Originally Posted By: esshup
basf50:

My condolences to you and your framily. By all means take care of your mom first, the pond will always be there.

The bullfrog tadpoles might eat some of the GSH eggs, but at this time of the year, the GSH won't be spawning, so you shouldn't have to worry about that - they only spawn once a year.


BASF50

I too am very sorry about your recent loss. Everything takes a back seat to family - my best to you.

Onto your pond - I'm sorry to keep referencing my BOW's but that's the only experience I have to relate - so I promise I'm not trying to hijack this post!!

I have been placing 6 minnow traps along the edges of my main pond which was stocked with 15 lbs of FHM and around 300 GSH [3-6"]and 1200 PK Shrimp. Stockings occured from Sept 08 to June 09 with only RES, YP, HSB and 1-2" BG as predators. When I checked my traps I was pretty surprised at what I found: Each trap had around 100 organisms - 50% bullfrog tadpoles of varying lengths, 40% GSH from 2-4", and 10% FHM. I was expecting around 80% FHM and 20% GSH.

What have I learned? I had sparce to nonexistent aquatic vegetation at the time of stocking my forage, only pallets and rock for FHM spawning habitat. However, my GSH have obviously flourished, and are present in numbers I find hard to believe. I have also learned that lacking a apex predator I have an overabundance of bullfrogs and bullfrog tadpoles, however, they have not affected my GSH population or recruitment in any manner. My research would suggest to expect good things from GSH reproduction, and I would not fear predation by tadpoles.

Many men go fishing all of their lives without knowing that it is not fish they are after. ~ Henry David Thoreau

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