Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Spotfin Shiners - Habitat, Cover and Structure

Get a couple of those E Texas boys up here and I'll drag Cecil along. That is if he don't get us lost.

Update...I stocked 100 SFS last week when the shoreline was full of other small fish to distract the predators. I'm thinking the pond's rip rap and broken concrete will provide the habitat these crevice spawners like and maybe they will thrive. Also stocked 100 BNM with the hope the concrete will be to their liking. Odds are against me with such a small number of stockers but, I guess, time will tell....

Bill,
Any success with your SFS surviving? Did you make artificial spawning structure? I'm planning a small stocking myself and wonder your success.

I saw many last fall swimming in a school with GSH. The SFS I stocked have a "tan" colored back so easy to spot them in a group of "gray" colored backed GSH. I've seen a few this year but they are hard to spot with so much slender pond weed this year. My pond has lots of rip rap so there was no need to add artificial spawn structure. I figure there are millions of suitable crevices in the rip rap.

My recommendation is, if you have predators in the pond already, stock them with a bunch of FHM. The slow moving FHM are a nice distraction and will improve the chances of your SFS surviving long enough to become acclimated to their new home.

Good Luck!

Bill D.

Thanks for the good advice. I might need to source some rip rap too now! I have no predators, except for a dozen or so of my largest jumbo perch pushing 11-12". Depending on how big my stockers are I'm hoping the big perch won't eat them.

I'll be hoping I see some tan schools of SFS later this year!

I have introduced large numbers of spotfins to a pond with a heavy smallmouth population; they seem to be doing great and are clearly recruiting. I wouldn't worry about the perch being able to put a dent in their population--they are extremely quick and active, and only when they are first placed in the pond do they seem to be especially vulnerable to predators.

I have found that putting them in the pond right at dark, and stocking from a black bucket, can really reduce losses. If you keep them in a white bucket, they are quite light colored when they go in the pond, and really stand out. Coming out of a black bucket, they're very dark and blend in immediately.

This is great direction!

Did you create specific spawning structure for your SFS? I want to start them in a forage pond recently constructed but need to understand if the dowel/cd structures ala Cody are necessary to ensure reproduction/recruitment. Let me know when time allows, thanks to you guys for the important science on SFS!! Huge benefit to our community.

TJ-Nothing special, just some rock riprap along one side of the pond. They seem to orient to logs, too....great structure for them is several small logs [I use willow trunks, 3-6" diameter] wired or chained together in a bundle, then sunk in 2-3 feet of water parallel to the shore. [ I think any wood would work, I just have a surplus of willow to work with.]
I have them in with blunt nose minnows and PK shrimp. They seem to get along pretty well, there are millions of the minnows, but still plenty of shrimp. I wondered if the minnows would eradicate the shrimp, but they haven't yet.

Spotfins hang around the woody branches/logs looking for crevices of the bark that is peeling away from the trunk. Instinct behavior.

OK thanks guys, this is good information for me as I'll be hopefully raising SFS, BNM and shrimp in one cell like Dave and still unsure on what species I'll dedicate the other cell towards....might feed train and select promising female YP, might grow out and select the best male BG, or maybe mix them together.

Now I need to find a source for BNM and SFS and, believe it or not, my once flourishing shrimp population has literally disappeared. Been trying to collect shrimp for the last 3 months and nothing. I can't imagine what would have impacted the population, but I am seeing major vegetation disruption due to either grass carp and/or crayfish....one working theory is they are targeting shrimp and ripping up/clipping vegetation in the process. I have vegetation floating all over my pond surface, it's an entirely new development after 9 years of management. I'm stumped, but the resulting turbidity and detritus has impacted my clarity in a major way.

TJ, bad news about your pond! I was hoping you and others could keep a good population of grass shrimp going.

I know mine are gone as well and I just blame the lack of any vegetation. I know I can blame crayfish but I can't catch any in traps so I doubt I have very many crayfish. My gold fish took the blame but I have reduced numbers from 500+ to about 50 or less and still no vegetation.

I think my soilfloc applications play a role now as the bottom is like concrete and I don't know how easily plants and seeds can establish.

I'm sure a bare bones bottom to the pond gives no hiding places for the shrimp. I'm trying to keep some FA in the shallows for them to have a place to hide.

I'm starting the SFS journey too and will be putting some artificial structure in (I made 4 structures, 2 with stacks of CDs and 2 with stacks of plastic cardboard) I'm going to try to add some logs and maybe some riprap as well.

I wonder if I drilled some depressions (on an angle and straight in the pipe without going all the way through, even some longer slots in the plastic?) the side wall of a plastic PVC pipe if the SFS would use them.

keep us posted if you find the reason for the floating vegetation.

When one sees lots of pieces of floating vegetation it is usually a sign of the efforts of grass carp or muskrats.

I found a great article about the best cover, the best crevice size, the best color, the best temperature and other interesting findings:

==================================================

Selection of Artificial Spawning Sites by the Spotfin Shiner (Notropis spilopterus)

William F. Gale and , Cynthia A. Gale

Published on the web 14 April 2011.

