Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Central Ky Fish choice New pond Help?

.9 acre pond For Fishing/Swimming
Central Ky average depth 7 feet
11 feet max. Going to have 2 diffusers
2 feeders 1 in 4 ft shallow water 1 in 9 feet deep 40% artificial habitat Structure
Pea Gravel and sand mixture on 20% of bottom

What I’m thinking

Stock in early September 2020
All feed trained
100 hand painted blue gills
100 copper nose blue gills
30red ear to get rid of snails
30 Georgia giants
Paper shell crawfish. 200
Fat head minnows 3000
100 bullfrog tadpoles
10 mosquito fish

Stock in may 2021
All feed trained
60 f-1 tiger bass feed trained
50 small mouth bass feed trained
20 hybrid strippers bass
20 hybrid catfish
20 channel
10 flat heads
8 grass carp

Thoughts? Any should not be in a swimming pond?

Intended stocking sizes of BG, RES, and predators will be needed for intelligent opinions.

That seems like too many predators and far too few bluegill to me....but if the predators eat pellets perhaps that changes the equation a bit.

I'd personally ditch the flatties and add a few hundred more BG/CNBG.

Agree, not enough groceries and way too many predators for .9 acres

Your numerous predators will not grow very fast after the 2nd or 3rd year when they "hit the wall" due to lack of forage. Likely the flatheads will be the dominant predators and eventually eat every thing else. SMB will not reproduce and be gone when they die of of old age in presence of tiger bass. Grass crap in a new pond quickly run out of food and will prevent all natural habitat, cause turbidity and lack of plankton. You are better to use tilapia in a new pond rather than GC. Georgia giants will attack swimmers.

Why would SMB not reproduce? Because of the other predator fish or another reason. Sorry if dumb question. I am thinking about putting SMB in my pond eventually. Currently have BG and FHM. Putting YP in next year. Thinking SMB 2022.

SMB will not reproduce in presence of LMB because smallies go on the nest first at a slightly lower temperature than LMB. Then soon within a few days the LMB go to nest and chase the smallies off the nest. LMB 'intimidate' smallies to prevent them from spawning in pond habitats. Both will spawn in large lakes where social isolation is possible.

Note the large wide mouth gape of flatheads. Once they reach around 30 inches almost no other fish is safe from their predation. The bigger the flatheads get the larger fish they will eat and they get them at night when most all other fish are resting. No chasing necessary - swim up and swallow them.

From previous posters on here, their experiences with Flathead Catfish in small ponds hasn't been great. They are very aggressive and have an enormous gape and eventually will eat out your entire pond. I suppose it could work if you're constantly supplying them with forage... (not sure if they'll eat pellets, but probably not). Looking at your predator list, in just a year, you're going to have over 200 pounds of predator fish in a < 1 acre BoW. Add in all of your other fish, you could be pushing 300-400 pounds of total fish in a year.

Grass Carp can consume 300% of their body weight per day. They can also gain 2 pounds a month. Recommended stocking rates (per acre) are 5-12, with the 10-12 range completely eliminating all plants within 2 years. I might toss in a couple, but until you get a weed problem, I wouldn't go overboard.