Best chances for survival sound like making sure the shallow water weed zone is full of complex habitat and pond weeds?
The shallow water habitat will help all small fish to survive including the YP when they move into the shallows. IMO lots of early YP fry can be lost due to predation especially if GSH are common to abundant when fry hatch. Unguarded early season fry are probably delicious treats for all 2"-6" fish coming out of winter. If after a couple more years and you are not seeing much if any YP recruitment, and to have a harvestable YP fishery you will probably every year or two have buy some 4"-6" YP and ladder stock them. Another good option would be to build a small 0.1 ac shallow forage pond and grow minnows and YP fry. People are usually surprised how many fish can be grown in a 0.1 ac pond with no predators.
Is there really any benefit to fertilizing pre 60 degree to get the algae and zooplankton off to a good start?
I’m not sure how much help the fertilizing will be for the YP fry. If you are able to get a bloom from fertilization it will not be a negative. However if the fertilization does not happen until the water is 60F it might be a week or two late for the best benefit to YP fry. Homework may help here with this info.
NOTE - When fertilizing a pond to get a phytoplankton bloom the zooplankton development is at least 1 week to 10+days for the zooplankton population to significantly increase to where it has a lot of zooplankton for the fry. As the zooplankton community develops the smallest species develop first and then the medium sized ones and the largest individuals such as Cladocerans develop near the end of the early growth phase that might be 10 to 15 days later after the water turns to its green hue.
If I could figure out the travel with egg ribbons from the pond, back to the house successfully, get a hatch, transplant them into the aquarium I'd hate to see what happens as those numbers dwindle to GSH predation
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Moving the YP ribbons is easy. Just locate the ribbon dip it out and dump the ribbon in a bucket of water. Ribbons can be transferred as fresh laid or allowed to develop for several days and then transferred. Lengthy egg development time in a tank or bucket can result in fungus on eggs. Best success for full lengthy 10-12 day development of eggs in a container usually requires regular water exchanges and or using a daily disinfectant to minimize fungal growth.
Prespawn - I cut twiggy saplings (6ft-9ft) and lay them along the pond banks with tops 6"-3ft deep. . Some have used old or new spruce branches. I think an old Xmas tree with all branches on one side cut off so it lays flat on the bottom could work well for females to drape ribbons on the topside of the tree so eggs are more visible. I use bricks or flat thin cement /tile pieces to hold the sapling top down in the water & butts firmly on the bank for later sapling removal after the spawn. YP of each pond have preferred sides where the females like to best place their egg ribbons. Most of my YP prefer the south-east side but will put some eggs on all sides except north. My neighbor's YP like the north side. Place a couple saplings on each bank to learn what side your YP prefer most for egg drop.
I don’t have much experience feeding new YP fry. A lot of the growers, who I know much about, allow the fry to grow to 1” long then use one of several methods of feed training the small fingerlings. When the fry develop the full complement of fins at about ½” – ¾” long they are technically called a fingerling.
