Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Self sustaining Fish Mix

You're welcome Skunked.

It's fine if you are giving but up on the FHM but before you do completely read the parts on combination with disappearing species. This is pretty much how everyone uses FHM ... essentially to sequester nutrients to be eaten later as BG and LMB grow. Most folks see their FHM into the second year but a good crop of LMB YOY seals their fate.

It is quite interesting how much they add to the total weight or LMB and BG when used in combination. The reference on fish production notes that increases in the combined LMB and BG weights average 179 lbs/acre. Everything in kg/hectare but just multiply by 0.89 to get lbs/acre. So how much forage was this? Some say the conversion is 10 lbs forage to 1 lb gain. That would suggest 1790 lbs/acre of forage was produced by the minnows alone. Stop and think a moment. BG can't produce forage in such quantity. The greatest production of BG Swingle obtained in a fertilized pond with BG (single year) was ~ 500 lbs/acre. The stocking density was too high to produce harvestable fish. At 1500 2" BG/acre he produced an average of 165 lbs/acre in a fertilized pond. They were just big enough to keep by most folks standards. Point is FHM added more weight in BG than the pond could produce of BG without the FHM. Furthermore, many authors reported substantially more production of LMB with minnows (either FHM or GSH or a combination) than with BG. The problem with minnows is they get extirpated by LMB and BG may be able to do it too. BUT if you can maintain an overwintered population of 1 lb of adults in your pond and if they reproduce normally they can produce enough forage to grow 60 lbs of fish in one season. It sounds crazy I know.

I can tell you that CC will not typically extirpate FHM. They will coexist and FHM will likely proliferate. They will add similar gains to the CC as they would bass and bluegill but the CC will wait a little longer for them. The CC aren't going to chase them down as aggressively as BG and LMB will and many the CC will eat will be exhausted and dying from the rigors of reproduction OR perhaps have already died. I think it is an excellent combination especially if you want to grow a limited number of large fish. The difference is that the CC will allow the FHM to reproduce but LMB will wipe them out for sure.

Now ... The pond could also support some other species if you manage them like you plan to manage CC. Which based on your plan of single sex CC is to manage a limited number of CC that are not able to reproduce. So you really like crappie but have already witnessed them do well and then destroy the fishing. crappie can grow 1/2 to 3/4 lbs a year and if you stocked few enough that they could grow maximally but not consume all the FHM produced ... AND ... if they were of single sex you could partition a limited proportion of your FHM production to crappie and still have self sustaining population of FHM.

Where you might go wrong is to try to have too many fish. Its either a smaller number of larger fish or a larger number of smaller fish. Where one is using single sex management, I think the best approach is to grow a smaller number of larger fish. The reason is that procuring sexed stock will be made much easier if you don't have stock so many of them. Also it is less likely a mistake sex identification will go into the pond. For your purposes I like a 5 to 6 year ladder for CC and a 3 to 4 year ladder for Crappie. If FHM will add 180 lbs/acre of production you might consider only small portion of that for the crappie at maximum rates of growth. Lets say 60 lbs/acre of that ... see below.



So in this example 5 fish annually grow close to the maximum rate of growth (.72 of the .75 maximum) for a total of 15 fish (or 75 fish per acre by the 3rd year). In this year you harvest up to but not to exceed 5 fish per year. Now 5 fish per year is a doable ladder if you have a good place to get 5 female crappie each spawning season. If you were try to obtain say 40 ... much harder to do. You could tweak the rules of harvest and begin in the 2nd year harvest only fish >12" and no more than 4 per year. This reduces the standing number to only 10 of year 1 and year 2 and then possibly 1 in year 3 to 8. Most BC will not live longer than that after reaching 8" (the stocking size). But this early but not complete harvest of year class allows you to grow an occasional trophy sized BC exceeding 3 lbs.

This kind of stocking program has the potential of working in harmony with FHM and their great forage potential because the predators are growing maximally but using only a portion of the production potential of the FHM.