Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Daphnia stocking and Silver Ch. Cats

Jason - Be very carefull what you believe whenreading the Zett's catalog. They only tell you part of the story. They, like many other catalogs, tell you enough to make their point and leave out lots of other impt info that the consumer should know. Their catfish ponds are clean of algae primarily because of all the bottom stirring, fish crowded, activity keeps the pond muddy-cloudy and algae does not grow in those ponds due primarily to turbidity and stirring of the sediments not cause the cats are eating all the algae. If the cats are eating algae then the pond is way too crowded with small cats who would rather be eating invertebrates and bottom organisms which would cause better fingerling growth compared to if they were eating mostly algae. Algae is not a preferred food for them.

I have never seen examples of their Daphnia cultures. I am sure these cultures are a mixture of a variety of zooplankton from one of their fishless ponds. Most naturalized ponds have natural populations of zooplankton, yours included. Diversity and sizes of zooplankton in the pond are determined primarily by the structure of the fish community. I question what types of problematic and or nuisance algae types might also be included in the Daphnia cultures which are collected from their wild ponds. I rarely ever see a pond that has severely depleated zooplankton populations unless the pond is regularily treated with copper sulfate. Basically all ponds have natural cycling zooplankton populations that increase and decrease due to the amount of food available to the zooplankton and seasons as affected by temperature.

An article in PBoss magazine should come out this year with more details about this topic. Look for it.