Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations planning a PB member Yellow Perch experiment

Lots of perch ribbons up here in Ontario. Water temp is 45 and we are seeing 3-4 per day.

The ribbon we placed into some tanks for hatching was laid April 4th and yesterday 5 days in we are now seeing a black speck starting to move in the eggs.

The main key is time without heat. If the water is too warm the un fertilized eggs will mold or fungus. This mold will move to the good eggs if the mold can get heat and move fast. Cooler water slows the mold allowing the good eggs time to hatch before the mold finds its way.

After day two we checked each ribbon and pinched off as many white un fertilized eggs as we could. Then placed the ribbons back into the tanks. Too much ribbon in the wire tubes to keep them under water will not let good water flow past the eggs and the clump will start to heat. Once that starts that chunk of ribbon is junk and full of mold. We learned this because the ribbon we had was very big. My son was loading up the wire tubes with ribbon and as we got to the end we run out of tubes with lots of ribbon left. He just stuffed the last two tubes full of ribbon.

I think if you lived in a warm climate and could not get the tanks heat down you could use a good dose of Methylene Blue and raise the heat to speed up the eggs. The Methylene will keep the fungus from living and the extra heat will move the eggs along quicker.

We are just using the pond water at 62*F and good air flow. Should see some hatch this week and will post some pictures of out little ones.

EDIT: Yes now that the spawn is just about over the perch are smashing the worms in the evening.