Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New Retention Pond not a mosquito nursery...

Ok I just went a to work for a brand new business in my area (extreme South East Georgia) a couple of months ago. Brand new building brand new site and so on. The pond in about the size of a large back yard pool. I doubt it is more than four feet deep. I would like to add something to it to keep the pond from becoming a complete mosquito incubator. I have the ok from the manager to do this but no budget other than my pocket and his. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Fat heads would do great. Then you'll have all the bait you ever wanted. Copper nose bluegill in limited supply and fished to keep the babies out.

Every thing depending of course

Just another thought...

FHM for the mosquitos and if you want to play with the pond some, and if you like to eat cc, you could drop a couple dozen cc fingerlings in there, throw them a few pellets everyday and harvest them once a year for a nice fish fry.

Any plan to throw a little aerator in there?

Because you are in southeast Georgia, depth to prevent winter kill isn't an issue. The only thing you'll face with a pond that shallow that far south is it'll likely get really hot, stagnant and have possible DO issues in the warm summer months.

If mosquitofish/gambusia don't find their way into the pond on their own you can add a handful. Without predation, they're incredibly prolific. However it seems they naturally colonize almost any body of water on their own in the southeast.

Run a dipnet in any drainage ditch and you're likely to catch enough to start your own colony in the pond. You may also catch sailfin mollies, golden topminnows and least killifish. All do well in shallow, warm weedy bodies of water. Least killifish are neat as they are the world's smallest live bearing fish.

If you want to establish a gamefish population, you'd likely want to consider aeration. Otherwise a pond that small and shallow is a recipe for failure in that part of the country...

CJBS, I'm curious, how to gambusia naturally colonize new bodies of water? I'm not familiar with their lifecycle, do they get in from rain runoff over fields? stormwater pipes that backup in heavy rains?

Your ideas are the most likely means.

Gambusia are livebearers. They are literally able to live in puddles. They can survive water temps to 104 degrees and extremely low DO as they can gulp atmospheric air to breathe.

I say forget the GAMS.

Dump a some Fat head minnows in. You can get them at a freahwater bait store that sells live bait. will make for better viewing and the control you want.

Just my 2 cents,

Thanks everyone I will be looking to get some Fat Head minnows to put in very soon I need to put a screen on the overflow pipe to contain them. Could someone give me an idea of how many to stock?

If you have no predators, a dozen will be hundreds by fall...

I would like to know too. We have seasonal ditches that completely dry up, yet the gams will be there when spring rains fill them.

Heavy spring rains connect all the little puddles with running water. The gams are masters at dispersing through heavy spring run off to new homes.

those nasty little buggers!