Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain New pond middle TN: establishing food chain?

Bill, just a FYI. All the fish farms that I pick up fish from use flow through systems to hold their fish, and use well water in those systems. So, there is no pond water used to hold the fish.

When the fish are initially added to the holding raceway they are put in there with pond water, but they are held in the raceways for a minimum of 3 days to purge the fish so all the pond water is gone from the raceway.

Once all those collected fish are sold, they drain the raceway, sterilize it (typically with bleach), scrubbing the painted walls, the raceways are refilled with water, any remaining chlorine is neutralized (if needed) and new fish are stocked.

The amount of water that they pump through the holding tanks on a daily basis is mind boggling. The water then exits the raceway to a ditch and exits the property.

When I fill up the hauling tanks, it's with well water. Some of the fish farms furnish oxygenated water for the holding tanks, others furnish straight well water and I have to make sure the O2 levels are up before adding the fish to the transport tanks.

It's all about bio security and not transferring nasties from facility to facility. With some facilities, if you walk inside, you have to walk through a sterilizing solution so you don't track anything nasty inside on your shoes/boots.