Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Overrun with big goldfish- restocking options??

I apologize for the repetitive information here from my other thread.

A little background:
I live in Southern New England and have an approximately 1/4 acre pond (100' approximate circumference). We have owned the property for 4 years. As far as we can tell the deepest point is 6' right now, so probably 7' when the water is higher. The majority of pond is that depth as the shallow areas reach 6' within 10' of shore. The pond is man made and was put in in the '70's to irrigate the garden. It is not lined. It is spring fed from the bottom and has an outflow (though the spring doesn't feed it so much that it is always outflowing, only when we get lots of rain). It has a stone bottom (not that I can see it) and the man who installed it used to swim in it and said it was 9' deep. The trees have certainly grown in around it as I have pictures from the 90's.

The owner before us, who bought the place in the 90's, added goldfish. They are 8"+ man-eaters. Well, not really, but they certainly do breed like rabbits. The pond has a lot of fish and minnows. They appear to all be goldfish. There are also tons of frogs, newts, turtles, dragonflies and other water bugs- and leeches. The edge is planted with water iris and there are some shallow water grasses and perhaps 10 cattails. We have done nothing to the pond since we bought the place with the exception of cutting overhanging branches the first Winter. The water is sometimes clear and sometimes murky. It has no noticeable odor and no algae.

My Goal:
I would like to make the pond more swimmable. The two obstacles as I see them are muck (probably the goldfish are big contributors) and leeches.

LMB have been suggested to eat the leeches and minnows. I am not sure how I feel about this as the LMB also eat frogs and are hard to sex, which means I could end up with too many of them.

Any suggestions?

Go rent a 3" gasoline semi-trash pump. Dewater the pond. Every day for a week, dewater the pond. Hopefully the majority of the frogs will leave for greener pastures. Dewater the pond one last time, and throw enough hydrated lime in the pond bottom to bring the pH up to 11. Let it naturally fill up with water over the winter and re-stock it with fish. That's the only way that I know to get rid of the goldfish for a homeowner. Now, depending on the state regulations, Rotenone is an option for a licensed applicator. That will get rid of the goldfish too.

Other than those 2 options, I'm at a loss. No fish that you put in there will eat only the goldfish.

Scott has provided the best, fastest, cheapeast and most effective strategies here to achieve your goals. Small ponds like yours are easy to drain, nuke, and begin again - that's the beauty of the micro pond.

I don't know if the goldfish would be your biggest contributor to the muck. From what I gathered in your other thread, I would lean towards your trees and leaves over many years. Are you thinking that getting rid of the goldfish will be the answer to muck? Could you live with the goldfish (in order to keep the frogs) as long as the muck and leeches are reduced?

If it's any consolation, my frogs were back within a year after the water was added again.

I am going to throw out a question for the pros:
If one LMB was stocked, do you think it would more likely go after larger goldfish or frogs? From what I have learned here on the forum, it would prefer the largest food it can safely manage. So would a LMB (say 20" ? ) prefer 8" goldfish or frogs?

I don't think LMB will get the results and here's why. Sorta same scenario, except the pond is much larger, at .8 acre. Overrun with stunted BG, Goldfish and Bullheads. 2-3 years ago I removed somewhere between 1,500 and 2,500 stunted BG, around 700 goldfish and a couple hundred bullheads. No LMB were observed in the pond, and none were caught the previous year by the owner. We stocked 125 8" LMB, IIRC in early June, then about a dozen LMB in early Fall that were between 2# and 3#. Next Fall there were 5 Tiger Muskies stocked.

There's still Goldfish in the pond............. The LMB are fat and happy, and at least one TM was seen earlier this year, roughly 36" long.

Are the gold fish are greatly reduced to a more balanced level? seems feeding on goldfish keeps them fat and happy...thats a positive. I always thought goldfish would be a goog forage fish.

Bobby, in a fish survey this year, roughly the same number of goldfish were observed in the same amount of time. BG population has increased about 3x size wise tho! Less larger goldfish were observed (8"-11"). A feeding program was implemented in the pond right after the first initial survey and fish population reduction.

This year, there were 1-5 cormorants on the pond on a daily basis. Approximately 3/4 of all the fish observed had bird strikes on them, no matter what the size of the fish. The only species that didn't have any marks were the Bullheads.

Would any other species eat the leeches and the minnows but leave alone the frogs?

I can live with goldfish if the population is controlled. I agree the muck is largely plant debris but the fish aren't helping. I would like to minimize the pond becoming a fish toilet.

I thought of trapping minnows and netting the adults- as many as possible.

In a perfect world I would go back in time and prevent the previous owner from putting them into the pond to begin with. I don't really care if I have fish in my pond.

