I have read lots of discussions on Pond Boss concerning providing a food source for our forage fish and gamefish from the time they are fingerlings through adulthood.

However, I don't recall many threads on optimizing the food sources in the pond when the desirable fish are in the "fry stage". It seems to me that improving the growth rate of the fry would also increase their survival rate as they become faster to escape predation, better at hiding in cover, etc.

Further, when most of the fish are in the same size class (for example the original LMB stockers), they can create a gap in their forage base by all targeting the same food source at the exact same preferred size.

Would that be even more problematic for fry? They all hatch at close to the same time (except for BG and other multi-spawners). A good pond could literally have a million fry at the same time all competing for the same food source.

Many of the fry grow on zooplankton after their yolk sac is depleted. Does anyone manage their pond to maximize food sources for desirable fry?

Of course, in a main pond, the fishery needs very high fry mortality rates or the carrying capacity of the pond would be quickly overwhelmed after the fingerlings started gaining any significant mass.

I am mainly contemplating a brooder/grow-out type of micro pond. (But main pond advice would also be appreciated.) For example, if you were doing some brooder pairs of BG to raise additional forage for a main pond, it seems to me that the fry would quickly consume all of the zooplankton in that micro pond. Perhaps a high mortality rate is preferred, or else you would subsequently have more fingerlings in the grow-out pond than it could support?

Does anybody know how the fish suppliers optimize moving fish from the fry stage to the fingerling stage for fish that do not take supplemental feed?


A second scenario I am imagining, is a main pond with a low recruitment rate for a preferred species. For example, several members have YP in their multi-species ponds that have low recruitment rates. Would the step of optimizing the food source for YP fry pay big dividends?

Any discussion would be appreciated on my rather vague questions. Further, I frequently type up my "assumptions" on a question, because faulty assumptions are even worse than no knowledge on a topic. Please feel free to correct or clarify any of my assumptions.