Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Pumpkinseed home

JKB,

Although I will follow decontamination procedures
thanks for the heads up. I will discuss it with the contractor and the fish farmer he applied it for.

As an experiment I left about 2 dozen of the smallest PKS offspring in the mini pond to see if they can survive the winter.
I keep a 3x3 ft. area clear for sunlight but I will be surprised if they make it till spring.

I have the 9 largest PKS that hatched last summer, now in a 40 gallon tank and they are growing well, hopefully I can get them to spawn this summer.

How big have your yearlings gotten?

Travis the largest ones are about 3 1/2 inches and I feed them Krill, Salmon, and ground up Aquamax 600.
I'm using a Marineland dual wheel bio filter and a Tetra filter on the 40 gal. tank and the water quality is fine.
About 2 weeks ago I lost one of the big females in the 100 gal. RAS, it's the only loss I've had in the 2 winters it's been operating. She looked fine so I don't know if it was old age, or something else, no other problems.

Have you had any luck in finding suitable property to put your ponds on?

3.5" is great growth, that's right about the biggest PS yearling I have been able to grow in my aquarium. The coloration of that PS in that photo is amazing! The krill diet really helps bring out the colors.

I am being patient, but land prices in the DC area are still rather expensive, especially on a police officer/teacher salary. May be many years before I own my own pond. So I am stuck playing with other people's ponds. My dad and I are looking into possibly building a pond on our 50 acres in PA. However the topography of the land there isn't very conducive to anything but a fairly small pond, perhaps 1 acre at best. Plus, it's 2 hours away and no electricity where we'd build, so it reduces management options. For now I am being patient, I am only 30...

Yeah the banks aren't too crazy about lending money on vacant land, unless you can find suitable property with a house already on it, as long as your wife agrees that the proper land is more important than the house. Good Luck.

Surprised again, the PKS fry that I left in the mini pond have survived. I kept a small area cleared of snow all winter but that pond had to be close to totally froze, the water was pretty murky and didn't see anything moving so I started pumping out the water and as it got shallow I could see them moving around, they are tough little buggars.

AP,

Must be why as a sunfish their range goes much farther north than bluegills.

I believe PS's are a good addition to many northern ponds especially if they have winterkill problems.
Now if I can just get that 1lb. 10oz. PS thru selective breeding.

I fished out some of the little PS's from the mini pond and even though they survived the winter they didn't grow, the biggest ones weren't much over an inch.

Good info AP. How old was the big female that died? Those guys are tuff.

Eric I had her less than 2 years and she was an adult when I got her, she appeared healthy and I never had any problems with the other PS's, maybe it was old age.

That is what I was thinking also. If she was in good condition that is most likely a good assumption under your facts.

I transferred my 8 large PKS from the RAS back into the mini pond, the biggest ones were 9 inches so that's only a 1/2" gain from last year so I think they have reached their max length but they are plenty fat.
Soon I will put their 10 largest offspring from last year in a 100 gal. tank outside and hopefully they will spawn. I'll keep selectively breeding them and see what happens.

Here's one of the bigger ones.

Pretty looking fish! It will be interesting to see how your breeding work goes.

Beautiful fish AP.

9 inches is a dandy!!

The PS's didn't waste any time, there's a male guarding both spawning tubs already.

Fantastic fish AP. Any pics of the one year old fish ?

I don't have a current photo Eric, this one was taken in Feb. when they were 3 1/2 inches.

Thanks AP - very beautiful PS.

My 2 year old PKS have spawned in the mini pond and the fry are growing well, at the end of the summer I'll choose some of the fastest growers and continue to try and breed big PKS's, it sure is a slow process but the 2 year old's are a decent size already but I have a long way to go to get 12" PKS's.

Here's some of the fry aka fingerlings or juveniles.

Just as a reference,, a fish ceases being a fry by fishery definition when it develops a full compliment of fins and usually scales. This is actually at quite an early age and length - often at or slightly less than 1/2" long. After this stage the young are called juveniles or fingerlings. Adirondack has some nice fingerlings in that picture. If he gets PS to 12" he will be my fish growing hero.

A 12 in PS might be a world record. Nice pics AP and thanks for posting them. Another way of referencing young fish is as young of the year (yoy)

AP does love his PS! What's not to love about such a pretty fish...