ML :

I was out working at the lakes and missed the first post. Grass has to be cut and feeders filled and .......!!!

I will try and address your 2 posts together. I understand the nature of our dicussion and no warning or explanation is needed. I am glad you included the warnings so others will understand.

First on the prior mgt. of our problem pond in question. Keep in mind as you read this that this pond was , at the time 15 years ago , not fished much of the year and no one person fished it a lot. The prior mgr.{ I am being nice} did not have any idea of what he was doing. No training no background no understanding of what was going on. A good fisherman but not a pond mgr. He heard fert. would improve fishing and it did for years 2-4 of the 4 yr. period. By year 5 the alkalinity , because no lime was added , was 7-10 ppm. With this condition the fert. did not work so they stopped not knowing what would happen. For the first 2 years after this point fish were still caught but were getting skinny and by year 3 it was to late. At this point I was asked to look into the problem . It was decided that the lake would not be killed but that a lime program would be started followed by a rational fert. program. It took most of a year and 60 tons of lime to get the alka. high enough to start fert. again but by this time it was winter. The next spring the fert. program was started but by then the fish were and had been dying and the rest were very skinny. The remaining fish ate many of the dying. From that point it took 5 years of fishing and fert. to get the pond healthy and balanced. There were other complicating problems to long to mention. This should answer many of the whys.

On to your questions. If I fail to address one let me know.

Restarting the fert. under this situation would not work. In a normal situation you could stop for one year and restart and recover but why do that it would only cause less drastic problems.

I would not say it is like a drug but like a metabolism . If Lance Armstrong quits eating and drinking in large amounts and cuts his intake in half while trying to ride in the Tour de France he would get real skinny and collapse . It is about getting the pond to a high sustainable rate of production without doing harm consistent with your pond goals. I am talking about basics here for the avg. pond owner not about a person with your substantial knowledge and who knows well how to do scientific based expirs. There are not many out of the total pond world who can match you and/or some others on this fourm in this regard

I agree any large change in the food chain . be it fert., feeding, adding many more fish { tilapia or BG or Shad...}, or taking a lot of fish out can cause large problems. That was my point to Woody. I wanted to warn him to think about it first and if unsure get specific advice for his pond from someone with experience and knowledge of his pond food chain. Think carefully and learn answers before you cause a major problem.

My answers to Woody were not in relation to tilapia or BG or any other combo. of fish , forage or predator . They were in relation to total fish carrying capacity. No matter what the forage is it has to eat. If the food chain is jerked out from under the forage fish they will suffer. Not positive but I thought small tilapia lived off of plankton. What ever makes the plankton grow also makes the other plants grow .

The 400 lbs of possible forage in a fert. and feed pond in the SE are an average developed over the years by fisheries biologist . I know the average would include grass carp . Don't know if tilapia were specifically included but I would assume so because the number is used in avg. total carrying ability of the pond per acre. It is not applicable to aquaculture situations with high poundage per acre and extensive mgt. practices . The closer you get to the aquaculture situation the more lbs. of fish per acre.

Optimum mgt. practices can vary greatly . There are often many ways to reach ones pond goals . That is one reason this is fun. I don't think anyone knows the most optimum forage base for bass as a predator. There are several that are very good . As long as it contains at least one very prolific forage producer and they are of the right size it should work. Both BG and tilapia and shad can be prolific if there is food for them to eat and they can reproduce and or you replace them if they are eaten or die off. In the larger pond world most people { unlike those on this fourm} know little about pond mgt. and do not want to replace forage fish on an ongoing basis. That rules out t-shad. and tilapia for most people and more can't use them because of cold water. Use of either one can give a pond owner a very large boost in forage at just the right point in the yearly growth cycle. There is a lot positive about your approach. Some people use tilapia others t-shad . If I had to guess I would think tilapia would be better because the reproduce more , grow larger in a shorter period and die out at a warmer temp. I am no expert on that matter however .

I don't know how much if any tilapia compete with BG for food sources or at what size.

Send me a PM with your address and I will send you a copy of a very interesting article on forage fish size and bass selection of forage .It does talk about tilapia in the equation.

This post is so long I am not sure it stayed on topic or answered your questions. No doubt that most of this you know . I hope Woody reads all of this and makes the right decision for his pond based on the most info he can get. ewest