Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Can flathead cats control crappie?

Believe it or not, this is kind of something I was planning the pond around. To be more specific about the intended food web, I wanted to stock a large variety of small forage fish like Gambusia, banded killifish, non-golden shiners, non-fathead minnows, pumpkinseed, alongside the BCP and FHC.

I was hoping the flatheads would kind of struggle after they outgrew those foods. Their only food source beyond this would be the crappie themselves, I was hoping this would create a bottle neck where few flatheads achieved large size, and those that did could control the smaller ones through cannibalism. Meanwhile, the heavily predated, well-fed crappies could max out their size.

I'm a complete amateur though, so that might still be a path to both species ending up stunted. Just thought I would elaborate on the specifics I was imagining. Would being underweight ruin the quality of an FHC as a food fish?