Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Need Forage Advice/Sourcing

I would like to learn the fecundity of a BRES hybrid. If they're closer to RES than BG might not have a population issue. I don't know if there's research available on BRES female egg capacity or whether they are multiple spawners. With Joshs' HSB and SMB maybe he could deal with it.

TJ, I can source the banded killifish if you want them. If I have luck trapping, I may even be able to get you some YOY lake chubsuckers. The pond they are in is very steep sided so seining them out is a nightmare. The killifish are very easy to trap in comparison.

The other species I have been experimenting with that I think has a lot of promise is the silvery minnow. In my case the eastern silvery minnow. However, there is a western and Mississippi species of silvery minnow as well. How similar they are I am not sure, but the eastern species does quite well in mud bottomed ponds. How well they do with predation is the bigger question that I am still determining.

Other species I would try to source would be brook silversides, any of the topminnow species found in the Midwest and the Johnny darter. I think any would be a good component in a SMB pond. I wish I could make a trip out to Nebraska, I suspect in the right habitat, many of these species are rather common. They could be collected and transferred to a brood pond for rearing and quarantine.

Thanks T! What are your thoughts on the bluntnose?

Are you planning a new pond? There are some things I think would be beneficial to the long term survival of forage species, in particular species like bluntnose minnows and spotfin shiners. The biggest factor I have seen is extensive shallow areas. People think shallow and immediately think vegetation take over. To prevent this, lay down rock. What more do smallies like anyways? The vegetation isn't going to grow through rock. The rocks provide prime habitat for bluntnose minnows. For both spawning and refuge. If the pond has good areas of shallow, say 6"-18" rocky areas and the bluntnose minnows/spotfin shiners are given a good period of time to spawn unharassed by predators I could see both species doing fine even under SMB predation. As long as the SMB are not allowed to get too overpopulated.

Kenc was nice enough to offer me the use of his fyke net to collect LCS for you. So with the use of it, I may have a better chance at collecting some LCS for you. Just a matter of me figuring out how to ship them to you... They probably would be in the 3"-4" range.

This is good for the SMB forage.

What about a M BG, F YP only pond? Looking for something to help feed during winter in addition to shrimp and maybe some crays. No SMB...just single sex YP and BG. I want to feed the YP.

I would definitely transfer some of your grass shrimp to the pond. I think they are about as high on the list as it comes to feeding both BG and YP. If no SMB are present, just male only BG and female only YP, I would utilize spotfins and bluntnose. Habitat isn't as important as you can closely manage number of fish present as there will be no reproduction. Do not use GSH as they will only compete with them for food. Provide amply spawn sites for both species and they should maintain their numbers. The decline usually occurs when the first year class born in the pond reaches a size where they can readily feed on adults of the forage fish. With no reproduction that will never happen...

Loved reading this and reaffirmed one of the things I'm doing in my pond as it's being built. I'm using a specific arm to keep shallow just for this purpose. I was planning on dumping rock as well as encouraging vegetation and planting at least one root ball. Hoping this will be an area of the pond where we will always see thousands upon thousands of small fish, relatively safe from predators.

I have a shelf for smallmouth spawning beds that leads into this area. My thought is the smallie fry may venture over that way and start gorging themselves right away, as well as seek cover themselves.

As a kid, I occasionally caught a relatively small, shinner-type fish in streams that was locally called a roach. Is this a viable or desirable pond fish in central Indiana? I was thinking forage.

Only thing I found on this was Rutilus rutilus, but this is a species found in Europe.

Roach is a common name for golden shiners in this neck of the woods. My favorite nickname is newlite which is old mountain name for croppie. Yes, it is croppie in Ky. and Tenn.,it is spelled that way and Bill Dance always catchs croppie on his show.

Thanks. I am already planning to stock GSH as forage along with FHM, and BNM if I can catch some. I am still looking for more ideas to diversify the forage without causing problems for SMB that will be stocked later.

I'd also add native species crayfish and grass shrimp. There are other minnow types Cody uses like topminnow that might help diversify further.

There are so many local names for little fish it's hard to say what it is. If you can catch some and take photos, I can ID them for you.

I'll add native crawdads once I get my plants established in the new pond, but they will probably get there on their own in some numbers before I do this. I'd like to add shrimp, but am not sure how source them locally. I'll need to do some netting of plants and see what I find. I will also be catching small fish in our creek when it warms up and will post pictures before releasing them in the new pond. I appreciate you volunteering to ID them!

Fattig fish will ship you Grass Shrimp. They are Pond Boss vendor and I've used them many times with great success. Next day air ship anywhere in the US for $30/flat, at least they used to. Pricing is contingent on order qty. Get vegetation established first to improve chances of establishment.

If no fish are present, I've gotten grass shrimp to establish quite well even with no vegetation present. Now that I'm adding predatory fish it'll be interesting to see if their numbers stay high.

Travis, you may want to think about Florida strain females. In the late eighties they stocked them at Briey Creek. People caught tons of double digets and several over 16 lbs.