Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Raising Perch

Opps. You made your first mistake. Fly screen will not contain freshly hatched yellow perch fry. Maximum mesh size should be 500 micrometers if you want to contain them in a net or pen. I just measured window screen and it is 1100 x 1400 micrometers.

I think you need to get the eggs into a 5 gal bucket or better a 10 to 20 gallon aquarium or cylindrical drum. Aerate the water with an aquarium air pump and fine bubble diffuser and do water 25% exchanges daily esp once the eggs get "eyed". It is okay to gently roll the eggs in the water column or have moving water from the aeration boil gently undulating the egg mass. At this stage the hatcing strand requires more oxygen. Eggs are likely to develop fungus near hatching time. Eggs with fungus have high mortality. At hatching it is best to violently or stronly aerate the eggs to facilitate hatching.

Once you have the eggs hatched (newly hatched fry 5to6mm) and fry are about 30 to 48 hours old, you need to collect zooplankton to feed them. Use a 64u mesh plankton net to collect the zooplankton. Zooplankton quantity needed is based on how many fry you want to feed. I am currently feeding zooplankton to some newly hatched perch fry. Zooplankton composed of lots of rotifers and copepod nauplii are best for the late stage yolk sac fry. As the fry grow to 13 to 16 mm long they could now be transferred to the window screen cage. Larvae at 14-16 mm long start developing dorsal fin spines and the mouth enlarges. The fry are typically fed zooplankton until about 1" long when they can be reliably trained to eat dry feed. The dry feed should be fry sized or often called powder and about 55% protein. Young perch can continue to eat larger zooplankton such as Cladocera and insect larvae until the are 2" long. AT 2" I can get them to eat 1 mm sized trout feed (abt 51% protein).

Fish at 1" to 2" should be fed two or three times a day, at least 6 days week or preferrably daily. Above 2" you can cut back to once daily feeding, but growth will be faster if fingerlings are fed twice a day.