Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New pond stock in Michigan

hello, just had a pond dug last summer. The size is around 80' round about 13' feet at the deepest spot, but it is very full right now so it may drop a few feet in summer.

I didn't do a ton a of research but I just went and bought 100 hydrid gills at my local fish farm and released them last week. they had a minmum order of 100 fish regardless of specie so my questions are:

what other type of fish should I stock? I kinda wanted some largemouth bass (or smallmouth) and possibly some perch but wasn't sure on stocking rates or if I should even do it at all. I do not currently have a aerator and the pond does freeze solid over the winter, currently there is not much plant life if any in the pond from it being so new so I was kinda concerned about food for the fish. I bought a big bag of fish food and I cant seem to get the gills to eat it yet, im guessing its just too cold for them to feed heavily yet. thanks. jeff

Welcome. You are not too far from Laggis Fish Farm in Gobles MI. He has good healthy fish. With hybrid BG (HBG) you can add some pellet trained Yperch. Laggis has some good YP now. Get them before they are sold out. However with these two species I would not use LMBass. LMB and & do not work well together. Get the HBG&YP growing and in fall stock some Laggis smallmouth. He usually has them pellet trained. If you feed these 3 species high quality pellets you will have a really nice fishery in your small pond. You wouldn't have needed a whole bag of fish food. It may go bad before you use all of it for these small fish. As the water warms into the 60F range you should see more fish eating pellets.

You will only need 10-15 SMB in your small pond. If you have to buy 100SMB feed them and decrease their numbers when they get to 8"-10". Trade them or give them away.

Welcome Jeff! I'm from the SW Grand Rapids area and can tell you up front that all you need to know is either on the forum, or in the archives. Bill has sent me on a great path when my pond was new and I continually thank him for it!

Feel free to PM me if you have questions or browse the forums and ask away.

I'm not an expert and still learning. I went the route of adding forage the first year (and the second year) I'm trying to expand the forage base and so far have FHM, GSH, Crayfish, lake chubsuckers, and in the warm weather months have been dabbling with tilapia for algae control.

I don't know the pros and cons of adding forage after HBG are in the pond but like Bill says, if you like to feed or have a feeder that will do fine with a diet of pellets.

I'd love to share SMB with you as I'll be ready for them this fall and maybe we can meet somewhere if you end up getting them from Laggis. My perch are from there and they are healthy, vigorous, and grew like crazy once they were in my pond. If you can get some I highly recommend it. You won't need many, maybe 50-75 depending if you plan to let them procreate or if you catch and consume.

I would say you could add larger FHM and GSH if you wanted to and the HBG wouldn't be able to eat the larger ones. But if you put perch in first it may be hard to establish a forage base unless you get very big shiners or have a separate grow out pond.

I also recommend considering the invertebrate backbone of your forage base. I know you can get gammarus species scuds for a week or so yet before they go 'out of season' (search on the forum about these), and other people are experimenting with various freshwater shrimp, different kinds of shiners, crayfish, snails, etc.



Welcome aboard!

By not allowing forage to develop first, Jeff269 has to make adjustments to his initial pond program due to first adding HBG. Having a pellet feeding fishery with proper harvest can work well in small ponds.

yes, I did get the HBG from laggis last Saturday. They are only about an hour from me. Nice operation they have there. I was tempeted to get the yellow perch but didn't want to overpopulate the pond too quickly and just wasn't sure.

So do you recommend the SMB over the LMB for my pond? I believe they said the minimum was 50 bass per order put it could be 100 like the HBG. I was thinking about getting one of those auto feeders for the fish pellets, not really sure how many pounds of pellets per day 100 HBG need (maybe 1/4 # day)?? any input.

Also was debating an aerator for winter time, not sure yet....

Thanks in advance I really appreciate all the knowledge on this site I would be totally lost and probably wouldn't even of had a pond dug if I wouldn't have found this site

Jeff,
Aerators are mostly for summer use unless your pond is very shallow in the winter, or if you have heavy weeds in winter which consume O2, or unless you can't get the snow off the ice. If it is by your house you may be able to keep the snow cleared? Warm winters in MI can present a problem where the ice is too soft to walk on and the snow can build up for many weeks keeping sunlight out of the pond in the winter.

Also, I learned myself that it is very important to know the exact depth of your pond. I assumed based on what I had it excavated to that it was that depth. But get in a boat with a weighted string and measure exactly. 13 foot should be good to help with preventing winter kill. But if water goes down in the summer and stays down in the fall your depth may change.

