Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain What do you think about starting small,real small?

Thanks snrub! Actually, Ive already read all those.

Rainman- Thanks for the reply, I understand the 10 to 1 ratio. Im curious about the smallest stuff feeding the smaller stuff not the bass directly. Some things will get into the pond but a lot of the various shrimp species will not as well as a few of the others I mentioned. If you were to fertilize, feed, the natural addition of detritus materials, along with algae blooms, could that feed the different kinds of small organisms. I get that there is only enough food sources in a pond to feed what it can feed, is there any information out there discussing if most ponds especially fairly new ones have a maxed out carrying capacity on macrophytes and plankton feeders. I guess what I mean is, if you want to grow big bass and your pond can sustain 1 100lb bass or 10 10lb bass and so on but if you feed, fertilize, etc. you can increase the carrying capacity. You could in turn add more fish or leave the numbers the same and possibly increase the micro organisms and they would be at larger sizes and thus increase the ultimate size of your LMB. (of course there are many other factors, just curious if this could be one thats overlooked) Could you start this at the micro level and increase the initial levels of bigger food for baitfish thus allowing more to be added and held, then bigger/more prey fish which would translate into to bigger/more predator fish? Or will none of that matter because most ponds are going to have as much natural diversity at the maximum carrying levels that they can hold regardless of adding extra or non-typical creatures. Also, are you saying that there would be minimal correlation to increase size of bigger predators even if the addition of the non-native micro organisms are of substantially larger sizes than than the local micro aquatic life? Im not sure if all that made sense!