Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Wisdom of adding Bullhead Minnow

AATWheel, Guys I think he is talking about a true minnow called a bullhead minnow - Pimephales vililax. I give him enough credit that he does have a true minnow and not young bullheads. I don't think he is talking about small or young of year (YOY) bulheads, maybe I am also wrong in my guess.

The bullhead minnow has a subspecies Northern Bullhead Minnow that occurs rarely and sporatically in the southern Ohio River drainage streams and very rare or not present in northern Ohio streams that drain into Lake Erie which is the watershed area that he lives in (NE Ohio).
Asleep AT Wheel, If you have minnows and not young bulheads then I doubt very much that you truly have bullhead minnows. If you really have bullhead minnows you better contact someone in the academic community or ODNR because you have a new distribution record for this species.

You have likely misidentifed them which is very easy to do unless you have had some specific fish identification courses or training that dealth with or covered shiners and minnows. Picture keys are not very acurate for identificaton of the shiners and minnows since there are so many species that superficially look very similar to each other.

Posting a photo of a bullhead or bluntnose minnow will NOT be good enough for anyone to specifically identify either fish. One needs to see a magnified area of the snout for presence or absence of a crescent spot, the peritoneum color needs to be seen and or the pharyngeal teeth need to be seen to verify identity.

I think your minnows are very likely bluntnose minnows (Pimephales notatus) which are quite common in all Ohio streams. Bluntnose and bullhead minnows look very much alike and are separated by only a few small specific morphological details. In some situations I think bluntnose minnows are a BETTER forage fish than fathead minnows. Bluntnose minnows are a very good forage fish and will not cause any problems in your pond unless they are harboring INTERNAL or EXTERNAL, active or LATENT bacterial, viral or parasitic organisms obtained in the wild state.

Adding fish from local public streams or public waters is very risky business due to the vulnerability of these wild fish coming in contact and being constantly exposed to lots of pathogenic organisms that occur in the uncontrolled public waters. Once these pathogenic organisms (parasitic, bacterial or viral) are released into your pond then they will be pretty much a resident active or latent pathogen until the pond is drained and disinfected. The choice and risk is yours to make. Be prepared to live and deal with any consequences.