Do you have pictures of the site, or the dig, or what the soil types are? I'm curious if yours is a groundwater pond or if you have a means to fill it or top it off if you need to? Do you expect to have much loss through the bottom or sides of the pond?

Will you have mature trees around the pond dropping leaves in?

Do you have a source for crayfish locally?

I do have a ton of pictures and ive tried to load them but it keeps saying my file size is too large?

I went out there last week with my kyak and it is exactly 13 feet deep right now, but the water table is very high also here with all the rain and being spring time. I had the pond dug last june, and it filled up nicely but then august was dry and I lost a lot of water, it was all the way up to about 11 feet deep, and dropped to 8-9 feet. hard to say where the water went, probably lost it because the water table dropped, and lost some from evaportation because it was hot,, or maybe since my pond was new the banks were sucking it up, heck I don't know. at that time I contacted t.j. and was interested in some soilfloc because it was making me nervous that I was loosing that much water put basically they said since my pond was so new that I should just have patience right now and let all the soils and banks settle in and maybe the pond will seal itself over time... I will find out this summer if its any better but right now it is brimmed almost too high, kinda creepin up in my lawn. I should have installed my overflow tube slightly lower but I am expecting the pond to start dropping here by late april I think. The soils are a mix of sand and clay, kinda strange because all the neighbors have solid blue clay within a mile of me and I didn't do much research before I dug it I just kinda winged it like a dummy and it almost bite me but I think I will be ok, if I keep loosing water I will have to contact t.j. this fall. When I put my sprinkler system in in the fall I ran a 2" discharge pipe to the pond, so I can fill it with my well at about 30 gpm, If I leave it on for about 4 hours I can raise the pond about 2", but would rather not use the well, but its there if it gets really low

If circumstances permit, I would try hand feeding first. Auto feeders are nice when conditions warrant, but they cannot provide the feedback that hand feeding and walking the bank will provide. Especially for a new pond owner. Your pond will have lots to show you, if you are out there observing firsthand.

Stick with the SMB for your small pond situation. Overall they will perform better, including not overpopulating. On pellets & some small fish they can grow to large 18" maybe 19" sizes if you don't have too many. If Laggis sells a minimum of 50 SMB then split your order with canyoncreek, both benefit, win-win. I'm not sure Laggis still have pellet fed YP in fall. If he does you can get the SMB and some YP then. If you add 25-50 YP I suggest you then reduce the number of HBG by 1/2.

Jeff - Welcome!

If the minimum order is 100 SMB, you only need a few, and CC only needs a few. I could buzz down to Don's place and fulfill the rest of the order. Maybe pick up CC on the way down from Fremont. About 2 hours from here to his farm.

I don't want that many either, and will toss the rest in the bosses pond.

Esshup sent me a text or email a few days ago that the SMB at Laggis are usually feed trained.

Don told me on the phone that he feed trains quite a few fish every year, but not much luck with WE. Yeah, you get a few, but they mostly fungus up and die.

jeff,
To post photos you need to find an online site that will save the picture for you as this forum cannot save the picture. Most people use photobucket, get a free account and download pictures from your phone or computer to the photobucket app via phone or on your computer via upload to the photobucket web page. Then when you post (you have to use the full reply screen) you click to insert a picture and then you have to copy and paste the link from photobucket. The link will then import the picture directly into your post as long as that picture stays in that location in photobucket.

There probably are other free photo hosting sites but I find that many people who read the forum from work have filters that block photos that originated on facebook.

It isn't hard once you practice a bit but the first time it seems like a crazy amount of work.

you can add an attachment or two in the post and put your photos there but the users have to click on each one, navigate back, click again etc. It is definitely nice for other readers to have inline pictures in your post.

Word was that the newer forum hosting software would at some point support drag and drop pictures in the postings but I haven't heard anymore about that.

Thanks for the updates on your pond. TJ will help you if/when you decide you need it. I'm glad at full pool you have 13'. That will help you in the winter. If you get sick of filling it with your well you can consider a trial of soilfloc. However, if you decide to do that it is best to do when there is very little vegetation on the bottom.

keep us posted on how things progress and JKB, myself and you can connect if it comes time to put a SMB order in.

