Norm,
First let me congratulate you and your family on the success of your aquatic achievements. I'm sure it was(is) alot of work but the "payback" no doubt makes it all worthwhile. Lots of smiling faces in the Pond Boss article.
I appreciate the thoughts you passed along concerning my newest pond. One of my early thoughts was to introduce the BG and cats together and pellet feed both until the BG begin to spawn. At that point I was going to ween the cats off feed hoping they would start to prey on the baby BG. Whatever avenue I pursue, I would like to incorporate a feeding program.
Bill,
Referencing the structure in my pond, during construction, I had the contractor cut a shelf along the edge of the pond. The total length is about 40 feet.
It starts out about 1' below waterline, extends out into the pond 18" for a length of 20'. On this I piled rocks. The rocks are piled high enough so that they show above the waterline. My intent was to give the crayfish a place to call home. I never gave any thought to cats using this area for spawning.
The shelf then drops to about 4' below waterline, extends out into the pond about 3-6' for another 20 feet. This is where I placed the logs/brush. In summation, this gives me a contiguous 40' shelf comprised of rocks, logs, brush and some attempt at contouring. I also added 4 - 4' artifical christmas trees.
The bottom of the pond (roughly 50' diameter) is void of structure right now however, I'm thinking about adding another brush pile or two.
As was stated earlier, I did have initial thoughts about what effect the cats would have on turbidity. This was(is) my biggest concern.
After reading all the input so far, I'm starting to lean towards getting the BG stocked next month and start them on feed. I'm going to see if the hatchery owner will educate me on sexing out male only. Come spring we'll see where I stand. If BG offspring appear, I'll bring in some LMB from my other pond.
In the meantime, I took a pH reading today and its in the range of 7.6 - 7.8. Test kit was one you use for pools. Water looks a light lime green. I hope to have a secchi disc made by the weekend to measure turbidity.
Russ
