Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Walley?

Post was enhanced with extra info on the 2nd day. The features that are causing small limited size perch in the "story pond" are several fold.
1. Too many perch per acre were originally stocked.
2. There were no other predators and the YP were not pellet trained thus both contributed to too many hatchlings initially surviving and all overabundant older and new YP had to survive on natural foods that were in limited supply. Too many mouths to feed on limited natural production results in slow growing perch that "hit the growth wall" at small sizes of less than 7". This also happens with numerous other species of fish when there are too many for the food supply.
3. Too many weeds for small fish to hide so larger perch cannot adequately feed on perch fry and smallest fingerlings. Too many YP survive each year thus the population gets out of control quickly.
4. Too many YP/acre result in severe food shortages. Pellet feeding can have a big impact to make up for and reduce food shortages providing the YP will eat the pellets which can be a problem with wild perch populations. Adding new pellet trained YP each year or two maintains a pellet eating population with fast growing adults. The smaller a YP pond is, the easier it is to remove enough small hatchling or YOY perch each year to keep the population balanced (reduced) and growing well. In a weedy 6-7 acre pond it is very, very difficult to remove enough fish to achieve a proper balance or density. Thus predators are often needed to consume the smallest fish. Count on EACH predator to eat 200-300 forage fish per year in 'normal' situations. Youngest predators generally eat the smallest fish in the new annual crop.

To correct the 'problem' in the 'story pond' stock lots of predators and when the YP start growing and reach 8"-9" start removing numerous predators. Note the new predators need to be big enough to right away start eating the most common size of overabundant species. Then to maintain a balance,,,, the numbers and sizes of the both species need to be annually assessed-monitored and adjusted. Weed control, at least partial, would also be helpful to fix the problem of predators locating forage fish.