I would like to thank everyone again for their help. It is a new pond one year old, clay bottom. No channel catfish at all have died, except for a couple of catch and release mistakes we made. We probaly did overstock, after reading some of the post here about the hatchery we bought from. Mr. Grimes, I wouldn't recommend betting against you, about who we bought fish from and contacted.

We didn't fertlize the pond, but did put some fertilizer out trying to get the grass we plugged established. Had some good downfall afterwards, I'm sure some went into the pond. Wish we could get some rain now. We definitly have alot of new patented bream. It was recommended that we put HSB in at spring and we didn't. The catfish are eating vigorously, and are fairly easy to catch. The bream are now eating a little better. I would guess we have lost 25 in the last 8 weeks. We had went three days since we first posted and thought it had worked itself out, then found a beautiful 6 inch patented bream floating. I would rather catch them, than see them die. Should we start fishing, or maybe sein the spawn and get the new ones out? The Ph, the best I was able to determine (this was the local pool store tester) was 6.2 before liming and 6.9 after. They said they couldn't test a pond, so next time I lied. Never got the numbers from the free water testing at hatchery. We are running the bottom diffuser 24/7. I read small ponds were harder to manage, and now sure wish we had more money at the time.
Thanks,
Laurelee and Lewis

Lewis Wilkerson