Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction Howdy from east Texas!

One thing to be aware of is that when you push a pond in fish productivity, you may introduce additional management issues.

For example heavy feeding leads to nutrient buildup in the water which can lead to FA problems. Everything you do to change a pond from its natural state may have a desired effect but it may also have other unanticipated undesired effects.

So if fish production is not one of your main goals, you may want to go about feeding fish only as a recreational aspect or not at all. It might be easier to manage your water quality without the additional nutrient input.

But it depends on a number of things, the natural fertility of your pond and watershed being at least one.

So there are lots of variables to consider.

But do not let that scare you. You may find the journey as meaningful as the final destination. I know I do.

I'm looking forward to the process. I am treating this as an incubator... make my mistakes and learn on this mini-pond with the dream of having a large pond on more acreage in the future. Wise words from Pond Boss VII: "Mistakes on tiny ponds don't cost as much as mistakes on big ponds."

Clayton, you may want to revisit adding Tilapia next spring. When added to a small pond with an existing fish population, Tilapia recruitment is very limited at best, so overpopulation shouldn't be a problem. 2-3#'s of Tilapia should also control any algae problems in the small pond, and if you can get one or two males and the rest females, their fry will help feed everything else.

I have a small pond just north of Houston that has some TP that have managed to over-winter for at least 4 years. I wasn't surprised that they survived a mild winter or two, but this long is a shock. I switched over to Optimal BG Jr feed this year and these TP love it!!

If you don't mind me asking, how deep is your pond? I wonder if either good circulation (daily turns) or shallow depths help keep the water temps up on our few cold days because of solar tranfer.
It's encouraging to hear you have had this unexpected success. I'm west of Conroe, so close enough to perhaps get similar results.

/c

One thing to remember about stocking any pond, but especially small ones, is to stock/manage for lowest water levels(end of summer usually) instead of max or full pool. How to do that, for me, is like shooting at a moving target blindfolded.

Thanks is a great reminder! I think my well will keep up with evaporation and is deep enough to weather drought, but it's better to be safe than sorry. Thanks, Dave!

/clayton

Essentially, only the water where sunlight penetrates holds O2. Fish can go down there but can't live there. You can sometimes feel the cold water thermocline when treading water. Right now, my water level is down about 4 ft so I have lost a huge amount of the productive environment. Depending on how the pond is built(sloping sides, etc.) the top 25% can easily hold 40% or so of the water.

KH8d -
I�m really not sure how deep my small pond is but am told it is around 10� deep or so. As you can see from the pic, the Tp have grown pretty nicely. They feed pretty aggressively on the Optimal BG Jr.