Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations YP just spawned last night

I just went out to the pond to find that the YP spent the night enjoying themselfs. I can see many many many spots around the pond where they have strung out their eggs. SOme are on the surface and some are as deep as 3 ft deep. It should be interesting. The suface water temp appears to be about 45 degrees from my last reading.

Ahhh yes spring is in full bloom!!!

What spring? It's 23 degrees F. here and snowing!

Neat! Are you going to let them hatch or net them up?

I guess that shows how much milder your NY weather must be compared to ours. We don't expect our first perch eggs until at least another week or two have passed.

We are at 23 degrees as well. I hope they all do well. I plan on letting them grow out to feed the SMB and others. We have had a very mild and sevear winter here. I was actually surprised to see the spawn so early.

Spring???
Its 35 and snowing in dawson.Gotta love that texas weather

Trying to figure out what the 2 inches of snow I got today will do the the YP spawn? I think the YP and everything else was fooled by the weather this year.

So far I have 3 pairs of Wood Ducks using the pond and living in trees nearby. I think they too have started the nesting process. I hope this cold spell here doesn't kill everything off.

I think wildlife is tougher than we give it credit for. If they weren't they would have gone extinct a long time ago. I had two geese and a pair of mallards in the front ond today acting like the blowing snow and low temps was just another day in the park.

They are indeed tough!! All 6 of my wood ducks just landed on the pond and are sp;ashing around and playing like all was nice and warm and summer was here..... Yet we got 6 inches of snow last night. That makes me tend to agree around how tough wildlife is.

I know that in some species of fish the water temps after spawn help determine what sex the eggs will turn out to be. IS this the case with YP and if so does cooler produce more females ...etc?

Very cool, Eric...thanks for the updates. The update subjects are the very things we hope and look forward to. Any chance of zooming in for a WD pic?

Never heard anything about temp changes or cold temps effecting the sex of yellow perch, although I do know if their is a temp change right at an intregal time of mitosis some eggs can become triploids. From the literature I have seen it's most likely the cold temps will slow down the time of hatching (degree days). With bass, survival may be reduced by a sudden cold wave if the male goes off the nest, but with perch that do not guard their eggs that wouldn't apply.

I will try to get some wood duck pics maybe even today if possible. Might be fun to see them in the snow.

Cecil, Thanksfor theinfo. I had heard that some varieties of fish are affected by temp. Just wasn't sure the YPwere. I am sure that they will take longer to hatchdue to this cold spell.

Asa notefor those who might be interested we are now at 8 inches of snow from this storm. No ice onwater just snow all around. SOrt of pretty ina nasty winter sort of way.

Interesting Update here. Looked in the pond and the eggs are still there and getting a bit of silt on them now. In the ribbon you can see some tiny white individual eggs but nothing more than that. I would have expected to see something more happen here.

This is the second year for teh YP to spawn and I am beginning to think the males are either not fertelizing the eggs or that there are no males present. As was stated before on this post, we did have a wicked cold spell for about 6-8 days after they spawned.

I know that the eggs usually hatch between 8 and 25 days after spawn. It just looks like the eggs on the ribbons here are not doing anything at all. All I see is little white eggs in the ribbon.

Any thoughts on what may be going on is appreciated. Thanks!

Dr. Perca says: Bring a small 1" section of the 5-10 day old eggs inside and look at them with a magnifying glass. If larvae are developing you will be able to see the young fish in the egg. If all eggs have white centers that section was not fertilized.

I just sacrificed 45 perch for health testing for VHS. They were being held in a cage and when I brought the cage in there were several egg ribbons in the bottom. I have some eggs strands in the pond just like what Eric is describing, but I also have some that are very translucent. Are the translucent ones the ones that are fertilized Dr. Perca?

Dr. Perca to the rescue. Yes - Translucent ones are fertilized. Unfertilized eggs appear white or have white centers. Unfertilized eggs turn opaque when they water harden.

Hope I am not breaking forum etiquette by jumping on this excellent post. I am in NE Wisconsin, last Saturday I purchased 3 YP strings from a grower. He said they were the second spawn attempt this season, the first was during a very short mild stretch, but the nice weather went south and he said most of the eggs ended up getting blown up on shore. Question on the clear vs white eggs; on the ribbons I bought(we dipped them out of the pond together), I only saw maybe a total of 10 whitish eggs. How long after laying would you be able to differentiate them if they all start out as clear. Comments on YP & SMB for a northern pond also appreciated.

