturbancers such as silty runoff, wave action, or animals "working" the sediments. When submerged plants get dense many species can easily grow to depths of 5 to 10ft deep. I had curly leaf pondweed growing in 14 ft of water where I could see the bottom. In clear water ponds, I've seen eel grass growing to heights of 2-3ft in 15ft of water.

Bill that makes me feel better about the eel grass. As I take down the spatterdock this spring I'm hoping to eliminate some of the tannin in the water. This is a problem I didn't used to have.

John, have you looked here.... http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.ph...true#Post301083

Thanks Bill, and Esshup, your comments make a lot of sense. The sunfish are aggressive, and gulp down big minnows, could be mowing down the perch. The CC on occasion are extremely agressive, and have caught rapala`s cranked real fast, only 6-8 left in pond. Pretty surprising. Tried the small wounded sunfish but the LMB would not hit. The LMB when one fish is caught with some kind of live bait that`s it. Can`t get another one, and that`s on a 3/4 acre pond. The only time I caught LMB on artificial lures it was during the spawn with a lot of aggravating them with lot`s of close passes.

Seems there is no exact solution going to have to experiment a little.

Fish N Chips thanks for that great find for Israeli Carp. I can't tell you how many time I have search online trying to find them. This was my fish line up in my one acre pond while I had no algae for years while ponds all around me did.

6 Israeli carp, 20 KOI, 50 Channel Catfish, Bass, Bluegill, Fathead Minnows, 18 Grass Carp, but used for cleaning out the Eurasian Milfoil. The grass carp cleaned out nearly kind of plant so plants stopping the algae were nill.

So the big worry was carp taking over the pond. I started with 6 Israeli carp and ended with 6 monsters until the winter fish kill. Perhaps the bass were controlling them. But Zetts said that the University of Auburn conducted test's in the 30's and their conclusion that a ponds that had bluegills controlled the population of the carp from an enzyme they produced in the water. I tried to find this in the archives of Auburn but couldn't find it. It could be true but perhaps the test were never digitized for online use. But for whatever reason, the carp never grew beyond the original 6.

I need to run my tadpole/golden shiner experiment this summer to see if they can control algae using the big populations I have. But the following year I may go back to the Israeli's. I really appreciate the Israeli carp find. Thanks