Gonna seine a pond on Sunday for YOY bluegills. Hope I don't have to break ice! Wanted to do it much, much, earlier but one of my ras tanks is still occupied by bluegill and perch that are destined for two high schools. Problem is they still haven't cycled their systems for the year!
It will be a PITA as water temp in the pond is about 30 degress cooler than inside. I'll have to bring in about 100 gallons of pond water and slowly allow the water to warm up while keeping an eye on ammonia. I'll have to add Amquel to keep ammonia at bay and the water will have about .5 percent NaCl. From previous experience it'l probably take about 24 hrs. to warm up. Not a bad thing though as the slower the warm up the less stressful on the fish.
I have two sizes of bluegills in the hatching pond due to staggered hatches and wanted to seperate them. Now I will have to put them all in one tank and separate later. I hate handling fish more than is needed. It's a recipe for health problems especially at the densities I keep them.
The next school year I will bring them live media! No waiting! The teachers didn't want to keep the systems running over the summer even without the fish.
My third high school killed half the fish I brought them. Really nice bluegills too. It appears although the ammonia had dropped, the nitrites hadn't crashed yet to complete the cycle as when I came over to test, the nitrites were off the scale and the fish were dropping like flies.
Dwight if you feel I hijacked your thread please fee free to delete.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 11/08/14 06:54 AM.