Thanks for entertaining the idea Esshup. What I was trying to get a feel for is would one LMB (because of larger size) prefer to eat a goldfish over a frog. Much like a LMB would prefer a YP instead of a BG. My thinking is that I think Greyhound wants to save the frogs in the best possible way. I don't think it would ever eliminate the goldfish.

Yellow Perch???

Remember, some fish are good for mosquito control.

Ah, pond ownership. You start out with a picture perfect goal in mind, and everything works great until you actually attempt to implement those goals into the environment that is your pond.

Then begins the compromising. And to a certain degree, the capitulation once realization sets in that what we desire in our ponds, may not be at all what nature has in mind. It doesn't have to mean that what we want is unobtainable, only that decisions must be made, priorities recognized, and occasionally, sacrifices endured.

I think a pond is like a jigsaw puzzle, where all the individual pieces must work together, and interact with one another before the big picture can be realized. Taking out your pocketknife and whittling on a stubborn piece to make it fit where you think it should go might bring short term satisfaction, but the end result will suffer.

Fortunately for pondmeisters, we are given a ceetain leeway. Rather than being forced to use only those puzzle pieces that came out of the box, we are permitted to design a few of our own...but they still need to interlock, and interact with all the other "boxed" pieces in order to work properly.

I would look at YP too. FYI, I have not had any success in telling fish what they can and cannot eat. They don't seem to listen to me.....

!!!!!!! Perfect timing in my day. I needed that.

Yes, I will deal with goldfish to keep my frogs. But, I was hoping to reduce the population. I wondered if perch would not be as capable of eating the frogs, although I have no idea how big they get! I don't want to make my fish problem worse is all. If I can use additional fish as a biological control with few downsides, great. But it there are too many unknowns I might stick with the enemy that I know.

Just sayin' here....

If it was my pond, I'd drain it and nuke it with hydrated lime. Whatever frogs might be killed will come back as soon as it refills, or VERY shortly thereafter.

YP don't get large enough to eat frogs per se, but they do get large enough to eat tadpoles, although they primiarly occupy different nitches in the water column.

Greyhound, if you drain the pond and start over the frogs will be back in short order... If you have the right habitat for them, they will find it. I wouldn't stress too much about that.

I think your best bet would be some kind of catfish like a big blue or a flathead. Because they are big enough to eat leeches and and large goldfish but unlikely to go into shallow water or surface area where frogs will be found. Also one large flathead could probably eat every goldfish in your pond no problem.

I was just thinking something along those lines...would a blue cat feed on frogs? They're an apex predator but aren't they mostly going to be mid to low in the water column? I may have missed it, how deep is this pond?

Esshup, the frogs that are killed are not coming back now or shortly afterwards either. May be a topic for the Resurrection. I have always wondered if the frogs get their legs back in Heaven.

Well, goldfish is a tricky fish. Unless you stock lots of predators, you won't reduce their count. Actually yellow perch won't do much harm to them simply because of it's mouth size. It's not large compared to an average goldfish. Sure, they will eliminate juveniles but large spawners will survive and continue spawining each year.

I don't quite understand why are frogs so important but that's not my business. I don't want to disappoint you but I have to admit that frogs usually are quite a nice meal for predators. Perch, pike, catfish etc. eat them... Sure, perch will eat smaller ones while pike is capable of eating large specimens as well. I've heard that catfish (in my case WELS but maybe the same can be said about other catfish as well) prefers frogs rather than fish that are eaten only because frogs are not always available.

But you won't get rid of frogs anyway. Probably you know some pond or lake with lots of predators, don't you? Haven't you see frogs there?

Wow! That is deep. That is poetic.

I think you might be the Voltaire of the pond world sprkplug!

I mean that in only the very best of ways.

Edit: Not to mention every thing you said is true. My mind works well with analogies and you did it well.

As long as the goldfish make merry and plentiful with the bebby making there will always be goldfish maxing out the numbers as there will be plentiful replacements if ever herons thin out the adults

Golden orfe are voracious tiddler predators, a couple or three of those will mop up and cut the supply off. Quite a perty, magnificent fish when they get big

Regards, andy

Rotenone is illegal in Massachusetts. Not sure about the other states in the New England.

What state are you in Greyhound?

I'd eat the larger frogs. You need some predators in there. LMB will try to eat anything they can get into their mouth (and I've seen them snatch water snakes right at the waters edge). Some walleyes, saugeyes and YP will clear them out real quick (plus they're easy to catch with minnows).

Andrew davis, never heard of a Golden orfe.... Gonna check them out though!

Ide are the common name, but they also go by orfe. They are a color mutation from a naturally grayish blue colored fish in the Cyprinid family. They are in the same family as carp and goldfish. They prefer cooler waters compared to carp and goldfish though.