Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait phytoplankton

For clarification, very few fish especially adult fish eat phytoplankton. The very small percentage of phytoplankton that is eaten (by mostly shad or planktivorous types) is the larger less common phytoplanktonic types. The majority of phytoplankton is too small for fish to retain and eat and passes through the fish's strainers (gill rakers). The plankton that primarily gets consumed is the animal component of plankton - zooplankton. This group too has a very wide range of sizes from tiny inedible forms to larger types readily grazed by occassional plankon filtering fish including panfish such as BG and crappie. The larger zooplankton types are relatively good swimmers as plankton goes and can daily move primarily up and down in the water column as ewest noted. Often the larger forms get heavily grazed in a water body by the particular fishes present. Then the larger zooplankton become very scarce and are replaced with a similar biomass by smaller inedible or less edible forms. In these cases average water clarity usually becomes less over time. Water and wind currents do a pretty good job of throughly mixing the plankton throughout the illuminated water column. At times (esp during calm conditions) plankton can become fairly concentrated in certain areas and this is called patchiness. Wind and waves quickly redistribute the plankton. Certain plankton forms (usually larger BOW) live primarly in the deeper darker waters and posess minimal daily vertical movements. Nutrient loads, the species of fishes present, and habitat features will usually affect which types of plankton are most abundant in a BOW.