Okay I am learning more about your pond situation which improves the advice you are getting.
1. Back on Feb 20 you said "”4) YP sound like great option, however not legal in Tennessee for stocking. If you have suggestions for acquiring them, that would be great.””
Yellow Perch
I am not sure where you got that information about YP as illegal in TN. . I searched and I found no where that I looked that stated YP were not legal to be sold by fish farms in TN. The Tennessee Pond Management booklet which was a pretty good general pond guide did not mention yellow perch. See also below about TN DNR fish restrictions.
https://www.tn.gov/content/dam/tn/twra/documents/habitat/how-to-managing-small-lakes.pdf Page 8 for species recommended to not stock. Not recommended although not illegal.
The Tennessee DNR listed the illegal fish to be those as: Banned In Tennessee It is unlawful to possess or transport live specimens of the following animals: • Silver carp (Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) • Bighead carp (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) • Black carp (Hypophthalmichthys piceus) • Blueback herring (Alosa aestivalis) • Marbled Crayfish (Marmorkreb) (Procambarus fallax f. virginalis) • New Zealand mud snail (Potamopyrgus antipodarum) • Round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) • Rudd (Scardinius erythrophthalmus) • Ruffe (Gymnocephalus cernua) • Snakeheads (all members of the Family Channidae) • Swamp eels (all members of the Family Synbranchidae) • Zebra mussels (Dreissena polymorpha).
YP in TN are on the southern edge of their comfort temperature level, however they will grow to quite large sizes in TN waters. Recent state record angler sizes are in the 15” size ranges. YP due to their cool water needs and lack of use by fish farms in TN, YP are difficult to acquire for pond stocking and getting a fish farm to sell you only females is a very unusual request and a REAL big challenge to any fish farm. Thus I would not stock YP in your small ¼ ac TN pond unless they are all female fish. You do not want a lot of unnecessary sport fish reproduction for an easily managed small pond for having high quality fishery. YP can be very efficient for recruiting annually new perch into the pond. For your goals I would initially stay with the minnow, SBS and for the predator use HSB as the easiest species to manage and the best species to overall grow well in an all natural food based small TN pond. SBS are much better adapted to grow large compared to YP in TN. Claims are made that the SBS can grow up to 3 lbs which is a huge sunfish. If you can grow SBS to 12” and 2lbs you are doing very well for a ¼ ac pond. You will get praise. My test sample of SBS grew to 8” in just one year. The test is ongoing. I expect 10” at a full 2yrs old.
2. Added Water.
Outside water can be okay for adding to the pond IF it is filtered at the discharge through 500 um mesh also called a proper mesh sized filter sock. Creek water when running clear with low nutrient concentrations can be very okay if properly filtered. Do not let any hose pumped fill water drain with direct contact down the exposed dirt embankment. This erodes the basin, makes the water muddy and adds soil nutrients. Use piping or a tarp on the bank to let the water run into the pond.
Another important water to not add to the swimming pond is the fish transport water. Your pond is small so you will not be dealing with large numbers of fish. Thus the added effort is minimal for the added benefits obtained. Do a water rinse for ALL added fish. Be prepared to dip fish out with a minnow live well dip net. Do the dip / water rinse by placing the net with some of the removed fish that are net held for a few seconds in a bucket of pond water. Lift out fish in the net; allow to drain. Dip fish in second bucket of pond water. Then from 2nd bucket allow netted fish to quickly drain & release fish into the pond. I have some careful clients do a 3rd rinse. These rinses are mainly to rinse off and reduce microscopic bad algae and plant fragments that are usually present and spread around amongst all fish farms that grow and hold fish. Most if not all small, medium and large fish farms buy their fish from big commercial farms. Small fish farms including Jones buy almost all their fish because they sell far more fish than they can grow in-house.. Fish farms are big incubation areas for algae/ weed problems transported from farm to farm because they all add the transport water to their ponds when releasing purchased fish that usually are sourced from other states. It is the practical way to receive and deliver large numbers of fish. Numerous tiny celled contaminant problems are all water born and very easily transported.
3. Vegetation.
Educate yourself to pros and cons of vegetation species that can be beneficial for a pond. And then ask questions on this forum. Higher plants growing in the pond absorb and compete with problem algae for nutrients. Whenever you can remove any plant or part of a plant that grew in the pond you are removing nutrients from the pond. Nutrients grow algae. Excess nutrients grow even more algae to the point it becomes a problem. .
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=440475#Post4404754. Tilapia –
TP will die each winter when water temp drops to 55-48F depending on the specie or variety of tilapia. An annual cost is present when using tilapia, however so is the annual cost of pond dye and various algae control chemicals. I prefer natural control for the pond water quality vs chemicalization. ALWAYS do your best to manage nutrient input and some annual nutrient removal. This nutrient removal mgmt plan or habit plan reduces plant growing problems. IMO this is better than just killing algae / plants each year and letting all die to decompose in the pond.
