Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New pond owner!

Or at least I will be soon. The wife and I are almost through the buying process on a new house with a pond! It�s a small pond, about 1/10 acre and looks to have been built for swimming. I�m very excited to finish the purchase and get to work on making the pond great. Looking to stock some sort of fish for me, get it sorted and clean for swimming for the wife, and get some ornamental and aquatic plants for both of us.

I did work at Lilypons water gardens for a number of years so I have the plants and visual pondscaping covered, but I will be asking about the fish and swimming. Hoping for mostly bluegills with some small mouth bass as well. Glad to be here!

Welcome to PB.

Good to have you and it will be nice to have another member with some plant knowledge.

Welcome!

If you are swimming in it, don't put in bluegills. They think choice parts of you are good places to bite to check for food. Annoying little bastages to swim with.

Smallmouth bass generally cannot control bluegill populations. Besides, as has been said earlier, bluegills tend to be kind nippish. Redears or pupkinseed might work better as forage.

Welcome to PBF.

I have heard Bill Cody talk about SMB only ponds. That might be something worth asking about for your size pond and the fact that you want it for swimming.

If I were swimming in that northern lattitude, I would consider wearing a dive skin or a 1mm wetsuit. Both are easy to don, help with a little warmth, and should mostly eliminate any nipping problems with fish. Look up a place called Wetsuit Warehouse or Leisure Pro on line.

I guess stocking with piranhas are out of the question.

If you accidentally wade slowly through a bed of actively spawning BG or GSF, stopping occasionally, you will think you have Piranhas.

My father-in-law used to say if BG grew to 5 pounds, you would not survive swimming in ponds with them.

I scuba dive daily during the winter months and there is a small reef fish called a damsel fish. They actually are the shape and have the mouth size of a BG but only get to about 3"-4" long. They ferociously protect their egg area and I have watched them chase away 3' long parrot fish. If a diver ventured too close they will nip your hand hard enough to startle you.

I have often said if damselfish grew to 3 or 4 pounds, divers would get no where near a reef. Surprising what small nimble fish can do to protect their territory.

Another option in an northern pond is yellow perch. They will eat snails, breaking up the life cycle of many parasites that are not good to have in a swimming pond. They also make good forage, but make sure to get them well established before entering low amounts of top predator fish, our you will be out of a sustainable population of yellow perch rather quickly.

They also stay a long ways away from you when swimming.

For a 0.1ac pond, consider catching or buying single sex panfish. BG and yellow perch(YP) can be sexed pretty easily. YP need to be selected pre spawn when the females are full of eggs and for BG you should add just the males. YP stocked should be adult females who grow the fastest and largest.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=21505

Add SMB as your larger fish fish you want bigger fish. Use FHM as the forage fish or feed the fish pellets (pellet trained) to help monitor their numbers and improve growth/health.

Agree with Bill !!

Good thing is at that size changing directions is not so hard.

Will hatcheries sex the fish for you with any accuracy? I'm thinking of doing the same with my tiny pond.

My experience with Private fish farms is rule #1: Only trust what you can verify personally!
As for sexing BG, This is quite easy in most cases, some times of the year they are more brightly colored than others.

I always cringe just a little when I think about a stocking strategy based on single sex species stocking......it only takes one misidentified fish to potentially destroy the plan.

I would feel more comfortable stocking HBG and maybe a few HSB to control their limited reproduction.

...Just my 1 cent

Maybe I should just stock all grass carp. They're pretty much guaranteed to not reproduce.

Hatcheries normally will not sell you single sex fish for several reasons.
1. Often the fish you want are the larger fish and it costs more time and money for larger fish when the farm makes more money on easier quicker to raise smaller fish.
2. Accuracy is very variable depending on the person choosing the single sex fish.
3. It often takes extra time and effort to select single sex fish. Time is money to a fish farm.
4.Selecting single sex fish are almost always adult mature fish. Not a lot of fish farms sell this size of fish.
5. Selling high numbers of single sex fish leaves the fish farm with high numbers of lower 'quality' often smaller fish; not good for the fish farm. Usually the single sex fish you want are considered the premium of the crop.

If one can find a fish farm to choose you single sex fish, expect to pay at least 2X to 4X the regular cost, maybe more since these are premium hand picked fish.

Normally single sex fish are used in lower numbers in small ponds for a special purpose. Often one has to do this their self.

Here are a couple ideas to get single sex fish. Do advanced homework, know the details of the specie and be confident on sexing the specie you are wanting. 2. Catch & select them yourself then you are responsible for errors. 3. Unless you are an expert at fish sexing, select or collect your fish during spawning season when the sex is easiest to recognize. Females are noticeably gravid and males are emitting milt. 4. Obtain mixed sex fish in the fall or very early spring, put & feed them in a cage or small pond. As they become close to spawn, capture and sort and stock them. Release unneeded individuals into a larger pond, trade them with another pond owner, or eat them.

The idea of single sex fisheries is interesting and has been done successfully. It is not easy though. Many studies prove just how hard it is to correctly id and sex different species. Most times even the experts have low (70%) correct results. The smaller the fish the harder to do correctly. One example was a small lake in GA done as an experiment by Fishery Scientists. By year 3 the single sex LMB fishery revealed numerous 4-6 inch LMB yoy. Good thing about small waters is they are relatively easy to change directions upon an unforeseen event like a failed single sex experiment.

I know you're kidding here but in some places carp are prized as fighting fish. They are strong, tackle-busting fish.

Europeans love to fish for carp. They regard our carp fishery as an untapped resource and some even travel here to pursue them.

Actually I was serious I like carp for eating. They're just too expensive though...I'm going to keep at least 2 though.