Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Renovating a Pond or Lake? Rotenone

hey guys going to renovate four ponds that are out of balance.
Just going to kill everything and start from scratch.
What is the name of the new posion used? and about how far will it go if bought by the gallon?
We have 10-12 acreas of water to deal with.

It IS called Rotenone. It's a restricted chemical, so you need a pesticide applicators license to purchase it.

This link should have the information that you are inquiring about:

http://www.clemson.edu/extension/hgic/plants/other/landscaping/hgic1713.html

At least that's the chemical that I think you are talking about. It's not new.

More info:
Liquid rotenone for fish removal is sold under the brand names Fish Tox®, Nox-Fish®, Prentox®, Prenfish Toxicant, Chem Fish® and Nusyn NoxFish®).
https://srac.tamu.edu/index.cfm/event/getFactSheet/whichfactsheet/219/

The amount that you use and the final concentration are based on the species of fish and water conditions which can bind the toxicant and reduce the effectiveness.

Excerpt: "As a piscicide, rotenone interrupts cellular respiration in gill-breathing animals by
blocking the transfer of electrons in the mitochondria. Acute exposure to toxic levels
reduces cellular uptake of blood oxygen, resulting in increased cellular anaerobic
metabolism and associated production of lactic acid causes blood acidosis (Fajt and
Grizzle 1998). Death results from tissue anoxia, which typically produces cardiac and
respiratory failure (Ling 2003). Scientists believe that fish are more sensitive to rotenone
because it is rapidly absorbed into the bloodstream from water flowing across the gill
membrane. Although both fish and aquatic macroinvertebrates are highly susceptible to
rotenone (Skaar 2001), most macroinvertebrate populations quickly recover to pretreatment
levels (Lennon 1971, Schnick 1974b). Gill-breathing amphibians (i.e., frog and
toad tadpoles and larval salamanders) are also adversely affected (Hamilton 1941).
Amphibian adults and reptiles are less sensitive than fish and should not be harmed when
rotenone is applied at concentrations typically used in fisheries management (Farringer
1972). Fall applications of rotenone reduce or eliminate impacts on amphibians because
most species are in the adult stage of development. Rotenone is very unstable in the environment (half-life measured in days) and completely breaks down within one to four weeks depending on pH, alkalinity, temperature, dilution, and exposure to sunlight (Schnick 1974b). It also adsorbs strongly to organic matter in sediment and is rapidly degraded (Dawson et al. 1991)."
http://www.usbr.gov/lc/phoenix/reports/bonitacreek/bcfbappC.pdf

See the link below that lists all the commercial brand names using rotenone. Note how the majority of uses is for insecticides and some are used on pets and in the garden.
http://scorecard.goodguide.com/chemical-profiles/pesticides.tcl?edf_substance_id=83-79-4

Bill:

I remember when the State rotenoned a local lake. There was a large Crayfish population in the lake, and many of them died along with the fish.

Also note in some places you could have an issue with authorities if you use this product while water is leaving the pond. We had a gentleman locally that had some trouble because he did not stop the chemicals from going out his spillway and some fish died down stream. If I remember correctly he was fined 2k for the incident.

Yea it was Prenfish, the guy at the local Co-op said it was not called rotenone anymore. I have worked with rotenone before, the amount of water we have to work with, it will be difficult to get a complete fish kill. I will try to get some of the water drained down a little. We will see how it goes.

Next thing will be stocking, we want to stock with larger fish than fingerlings, BG and Red ear sunfish, and Bass. One small lake will be stocked with only catfish.
question about the shell cracker, is there a special environment that they need to have to make here is NW Florida. We stocked a lake with them and they did not make it at all. We have very sandy soil here in this area, not sure if that matters.

Nothing special. I have a pond dug in sand and they do well. They aren't caught with the regularity that BG are caught, but they are doing well in the pond.

is there any thing to make them strive more so than normal.
It was just weird that when we drained the 7 +-acre lake there must have been 500000 snails and we did not take out one red ear after the project was complete. Just did not know if we needed to do anything special.

On these lakes we will stock bigger fish is the stock ratio the same 1000/100 BG to LMB?

I'd stock 300/acre of the RES.

If you want a more balanced pond with the nod to LMB vs. BG, I'd stock 1500/75 or 1500/50.

But then again, you're in Fl, so the BG have more gowing days than up here. I'm not 100% sure that stocking 1000/100 would result in a balanced pond, it might lean slightly towards LMB overcrowding in a number of years without LMB management.

we used prenfish, and killed the fish, even the fresh water eels did not make it.
I'm thinking we will go with the 1500/75 route with shad and fatheads.

If we go with less bass such as 75 or even the 50 number, will you still be able to catch numbers of bass. I guess what I;m asking is that we want quality fish but would like to be able to catch 20+ fish on a good afternoon, with still descent size.

We did the 10:1 ratio on a couple of our lakes and we caught numbers but the size was really not there it seemed after a few yrs. Could have been because of the florida's and not getting the F1's

On ponds that get a lot of fishing pressure, the fish wise up to being caught. It's a balancing act, and you can't fight nature. Ponds can only carry so many predators per acre, based in pounds of fish. There will be all age classes of predators, so all age classes contribute to the poundage factor. You'd be doing very well to keep 600-700 pounds of fish happy and healthy per acre. So, in a pond with 15:1-20:1 ratio thats needed to grow large LMB, think about how many large catchable LMB actually would be in each acre. You won't catch every large LMB, there's a percentage that are wise, or just don't hit artificials.