Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Raising SMB to release

I got perch and bass from the same hatchery and the perch are doing great. I am losing about 3-5 bass per weekend. The bass are around 2-3 inches and some are very healthy looking and some are skinny and not eating. Both the perch and the bass went into clean, seperate tanks for the winter and the bass must have came in with snail eggs on them because I have snails in the bass tank. Does anyones know of a virus that snails carry that would cause an illness in SMB? Any other thoughts.
THANKS
Scott

What are you feeding the SMB and how well are they eating it?

Also, what were the stocking numbers? How many SMB.

I started with 100 fish and am down to around 90. They are eating 71% protein fish starter pellets. The fish that are doing well are eating well but the skinny fish are not eating. There is plenty of food being distributed with a timer every hour, and the competition for food is not overly aggressive at this point.
Thanks
Scott

maki - if the bass and perch were not trained to eat fish food when you bought them then you you can expect some will not eat pellets. The percentage will vary that learns to eat fish food - my guess is 60%-70% will learn to eat fish food. That is a pretty good food trained amount if you can get it on your first try. I will provide some comments - questions:

1. Do the tanks have water flow through systems or are they non-flow through?

2. After the fish have been feeding for about 2 -3 weeks I would sort through them and grade out the skinny non-pelleting eating individuals. Put these skinny fish in your pond. Some may get lucky and survive. If you leave them in the tank with the others they will either starve to death or get eaten by the larger faster growing siblings.

3. Once the SMB start eating food well approximately 2-4 wks start decreasing the frequency of the feedings to four/day for a dew days then reduce again to twice a day. This will improve water quality, reduce amount of wasted food and cause the fish to fed more aggresively.

4. I think the snails came in with the fish transfer water as eggs or very small individuals. I wouldn't be overly concedrned about viral infections from the snails especially since they were either started from eggs or very small newly hatched or young snails. If introduction was during early life stages, they had very little time to become infected with disease organisms.

5. Did you get the fish from Hicklings in NY?.