Jimmy - The rooted vegetation in the "handle" of your pond can, depending on plant species be a very beneficial area for producing tremendous numbers of insect larvae and other invertebrates (see later).
This food banquet is responsible for the rapid growth of the bgill and perch you mention. But,,, remember, this is not a limitless buffet. As your panfish numbers continue to expand to higher numbers the buffet size stays the same. This means that too many fish will be grazing on the same amount of food and each fish then gets less food and growth rates slow down. Fish growth rate in most cases is primarily dependant on food input. In a relatively newly stocked pond like yours, fish growth seems great the first few years; which is common. In the future, keep an "eye" on fish growth rates and densites,, and as growth slows and more smaller fish seem to be present or are showing up in the catch then numbers need to be thinned to maintain a balance between buffet size and number eating at the food bar. Growth of predators, body condition, and numbers also need to be monitored for the whole system to maintain a quality fishery. Too many fish present will be indicated by the average size is smaller for fish that are caught.
PERIPHYTON - Try google and search for periphyton. I'm not sure what will show up; probably lots of hits. I will try that method myself. You will have to sort thru it. I am not aware of generic information on periphyton. I'm not sure what more information you want to know. I could probably answer most of your questions. A limnology book wil give general aspects of it (understandable for a layman?). I deal with only technical aspects.
Many think of periphyton as only attached algae growth, but actually it is a whole community of microplants and tiny animals that live in this niche habitat. Some of the larger "critters" are comprised of grazing insect larvae up to 1.5" long (most 1/4"-1"). They feed, depending on food preferences, in and on the canopy of the periphyton growth.
Periphyton communities have labels (as to what type of substrate it is growing on. i.e. rock, mud, higher plant, wood etc. The communities are often composed of different species based on the substrate.
The leaves and stems of pond "weeds" in the handle of your pond no doubt contain lots of attached algae that serves as a food buffet. For example a single pondweed plant was carefully harvested from a lake in WI. All invertebrate animals (grazers) were washed off and identified. A total of 555 were counted. From this it was esitmated that a weed bed 60'x180' would have 30-33 million invertebrates at any one time during summer. Impressive. It's very hard to beat pondweeds for producing quality panfish in the littoral zone.
Come back if you run into things you do not understand.
Article about perch (3 parts) was writen for raising them in small ponds (one ac or less). Some of it would apply to larger ponds. The bigger the pond than 1 acre the less it probably applies. Back issues (fall03, winter04, spring04) are available from
www.farmpondmagazine.com . I can as an alternative email you a copy of the manuscript or send you a photocopy. If you can wait, P.Boss magazine will also have an article by me about yellow perch this winter or spring.
