Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain pallets location and 'dunking'

it is time to create some minnow spawn areas by sinking some pallets. My 1/3 acre pond has no structure currently. The west half is shaded by large mature trees, some which overhand the pond as they grew on an angle out over the pond. So by midafternoon in the spring and fall the west 1/3 to 1/2 is shaded. It is pretty even slow grade down into the deep all the way around.

Right now I have 6 pallets. Is it best to put all of them in the shaded areas or some out in the areas that never get shade? Since I have 6 I was thinking of putting 6 singles, but I see some folks stack 2 on top of each other. is that better?

I do have some carpet remnants from our house. Would it be best to cover the top of the pallet with carpet before dunking it to give more surface area? How about the bottom? i assume the bottom will sink in the clay/sand bottom. If minnows lay eggs UNDER the flat surfaces then the bottom carpet is of no use. If the eggs can go on TOP of the carpet then the bottom layer of carpet may be of use.

I don't have access to weights right now. Someone said if I stake them in place they will 'waterlog' and eventually sink on their own? I was thinking of screwing some plastic coffee cans on one end of the pallet so that the shallow end is on the bottom and the end in deeper water sits off the bottom a bit to keep the pallet level, yes or no?

The coffee lids don't fasten on very tightly but I was thinking I could fill the coffee containers with sand first which would help keep the pallets from moving around and create a little cavity under the deep end of the pallet?

Maybe i can make some plastic 'curtains' or streamers that overhang the other two sides to help shade the area under the pallet and leave gaps in the streamers to let fish swim in and out? What do I have around that is rot resistant and yet flexible.... Maybe some old landscape edging or I can cut up some unused underground PVC sprinkler line longwise and make strips that way..

You can't find some big rocks to put on the pallets to sink them? You don't need anything fancy just weight. I don't think it'll take much to weight them down..

Other than that I think your over engineering it.. make 3 piles 2 pallets deep in about 2 ft of water.. make the piles in different spots every year which ever spot seems to get the most action after a couple years stick to thst as your sweet spot and build on thst location..

I also have a 4x4 sheet of foam insulation 1/2" thick. Can I use that? Maybe leave it floating?

How do you know if there is 'action' at a pile? I imagine you can't see the eggs if they are on the underside of the pallets?

I wouldn't recommend any foam insulation in a pond it can breakdown into a nasty mess..

You'll notice the action by swarms of breeding minnows around your best placed pallets.. or you might see action around all of them then you know your doing it right..

Drill holes in the bottoms of the coffee cans so they don't collect gasses and float. Put them in shallow water, <2' deep.

As you mentioned, FHM lay their eggs on the under side of things. They also lay them on hard substrate, so I would assume the carpet would be a poor choice, but the experts might have a different opinion on that. Now other minnow species that lay their eggs on top the carpet might work well. I don't really know.

I have heard of FHM's using a red Solo cup for a spawning site in a pond, so about anything that is a hard substrate and has an underside in the depth range that the FHM's need, they will use as for spawning as desired.

The male also protects the eggs so areas that are easily protected I would guess would look good to a FHM. Like a foot long piece of 2-3" pvc pipe.

So whatever you might have laying around that you don't mind being on the bottom of your pond that meets the criteria above will probably work.

Shallower water will warm quicker so spawning will start earlier, but if you have bird predation very bad some structure in a little deeper water, like 3', will give some later or more protected spawning sites.

Just my ideas, worth what you paid for them. I'm no expert.