Jones recommends 7-8lbs of tilapia in 1/4 ac. Some suggest 40lbs/ac or 10 lbs in 1/4ac. These numbers are often too high in my experience for a new pond or well managed ponds. Number of tilapia per year is based on amount of algae and small weeds present. Low algae = low tilapia numbers. Each fish can eat just so much algae per day. More algae requires more fish. For a new ¼ ac pond without aggressive predatory big mouth LMB, I suggest 3-4 lbs of tilapia. Sometimes only 2 lbs of mixed sizes of TP. Remember the males are always larger than the females so ASK the seller for at least a couple larger ones (males) on the truck or tank. Males build the nest; smaller females put eggs in the nests all summer long. Males grow faster than females which is why farms growing TP for the food market have all males. It is your baby tilapia that are really your algae eating ARMY. Stocker larger tilapia get the algae consumption started but it is the babies that eat most of all the new algae short growths. If you put enough TP in the new pond it should be swimming pool clean by late summer and clear up into early winter when they all die (water 45F). Some algae in the fall – not enough TP at the start or maybe TP were all one sex. IMO it is very good they all die each year because you never get an overpopulation of TP which can be a problem in itself. And next year you can buy more or fewer depending on how well of algae control they did the prior year. This way you are in control of the pond not the fish when ad if hey become too abundant. .
Do your best to reduce amount of algae before getting tilapia. Try to find and buy a smelt dipping net which is very good tool for removing excess algae, leaves, floating debris, and dying, dead tilapia, at the end of the year. Notice the long handle length 7.2ft. Cummings makes one 10ft long which is the one I prefer.
Cabelas or Bass Pro - FRABILL Smelt/Shrimp/Shad Net
Some of the smelt nets have a net rim yoke that has a hole for a spring button connector. I have found that if the ID of the yoke is 1.25" then you can use a pool skimmer pole (12'-16') from a box store such as HomeDepot to fit into the smelt net rim connector yoke.
https://www.homedepot.com/p/HDX-16-...le-with-External-Cam-Set-61316/205542693I have fit the smelt net rim yoke into the skimmer pole, drilled a hole through both and inserted a bolt and wing nut to hold both together.
By reducing the amount of algae in spring pre-TP, the new stockers don't have to 'play a big catch up' to get the algae problem under control. Remember all plants that you remove from the pond reduces the nutrient load in the pond. Removing dead or dying tilapia also removes the bound up incorporated nutrients from the algae that TP ate as they grew. TP should at least double in size before they die. You can catch the larger tilapia with a worm and bobber fished in the shallow water beach area in Aug-Sept-early Oct before the water temp drops below 70F when TP quit spawning. Water temperature of 70F is important here. During summer, most tilapia are near the nesting - spawning area – usually the shallow area where the bulldozer drove out of the pond – i.e. beach. Water lower than 70F the TP stop spawning and it is harder to find and catch them by angling. Cleaning & eating the tilapia are pretty good and better quality than those usually sold in the grocery. Usually you will only catch a few of the TP during each angling period – they learn quickly to be cautious. IMO they are inherently shy fish.
5. Unwanted Fish.
’’””Unwanted fish: not sure how to avoid this risk, except to go with a respected/trustworthy vendor.”””
As noted by numerous others on this forum, this is a definite problem and risk for those thinking it is important wanting only the correct specie of fish ordered / purchased. Uninvited fish are IMO a major problem for those that have spent lots of careful effort planning the pond fishery. Reproducing unwanted fish can be a definite long term problem in a pond. For me, I hand sort all fish added to my pond as I do my fish rinse transfer. However, remember I had lots of fish identification class work and experience when in undergraduate, graduate, and post college endeavors. Not very many pond owners and fish farm personnel have this amount of knowledge and experience. Although these ‘hatchery’ workers do/should know pretty well the identification characters of the fish they commonly handle and sell.
This is what I would advise for those new small pond owners who do not want to get unwanted fish.
1. Be sure to tell the fish farm employee when ordering your fish that it is important to not get unwanted fish mixed into your order. Tell them their reputation is at stake here. Be present if fish are delivered. If fish are delivered, repeat your request of no mixed species in your allotment to the driver. Emphasize this. Tell them this is important to you. Now they know you are not the casual pond owner and to be extra careful when picking out fish for your order.
2. Do not order/buy the fingerling sizes of sunfish/hybrid species. These smallest ones are VERY difficult to recognize when the size of fish is 1”-2” long. The smaller these fish are the harder it is to recognize its true identity. Spend a little extra money and buy the larger sizes of stockers. Buy the next larger or 2X larger sizes. This heavily reduces the chance of identification error.
3. Buy your fish rinse net. Walmart sells a very good low cost net for fish transfer by pond owners. I sell this net for TP clients that arrive for their TP.
Promar Fun Multi-Color Bait/Fish Fishing Net 16" long x 8" wide x 1" High.
4. The Fish Rinse. If fish are bagged and oxygenated for travel, look at them in the bag to see if any look noticeably different than all the others. Use the net to lift out several fish for the rinse. Again look at them for abnormal shape or significant different coloration pattern as they sit in the net in the pond water bucket. Release captured several fish as the net-group into the pond after doing the water rinse/s.
Fish Sources
Since your pond is small you will not need to purchase very many stocker fish especially if they all have to survive on all natural pond foods. It might be interesting and worth your time to make a day trip to drive and get your fish from the fish farm distribution center or arrange to meet the deliver truck when it is relatively close to your pond. Stocker fish that have been bagged and oxygenated can survive an 6-8 hr drive home especially if the water is below 70F. Fish travel much better in cooler water conditions. Water holds measurably less oxygen the warmer the water becomes - warmer water stresses fish when they have to travel in containers. IF you drive to get your fish remember to remind the fish guy that it is very IMPORTANT to not mix any unwanted fish into your allotment. Tell them you have heard bad stories about this happening to new pond owners.