Bill, Cecil, Thanks. It looks as though all of my eggs are not fertilized. All have white centers. I hope that this is not an indication that I have no males and they will not reproduce.

Now all the ribbons that I could see were somewhere between surface weeds to 2 ft down weeds. I know there are some tree roots somewhere around 4 ft deep or so that they may use as well but I havent seen many or any robbons there. All together there were only about 4 or 5 ribbons that I saw in the pond.

If we go back you might remember I added close to 100 YP and about 25 SMB to my 1/10-1/4 acre pond. Since adding them I have only put the pole in a limited number of times and each time had to work hard to catch anything. It might be that I have a large forage base and they don't want the fake stuff. I only catch a YP or two on a worm when I fish for them. They don't hit anything else.


I am starting to wonder how many of each survived. On top of all that my Fathead minnows seem to have survived and thrived throughout all of this. (I do add about 2 lbs to pond each spring to make sure there are breeding minnows there) Even though I have seen fewer minnows each spring I still see them in schools of over 5,000 swimming around. I also have tons of frogs. I am beginning to get concerned that only a very few of the original fish made it (could be heron related or other Birds). I have never seen even one floater of either YP or SMB in my pond. I have seen a few FHM floaters but that I would expect. Any thoughts here would be appreciated.

I had an interesting finding last night as I went around. As I moved the eggs sacs they started to fall apart but when they did I got small little oil type spots on the surface of the water as they eggs ruptured. Never thought about it much but I am sure that is normal but just an interesting observation.

Jeff what type of questions or comments on a YP SMB pond are you looking for? I can give you my observations as to what mine has done over the past few years, but would rather address any specifics you might have about the mix.

This may help with YP egg strands and fertile eggs.

Fertile eggs



Egg strands in water



Strands out of water

ALl of mine that I can see are white in nature. I don't have any that are clear like that.

Thanks!

Here is what dead perch eggs look like close up. The white centers are unfertilized yolk material.

Thanks Bill, That looks about what I have seen with mine. Now I have to try and figure out why none of the ribbons were fertilized.

Great pictures! How long until fertilized/unfertilized eggs can be differentiated? Or is is a matter more of water temp/hardness? Nearly all my eggs were clear, but the may have been laid the night before and hadn't turned white yet. I'm on the road, but my wife said she saw lots of the whirligig beetles around the pine tree where I planted them. Could they be feasting?
Eric, in your SMB/YP ponds, do you have any other species? I've posted on trying to eliminate the LMB (12 or so) that are in my pond prior to stocking the SMB. Local DNR and "Experts" say both should be no problem, but I am putting more faith in the forum's experts that say better to have no LMB. Do you feed? If so, what? Water clarity is a real problem for me, right now, in 6-8' I can still see bottom details. That's enough for now, thanks!

In my pond it is YP, SMB, and Fat Head Minnows. I also have a few golden shinners and a few Log Perch that came in through the seasonal stream. The onlyother things that are in the pond are tons of frogs, crayfish, and water bugs ...etc. This next year I plan on adding some Scuds for the YP and SMB.

Ialos have the whirligig beaetles and I have not seen them go after the eggs. I am sure once there is a hatch they will go after the hatch but I haven't seen them feasting on the eggs yet. Of course that doen't mean it doesn't happen.

I do feed them a bit almost every other night, but the YP and SMB do not eat the feed, it is the FHM who eat the feed. Then the SMB hit the groups of FHM while they eat. I use the standard "Fish Chow" from Purina. The feeding is more for my fun than to help things grow. I have a good balance in the pond such that I don't think I need to feed at all if I don't want to.

I have very good(too good) clarity right now. I still can see about 4 ft down. I am waiting for my first real bloom. I think once I shut off the seasonal creek to my pond I lost a good deal of the fertilization I was getting from the creek. Thus I may have to fertilize this year for the fist time if things don't take off soon.

Eric,

Are you doing anything to your pond to prepare for the introduction of scuds next year?