Journal of the Fisheries Research Board of Canada, 1976, 33(9): 1906-1913, https://doi.org/10.1139/f76-243
Abstract

In 1975 experiments were conducted in the Susquehanna River, near Berwick, Pennsylvania, to investigate spawning-site selection of the spotfin shiner (Notropis spilopterus), a crevice spawner. Results of experiment A revealed that visual cues and water currents were important in spawning-site selection. Spotfins deposited 43.638 eggs on black discs and only 2 eggs on clear discs; 87% of the eggs were in horizontal crevices and the remainder in vertical crevices paralleling (7%) and perpendicular (6%) to the current. Fish spawned over the entire disc in slow currents but avoided strong currents (0.57 m/s) by spawning on the downstream side of the discs. Nearly 90% of the eggs were deposited in crevices 1.5 and 3.0 mm wide, the two smallest sizes.

In angular crevices 15–90° from horizontal, fish deposited 74% of 8,358 eggs in the 15° crevice and 24% in the 30° crevice.In experiment B, a stack of black acrylic plates was placed near the river surface, at midwater, and near the bottom; in July fish deposited 91% of 13.088 eggs in the bottom stack. By mid-August stack usage had changed and 80% of 11,456 eggs were in the surface stack; the others were in the midwater stack. Rate of egg deposition on acrylic plates between July 10 and August 20 peaked in early August.In experiment C, 95% of 46,328 eggs were placed in crevices between blue (55%) and black (40%) plates; other colors were green (4%), red (1%), and white, yellow, and orange (< 1%).

Fish usually spawned on the plates between 0600 and 1000; spawning did not occur at night.The spotfin has potential as a bioassay organism because of its wide distribution, the ease with which large numbers of its eggs can be collected, its extended breeding season, and the simplicity of rearing the young.

Good stuff Jeff, thank you. I can't imagine my shrimp population is entirely decimated, but I simply cannot find them, which is very troubling as I've never had issues before over 7 seasons...

bringing this link up with its excellent pictures as some local pond meisters and I are discussing SFS spawning structure (and FHM spawning structure). Wanted to share Bill Cody's pictures that he shared in the past and also in the post just above there is some research where gap size matters, horizontal vs vertical gap matters, upstream/downstream matters, and color matters to the SFS.

Review from the top if you have interest.

Here are the pictures:

Once it's built - a way to find the shiners - used Spotfin for this example.


I'm also in Ohio and looking to not pellet feed, i.e., build or restock forage as necessary but within limits! So, in this forum I found a great reference source on finding locations to trap or 'collect' forage fish and their eggs.


So let's say your pond is in Greenville, Ohio 45331 is the important bit.

Go here and plug (your) zipcode into the Watershed: http://fishmap.org/watershed.html
- note some zipcodes have multiple watersheds so all you do is click on a watershed until the you have the one where your pond is located.




From there you find your watershed by clicking one after the other until your map comes up with your pond.





Once you have that up, you can look below it and if every species of finfish observed is listed by common name. Simply scroll down to the species you're interested in and click it.


Click that species.... it brings up all observations and breaks that into native, historic and introduced.




Zoom into your watershed and the locations where it's been documented by whom and when shows up.




Select a location and zoom in.... It shows, usually a common access area to possibly put a trap or egg collection up. The intersection of Holler Rd. and West Branch Greenville Creek



You can bet I'll be doing this as I found access to a stream that has populations of both SFS and BNM.

Be well...

thanks for this excellent tutorial! You can see in the last picture that the helpful person who documented the minnow being in that stream was none other than Brian Zimmerman. He collects and raises a variety of native fish for aquarium use or if he has larger numbers for pond stocking. He was very helpful for me in getting some neat sunfish types stocked in my pond.

If anyone else is interested in assembling spawning structure,

I can share links but I found the cheapest 3/8" stainless threaded rod on Amazon. A 36" length was just about right and it was shipped for $6.55 each stick.

I then added rubber washers with 1/8" thickness but can be compressed, 1" diameter wide, 1/4" hole which stretches over the 3/8" and locks itself pretty well on the threads pinning the CDS in place. The CD hole is just over 1/2" diameter. ($9.50 for 100 pcs)

I then tried some black blank CD-R to see if color matters. Would be cheaper to get 'art project' Cds from ebay which I assume are recycled already recorded ones in random colors.

I added a nut top and bottom and on one rod put a combination of my left over silver CDs alternating with black, and on the other rod did all black to see if we see a difference. I can adjust the gap between the CDs by how much pressure I add with the nut on the top vs the nut on the bottom. Worked pretty well.

I had a nut with a round 'cap' on it that happened to fit so added one of those to the top of each rod so that when I pounded it in I was pounding on the top nut and not the threads.

The 3/8" rod is nice and stout for driving it in the pond bottom. Last time I used 1/4" zinc coated and it was a bit more bendy.

Aimed for about 18" under the stack of CDs as hope water will come up a few inches yet.