Using the linked document on culturing FHM (very good doc BTW)...
https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/fil...ining_video.pdfto get...
a FHM lays 200 eggs on average ("Females release an average of 100 – 200 eggs per spawn, with larger females releasing 200 – 400"),
about every 5 days ("as often as every 2 days"),
and an approximation from my fish supplier...
3.5 pounds of adult FHM = 1000 fish where 500 are females...yields...
500 (females) X 200 (eggs) = 100,000 fry,
If the spawning season is 4 months long, this yields about 22 spawns per female.
22(spawns) X 100,000 (fry per spawn) = 2.2 million babies.
Then they grow...
2,200,000 (adult fish) X 3.5lb/1000 adults = 7700 pounds of fish!
SOMEBODY CHECK MY MATH!If they all reached adulthood there would be almost 8000 pounds of forage...we know that they all can't survive even in a predator-less pond, but this calculation does not even include the fry that reach breeding age at 3 months. Anybody care to supply an estimated survival rate?????
Even if only 10% survive, that's still almost 800 pounds of forage...still seems a bit more than I would suspect, but that's how the numbers crunch. Maybe the original females do not last the summer and expire, but even if you cut the number in half, NO, cut it down to a 1/4 (which would be a 2.5% survival rate)...you still have produced 200 pounds of forage which equates to over 57,000 adult FHM's.
For crying out loud...for LMB, that's 20 pounds of growth in one summer just on minnows alone (I assume that 10 pounds of food equals one pound of growth rule o' thumb also applies to HSB).
Using my pond as a guide, I would say that the survival rate of the 3.5 pounds (that I stocked) of FHM's offspring yielded about 170 pounds of game-fish growth (0.2 pounds growth per panfish (600 panfish total) and 1.2 pounds growth per HSB(40 total)) which back calculates to 22% survival rate. I have ignored any bugs, tadpole, etc that wondered into the pond that could have contributed to the growth, but I have also ignored the consumption fry that grew to become food that would have also contributed to growth, maybe that equals out. No to mention the pond is still seeded a'plenty with the minnows, who know hoa many pound are still left.
Isn't math fun?...my heads spinning, somebody else take the wheel!
Anybody see any big holes in this mumbo jumbo?
