Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Stickleback and Fatheads as food source.

I really don't think there's any gamble with GSH - they are a staple of many ponds and many of the ponds owned by the folks on this forum. They seem to fill a lot of niches in the food chain and you need to let them get established prior to adding your top predators because they'll rip through the smaller fish in no time flat, I suspect. You need the larger ones to ensure an ongoing population, but as long as you've got predators, I don't know that the forage would be likely to get to the point it was causing a problem. And I don't see that there's any way they'd out compete a LMB or BG or other predator fish.

Hopefully some other folks - actually educated and/or knowledgeable about this question - will weigh in to give you some further assurance. I'm truly a novice and my advice is worth the paper it's written on (and you'll notice it's not actually written on paper, so you have a pretty good sense of the value I ascribe to my thoughts!), so be sure you're comfortable with the direction you take before relying on me!