No need for plants if you feed them pellets. In fact no plants is best if you feed! Plants can really get out of hand with all the nutrients from fish feed and subsequent excrement.
As long as your D.O. doesn't get below 6 ppm you shoud be O.K. Water temps of 55 to 65 F. in summer are optimum. Even if you have deep cold water be sure it has enough oxygen. Many times D.O. gets too low in ponds in this deep water at some point in the summer unless you have cold water coming in as in a well, spring, or stream.
If surface temps stay optimum you can really grow some tackle busters feeding them. If it's only optimun well below the surface, don't count on much carrying capacity on natural feed or rapid growth. In otherwords, if the surface water is to warm for them to come up don't count on feeding them and getting all the benefits of feeding them.
If you are running in aerated ground water carrying capacity is earthen ponds is about 12 pounds per gpm. I.E. I run in 38 gpms so I try to keep my total poundage below 500 lbs.
You can have the rainbows. I like big browns and brooks instead. Where are in Michigan?
