Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Evaluating and adjusting fish populations Evaluating New Pond and New Fish

Boondoggle - you say
"I was curious if you had some info I hadn't seen and I don't know if my supplier this year provided 50/50 mix. My loose plan for next year would be to have a divided stock tank (hardware cloth separation) filled with pond water that we could aerate or continuously fill from the pond temporarily when the fish come out. Supplier's 6-9" TP in the stock tank and then sex them. All females go from stock tank and males returned to stock tank on the empty side of the tank. After the sexing put in one male (largest available) for every 3 females we stocked."

Before trying your gender separating plan, I would first check with some questions to your TP supplier.
A. Ask if he raises them himself.

B. If he raises them, does he buy mixed 50:50 fry or primarily male fry? My TP (blues & blue hybrids) grower tried growing some of the offspring from a pond stocked crop of TP. He thought those prior year offspring did not grow nearly as well as the fry he regularly buys in Dec. from AZ. Why neither of us knew why.

C. Some TP for pond stocking are bought from big growers for resale. What technique / method does your grower use to sex the TP.? If it is the urogenital pore method those features are pretty difficult to see on non-reproducing individuals. Spend some time catching some various sizes of 3"-7" TP in your pond before the water gets below 60F. Try sexing them and you will see that the smaller they are the more difficult it becomes.
Notice the grower in the video uses large Moz. TPand also dye to aid seeing the gender. IMO on small fish it is not as easy as it looks. Notice that the guy in the video does not show a comparison of shape and size of lips on females just shows the male. IMO the lips test will be very evident of immature TP.