Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations First serious attempt at yellow perch production

Here's an ad hoc set up for producing my own yellow perch this year that may interest some of you. I planted all of my caged male yellow perch (about 50) and 20 females into my holding pond and I'm allowing them to do their thing. I only need up to two egg ribbons for my goal, of which the ribbons will be put into the following tank until I have another pond drained and refilled ready to go.

It's taking me longer than I would like to get the perch production pond ready, and I don't want the eggs to hatch in the holding pond as there are other fish in the pond that would feed on them. And of course since it's a holding pond and needs to have fish removed soon, it's not feasible for a perch production pond. This is a last minute scramble as I was planning on getting perch from a supplier one more year, but that did not work out.

So branches of an old Christmas tree have been cut and made into bundles and attached to a piece of pipe to weight them down. I used using cable ties to attach the pipe to the branches. Here is the bundle before putting into the pond.




Here is the bundle in the pond.



If all goes as planned, a nice egg ribbon will be deposited by a female, fertilized by a male fish, and look like this from last year -- although the one in the picture is not fertilzed. (It was an all female pond)It's important that the eggs are draped on something up off the bottom for a free flow of water and oxygen. Hence the bundles.



Two fertilized egg ribbons on the bundles along with the piece of pipe to weight them down will be moved to this blue tank until I can get the pond prepared.



The tank is nothing special and left over from when I used to dump well water into it before entering the trout pond. The connection on the bottom inside the tank is not open.

Water is pumped into the tank with a little 5 gallon per minute submersible garden pump that is floated just below these jugs.



This keeps it out of the weeds and off the bottom and hopefully pulls in zooplankton for the fry if they will be in the tank that by the time they use up their egg sacks. Note the rope that is attached to the jugs and staked down in two directions to keep the pump from floating to shore.

The overflow goes out the top pipe and it's screened with a double piece of pantyhose to keep the minute fry in the tank.



Here is a better picture of the water hose that runs fresh water into the tank from the submersible pump floating under the jugs.

Very nice setup, Cecil.


I'm interested to hear how you go about this process. What all do you have to do to get the perch production pond ready?

I need to remove all the trout from the pond that will be the perch production pond to their new home pond that will have a blocking net down the center. It's easier to just move them to another pond vs. holding them in tanks or whatever, as one drains their pond and puts in a blocking net. The blocking net will already be installed in the other pond and the pond filled when I start moving the trout. I am trying to kill two birds with one stone here as the brown trout need to be seperated from the brook trout, which are a little smaller, hence, moving them to another pond with the blocking net installed. The browns are growing faster and are chasing the brooks around stressing them. I thought I would be fine as I planted them the same size but since the browns are now bigger... Live and learn.

Once I get the trout out and the pond drained,let it dry a little to kill any filamentous algae and then add 25 lbs. of cottonseed meal to the bottom and refill (250 pounds per acre and the pond is 1/10th acre. I may use a liquid fertilizer instead, as I've noticed the cottonseed meal is hard to find. Then add a small quantity of fertilizer per week (I have to look at my notes from my perch supplier Bill Lynch of Marysville, Ohio, Mill Creek Perch Farm.)

Sounds like a plan to me.

We've been using cottonseed meal to fertilize the ponds this spring. We're still leery of liquid fertilizers and the quick/heavy bloom they can produce. The cottonseed meal, added a few hundred pounds at a time to a 4 acre pond, seems to give us a slower, steadier bloom.

At any rate, you're a pro at this, so I'm sure you'd be fine with the liquid as well. I do like the idea of applying some to the bottom first, then letting the pond fill

How big are you browns compared to the brooks? Are they basically the same age?

I only sampled one brown trout (caught and released), and he was 17 inches and in the three pound range. I caught and released two brooks and they were 13 and 15 inches both under 2 lbs. Both species started out last spring at 7 to 8 inches. If all goes as planned both species should add about 4 inches over the summer.

The browns are actually younger than the brooks. They are a little over 2 yesrs old and the brooks are a little over 3 years old. The brooks were behind in growth due to the 45 water they were in at the hatchery I got them from on Lake Superior. Even though trout are coldwater fish that is too cold for good growth.

And no I'm not a pro at this. It's new to me (except a faded memory in a class called warmwater fish culture 30 years ago!) In the past I have purchased feed trained fish from suppliers as it was actually cost effective labor wise. But hopefully the information from Bill Lynch my perch supplier and Bill Cody who has hatched perch and I have a good shot. However things can happen. There can be a zooplankton crash and I could end up with nothing. Or Bill Cody tells me there could be predacious copepods etc. And a real concern is if a warm up is delayed there not be a zooplankton bloom and I could lose all the fry.

We used to make 1/4" screened,wooden, 2'X2'X2' floating boxes, then drape the egg chains off of 1/4" wooden dowels inserted thru the screen. Boxes were covered with lids, that had screen on the bottoms. Chains sometimes used to float up as they near hatch. Also tend to break up some.

Then we switched to homemade racks that were in indoor raceways, so we could treat with formalin if fungus became a problem.

THEN switched to some old, Marisource, trout racks we found.
Couple chains per rack. Great for incubation and form treatment, but still moved them to the floats for hatching (in troughs)

One of my favorite fish to fool with, and they are EASY to feed train, but their growth is SLOW from the start..

Cecil, This is a very interesting project. I hope you will continue to update this thread so we can all learn and vicariously share your experience.

I think that may be changing with selective breeding JHM. The supplier I was supposed to get the perch from this year had 7 to 7.5 inch yellow perch that were only a year old. That beats anything in the wild hands down.

Cecil what are the age and size of your perch?

Once we brought them back indoors and on artificial feed, they took off, but I was referring to the "from fry to what LOOKS like a fish" stage! They take forever to get going.
We worked with a guy from Wisconsin (I THINK) last year, who has been looking at genetics from all over, and up and down the coast.

The female spawners are about 8 to 9 1/2 inches and the males average in the 7 inch range with some smaller.