Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose hybrid bluegill reproduction question?

If these are GG ,how's the future generations turn out?

No member here regularly posts their progress with GGiant HBG because few have them since most think the hype was mostly dependably bigger than the fish. It will be particularly interesting to see how your HBG offspring grow in the future. You will help all of us here and yourself if you periodically come back here, post some pics, and keep us informed as to the progress of your particular strain of hybridBG. They appear to be nice fish with potential. It will be very interesting to see how they perform in your pond. Keep feeding them good quality pellets so they grow the best they can be.

Hope these really are redear this time! Just bought100 of these for the pond.

Look to be redears to my eye balls.

Not sure what you have there. Some RE traits.

See pic below for a RE.

Very close to RES and could be RES, although they look very thin bodied, somewhat stunted, and you need to fatten the up. Where did you get them? Post some pics of them in the fall or next year to show us the progress you have with them.

I wonder if there can be regional differences in the appearances of RES?

Mine do not always look exactly like everyone else and even the Kansas sourced RES can look different than my Oklahoma sourced RES. Some of that may be the pond they come out of though, because my sediment pond goes through periods of turbidity and the RES there tend to appear very washed out in appearance.

No doubt that RES exhibit local adaptation as do most fish. Catch them in a year and see if they have pharyngeal teeth and check the gill rakers as well as external features. Those above show several RES traits but their condition is poor .

These fish came from Arkansas pond stockers fish truck. Met them at my local Southern states.

For comparison, here are some I trapped out of my forage pond today. I would not swear they are 100% RES because every now and then I get one that looks like it has some GSF in it. Really hard for me to tell for sure with these small fish. As they grow a little it should get more obvious.

This pond (supposedly) has only RES, GSH and FHM in it. So they should be pure RES. But I also trapped a fingerling GSF out of this pond last week. I suspect it swam up the overflow tube from my main pond during a recent high water event, but I will never know for sure.

I do not worry so much about it because I would not mind having RES/GSF hybrids. But this pond was supposed to raise fingerling RES to put in my main pond to increase their numbers there.

Is it just me or do Callahan's RES eyes look kind of big ewest? Like they have not grown to potential. Makes me wonder if they were seined from a wild population.

It's not just you. They do look a little behind the curve to me also.

This one came from my neibors pond 2 weeks ago. It is from the same supplier but he bought his last fall.

That fish directly above appears to be a pure strain RES. Your fish after you fatten them up could look like this next year. The thin bodied RES were probably just too crowded in a grow out pond with too little food which can be common occurrence for some fish farms.

Callahan the first batch of RES I got from Dunn's (that went into my forage pond) looked pretty rough also. The second batch they gave me as replacements looked much better but were smaller. If you saw my thread on my forage pond I posted pictures of some of the adults from those two stockings and they looked like your picture of your neighbors fish. So they turned out alright.

As has been discussed on this forum many times, RES are hard to feed train so the fish farms may have more trouble keeping them than the BG. I know in my sediment pond I put in 175 RES and 100 CNBG expecting to get a lot of reproduction of both to add to my main pond. Well I wish I would have put the 175 RES and 25 CNBG because I have CNBG fingerlings running out my ears compared to only a few RES fingerlings.

Your RES will probably do fine. Mine turned out ok, Just not as reproductive as my BG.

Last pic is a RES IMO.

Yes big eyes like that are an indicator of poor health/condition/stunting, etc as Bill stated above. Also the with drawn stomach is also an indicator of poor feeding.

Thanks for all the responses.

Quick question: If scrawny, underfed bass don't ever totally make up for lost growth, what about BG and RES?

Same result. The question is at what point in the process does this become a certain result and to what extent.

I have both HBG and BG in my pond. As expected, the HBG have grown faster and seem more aggressive than the BG. Will the HBG dominate the spawning beds and mate with the female BG creating a lot of HBG x BG? Anybody have pictures of HBG x BG? Is this a desirable cross if the goal is for just a good fishing pond?

I managed to find this old thread that poses the same question, as well as others, but the inputs back from members don't really directly answer the questions of HBG dominance of spawning beds or is a HBG x BG a desirable cross. Anybody have any experience or thoughts?

http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=10878

HBG faster growth is relative. It is not genetic IMO. For example if you have a pond of all male BG and one of HBG you will get just as good of growth over time from the male BG as the HBG. Why? Because the HBG are 97% +- males. Male BG in a male only pond will use their energy to get big because they do not have to divert lots of energy to nest building and fry guarding. The reported evidence indicates that HBG grow somewhat faster early on because of their large mouth size but that edge quickly recedes because their metabolism and internal morphology is similar to BG who are larger and GSF which are smaller. The same principles apply - energy in = energy used + growth. There is a lot we don't know about both but nothing I have seen indicates that HBG digest and use more energy or have more efficient metabolisms than BG males. HBG are more aggressive which is a plus for fishing but in nature can be a minus due to increased risk of death by predation.

I would not be concerned about HBG taking over BG nest sites if the numbers are equal. There is a lot about BG nesting/reproductive behavior that favors BG males. I have not seen any material indicating if HBG inherit the knowledge/instinct of BG or GSF as to nesting. Interesting question.

Thanks Ewest,

I think BG males will eventually out grow HBG but it does seem to me that in the first 2 or 3 years the HBG are heavier per inch than BG. Kind of like comparing a heavy weight boxer to a middle weight of equal height.

It is interesting to me that as HBG continue to gain popularity, more studies haven't been done on their behavior and impact on the pond ecosystem.

There is a huge absence of info on all lepomis but especially the hybrids. We know more about BG than all the rest.

It would seem to me mother nature has a way of species preferring their own species. Thus the hybrids and offspring of hybrids are the exception rather than the rule.

If this was not the case, a mixed species pond would tend to just become mostly hybrids over time.

It seems to me the danger of creating too many hybrids from offspring of hybrids would be minimal.

Now I have a sediment pond that produced quite a number of hybrids. But in this case there were a very small number of GSF with limited opportunity to mate with their own kind. They basically were forced to mate with either CNBG or RES.