I am posting this here because I think I have a similiar problem.
A little background. My pond is in Wooc County in Northeast Texas. I purchased it in 2005.
It was impounded in 1972 when a small ravine was dammed. It is therefore long and skinny. About 600 feet long and probably around 1,4 acres. Sides are pretty steep and deepest water is 13 to 15 feet in the middle. The pond sits in the midst of a pine/hardwood forest and the bottom and sides are strewn with downed timber.
It is spring fed by strong springs--they never stopped flowing in the drought of 2006, even in the hottest days. I tried to measure the flow through by seeing how fast a five gallon bucket filled. So I sent my son down with a bucket and it seemed to fill almost instantly.
The water is very clear. Pond chemistry was measured by a professional at Ph 6.1 at about 9:00 am. Total alkalinity around 30, but alkalinity 0. My consultant recommended liming the pond, but I have not done that yet as access is problematic.
We have caught LMB and BG, so I know they are in the pond. We have tried to catch catfish to no avail, but the previous owner said he stocked catfish. Most of the LMB are between 10" and 13", but we have caught a few that were 19". BG have been as big as 10-12". I agreed with my consultant that the bass looked a little skinny and he also noted that the LNB could use a dose of new genetics. So he recommended that I stock 1000 CNBG in the 2" to 3" range. Because it was mid-summer, CNBG were hard to come by, but I ended up stocking 500 BG/RES (80%-20%) mix in June 2007. But they were only 1" to 3". To supplement this, we stocked 15 pounds of Tilapia that were 3" to 6".
I also began supplemental feeding later in June.
All summer long we saw numerous Tilapia and they came to the feeder. They seemed to be reproducting well as we saw them on all sizes including some as large as 12-14". Although we continued to catch BG over the summer, I never did notice any evidence that the CNBG that were stocked survived.
I was down at the pond this weekend, February 6, and I observed numerous Tilapia still alive. I have been down there about once a week for the winter and I have never seen any dead Tilapia floating. But the woods are full of critters and the pond has some pretty big snapping turtles. So I broke out the Aqua View camera and in the deeper parts of the pond, I observed numerous good size Tilapia still swimming. Did not see any BG, but saw only one bass.
The water is extremently clear this winter. In fact, I have dicovered an old tire reef and some major logs on the bottom that I could not see before. In the summer my Sechi disk measurements varied between 5' and 7'. Now I can see it on the bottom at 15'. Needless to say, the FA is the worse I have ever seen it. It looks like the entire bottom of the pond is covered in a green carpet.
Sooooo... here are my questions/concerns:
1. Can you overstock Tilapia? I was planning to order some more for earlier stocking this year, but I am worried that they have developed a taste for meat and not algae. There is plenty of FA to eat. And what happens if they survive the winter? How do I know what to stock, because I don't know how many have survived?
2.
