tritonvt,
Dave and Ric answered your questions, but here goes. You wanted to know is it possible to have enough forage so you can stock preadtors without restocking forage. The short answer NO. As Cody mentiuoned very complex. I'll explain it this way. My example before was with an addtional predator when you want to grow bass.
This time we will use another recommendation I make alot. Stock threadfin shad in bluegill/lmb pond as an additional forage to grow more bass. SOme folks may think cool I'll stock the shad and that will mean if I grow 200 lbs/acre of shad I can grow 20 lbs more bass in the pond. Wrong the 200 lbs of shad will feed on zooplanktoin that would have otherwise went into aquatic insect production that was consumed by bluegill. therefore the shad take away "some" food from the bluegill. How much?, not sure. However the addition of 200 lbs of shad woild outweight the fact the bluegill production was reducded by say 50 lbs. Get it???
As Norm said you can produce more shad than other species. Why b/c they are closer in trophic status to the amount of nutrients than the predators who have several layers in the food web b/f they get fed. So add this to your answer, you can only produce so many pounds of forage b/c you can only fertilize so much b/f you have a fish kill. As Dave said this is an environment where you have waste and disease outbreaks. I hardly ever work a fish kill where a low fish populaiton was invlolved unless from some toxicant. Most of the time it is because some fish dealer said they could grow 2,000 lbs in their 1/4 acre pond with fertilizer and a feeder. I can go on and on and I probably am not explaining this well anyway.
Norm "there is" a point where there is a carrying capacity. It can be raised by supplemental feeding, fertilizing, adding a diffused air system, then a surface aerator, more forage that occupies a differnt niche. However at some point you have reached the top and before you get there you have made things more difficult with numerous species.
Norm I get your point and applaud it. I love to work with folks who like other goals thus stock several species like yourself. I also like helping folks grow big bass or big bluegill. However, I don't want any new readers to think from your post there is not a carrying capacity, there is. I think you understand so maybe it is just the term you don't like. Reread Bob's post. Maybe it is b/c I'm a biologist but I like the term carrying capacity it makes people understand they can only have so much of something no matter what they do. whether it be whitetail deer or fish. Go for it raise the bar that is what I hope I'm doing for my clients, but realize there is an end point and many times pushing it too far will led to trouble.
