Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Feeding How many feeders on a 2 acre pond

We recently stocked our newly established pond in March with 1600 coppernose bg 400 redear and 2000 fathead minnows. 150 LMB were released a few days ago. The BG are feeding well on the feeder presently spinning at 3 seconds twice/day. My question is will BG travel from other parts of the pond to feed. How many feeders should we have on an elongated 2 acre pond.

Will your pond be relatively infertile for the first few years, or will it have some rich silt and/or fertilizer washing in from adjacent farm land?

With 1600 CNBG, your feeding question may be purely a matter of economics. Unless you have a very fat wallet, they will probably eat all of the food you throw (in a short period) from a couple of feeders and grow very fast in your warm Louisiana waters.

Hopefully some of the LA and TX members that feed can give you some expert advice on the correct amounts!

Have boatloads of fun with your new pond!

The alkalinity is fine the pH is fine the water clarity was measured at 24”. I fertilized the pond for the second time this year two weeks ago. I can see small newly hatched minnows swimming along the ponds edge. We also have lots of frogs and tadpoles throughout the pond.

2 is fine. Here's what I did, and it's specifically aimed at CNBG. Native BG may be the same, but I'm not sure they deal with cold weather the same as CNBG. I would separate the feeders, and place them based on two situations. First, I would consider the predominate wind direction, and then have deeper water relatively close to the feeder. If the feeders are throwing into the wind, then shorter, but more, throws might be good. If not, then food will float to the bank before all the food can be eaten, and the "15 minute rule" doesn't work. If the feeder is throwing with the wind, then it will float out, and that's ok. CNBG will feed in cold water, but can be picky during, or right after, a front. If they do move out to deeper water, then they will probably move straight up to feed, and not move into the colder shallow water.

I'm assuming south LA is pretty humid, so you might want to run the feeders to empty every few months and check for clumps of moldy food. All feeders are potentially going to have that problem.

The CNBG I feed stay pretty close to the feeders unless they're spawning, or getting ready to spawn. I'm sure fish move to the feeders after they get accustomed to the throw times, but I wouldn't know how far they would travel.

Thanks great info that I never considered.

GAR, I was about to post the same question. I'm in the process of having a very long 2-acre pond built and was questioning if bluegill will swim from 600' away from one side of the pond to get the feed at the other side.

For a 2 acre long pond if the budget allows and your fish growth is important, I would use two feeders. Adjust feed time based on water temperature and how long it takes the fish to consume the pellets. REMEMBER - especially when you add pellets -- it becomes more important to properly and regularly harvest fish each year once they are several years old and they are regularly recruiting each year more fish into the pond. One can easily allow too many fish to grow causing water quality problems and too many plant problems due to added food / nutrients. The more fish you have in the pond the more food they eat to keep growing well and then water quality problems increase. Harvest fish to reduce their numbers, keep remaining fish growing well, and that reduces the overall number of problems. Your goal should be larger fewer fish having a balance rather than just having more fish always needing more food. Your goals are important for determining what to harvest and the numbers to harvest.

Listen to what Bill has to say. If you don't harvest enough fish, Mother Nature will do it for you and she will harvest way more fish than you intended to harvest.