saboelte- how big were the stocker fish? and how big are the pellets? Uneaten food will eventually decompose and grow filamentous 'string' algae.
I would call the hatchery where you got the fish and ask if they were pellet trained. I think if the fish were less than 3" long they were not pellet trained for very many months and are likely eating zooplankton in your pond or not eating much of anything due to a very new fresh filled pond condition with likely cloudy water from recent watershed runoff used for filling. The water is cooling toward winter conditions and fish eat a lot less in cooler water (less than 60F). If not eating they will struggle to go into the winter low food period in poor body condition. In your eagerness you really violated the "Forum's" first general rule of "Allow the newly built pond to produce a natural food source for several months before stocking fish". An April/May fish stocking would have been a lot wiser and productive in your particular case because a lot of natural foods (plankton & insect, invertebrate life) would have been produced between November and April. Plus in Spring natural foods are flourishing and expanding not decreasing as going into winter.
If you wanted fish in a hurry in this new pond, in my opinion, you should have bought the trout you mentioned in your first post. Trout can be larger and catchable, are always pellet trained, very eager to eat fish pellets, will quickly find the pellets, and do not need natural foods to grow well. Trout would have worked well in your brand new pond until the water got too warm in June-July. In the meantime natural foods would have had time to become established to feed stocker fish that would maintain the pond in the future.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 11/10/15 11:20 AM.