You are welcome to have some of the new Optimal food if you would want to try it. A generous soul sent some to me and I'm happy to send some on to you since you already have HBG in your pond

Here we go. someone tell me if you can view all the pics. I am still trying to find the pics from the 2nd pond dig. The pics that I uploaded are from the first pond dig and it was like that for about 2 weeks and it filled up with water and it was only about 8-9 feet deep. I had them com back again I think you can see in another pic and dig it out deeper and wider. Pictures say 1000 words, and u can probably tell that I used ALL the dirt that was dug out and had a dozer spread it in my backyard almost all the way to the back of my house, which is about 150 feet from the pond edge. I also used the dirt to build up the pad that the new barn sits on, which is built up about 3 feet from what it was., the rest of the dirt was used for a burms along the pond edge. As you can see I had about 12" of premium black dirt that they scraped off the top and put in a pile and was later used to put back on top of everything. In one of the pond dig pics you can see where the excavator is digging himself a shelf so he can sit himself down "into" the pond another 3 to 4 feet so he can reach further and dig deeper, that is the second time the pond was dug out. Let me know what you guys think. I will definatly get ahold of you guys in the fall about splitting up some SMB and youll see me on the forum a lot this summer, im sure ill have more questions. thanks!

jeff,
If you go to photobucket and click on the picture you want to post to the forum, you will see the big picture in the middle and to the right several options. the 2nd option down says 'direct' If you click on the box to the right of that word direct where the link is it should flash when you click it and say 'copied' that means it is on your clipboard.

Then go back to your post and click the picture icon that says upload floating or nonfloating picture. I just pick the top one in that drop down and then when the dialogue box comes up, just hit control V or paste and that link will drop in that box.

Then while you are composing, at the bottom of the composing box there is a preview post button. Click that to see if the picture automatically pulls in the body of your post.

The one you did above has too many brackets around the link or something went wrong so it isn't importing. You can go back and edit that post and try again and use the preview button until you can see that you got it correct.

thanks for the help canyon creek. Ive only known ya 2 days and can tell your a good guy! let me know what you think of the pics or if you have any suggestions.

Very nice! I can see the pictures now. I love your setting and your pond. The rocking chairs under the covered porch on your outbuilding have a great view.

Some pond building experts here may see the slope of your side walls and worry a bit about kids straying in and slipping down. If your water levels drop at some point you may consider using tools available to you (like the loader on the green tractor) and maybe consider adding to the perimeter of your pond a more gradual sloped area. This can be a safety feature but also the gradual shallow areas are what makes our pond such a magnet for kids. They walk around the pond for hours and in that first 2 feet of shallow water they can see the bottom so can see all kinds of creeping things, toad and frog eggs, insects, scuds, ghost shrimp, sometimes crayfish, dragonfly nymphs, etc. When they get too close and step in I know they have another 3 feet or so before the water goes over their boots and that usually gets them to stop and head back the other way.

Also the shallows are great for watching perch eggs and setting in minnow traps. Maybe once part of the pond has a shallow area with gradual slope you can fill it to that new level with your well to control the depth in that area? Just a thought. It looks like in the picture the high water mark is showing some grass covered with water on the edges so full pool might keep at least a small shelf of shallow around the edge.

The soil is interesting, there is some clay colored soil in the deeper layers. We'll have to see how your pond does. I don't see much in the way of rock though.

Nice!

The pictures could also easily be in Indiana or Ohio.

Boroda must be pretty far south in Michigan?

I get your drift on the edges being a little too steep. I was at work when the dozer guy was working the edges and I told him to leave about 6 feet flat and then start the berm but when I got home he was already loaded up and didn't feel like asking him to redo it at the time. I have 2 kids and they are always out walking around it and riding four wheelers and dirt bikes but I told them they cant ride on the berm or next to the pond. I may redo it my self one of these days with my tractor. Right now the pond is as high as its ever been so time will tell how to does. Ideally I would like to keep it about 6-8" lower than what it is right now. If you can see my overflow green sewer pipe on the side of the pond, that goes to my drainage ditch about 30 feet away, the problem was I couldn't install the pipe any lower because it wouldn't drain correctly, the water from the ditch would actually drain into the pond. As soon as I kinda figure out the where the water level will end up im going to put a dock in, more like a deck dock I guess, like a 8x8, but still wondering if I should do like a floating dock or permanent, guess that's a whole nother subject.

Jeff - Nice pond!

If you keep an eye out for Menard's ads, they usually have a couple sales per year on dock floats. Usually, buy one, get one free. (has always been in the past)

ok, i will do that!

Does anyone know if there is a clarifier for pondwater and it a good or bad idea. The water clarity is only about 8 to 10 inches I would say but we did have a good rain a couple days ago. I didn't notice it as much last year, Thinking the bluegills might have trouble eating if they cant see! haha

Read the muddy water threads to see how to do a jar test. Once the reason for the muddy water are determined, then proper action can be taken.

Jeff - Menards has the dock floats on sale this week. Buy one, get one free.