Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Adding TFS to new unfertilized pond

My 2 acre pond has a good BG population and some mosquito fish but no other foarage sp. I have access to TFS from my work and a way to safely transport them a short distance. Is it a waste of time to bring some over to an unfertilized pond? My water quality has improved greatly after the addition of lime.

If you were to put a secchi disk in the pond, what is your water clarity?

Esshup, i can see to the bottom currently . 8-10 feet of depth, it has some color finally a light green instead of as clear as a well cared for pool.

Check alkalinity - it should be over 40. There might not be enough phytoplankton in the water to create enough food for them now. BUT, if they are free, all you are out is some time, O2 and transportation costs. Go for it.

Thanks, that’s what i thought too. The alkalinity is at 40 now, I didn’t know if it’s a requirement to fertilize a newer pond for TFS to survive. I would rather not have to start that if possible because it sounds like it’s something that has to be maintained long term. I’m encouraged now because after the lime had a chance to settle in I have some aquatic plant growth starting other than the FA.
Can you have too many BG in a new pond or will the addition of LMB handle it?

CC - Firstly a few questions for you to get another good answer.
1. Your TFS source - Are they at a seller's facility or are you getting them directly from where they are growing?

2. Do TFS live year round in waters where your pond is located?

Hey Bill, Yes I’m in South Carolina just outside of Charleston. The TFS will come from ponds where I work ( a retreat) they were originally stocked from some where in Arkansas 4 years ago and are thriving. I live 15 minutes from where they will be collected and have a good way to transport them. I had some stocked with BG in October but all the shad died quickly because my water quality was bad ( no alkalinity). My alkalinity is now 40 and BG are active. I don’t want to kill them if you don’t think they will survive. Water Temps are almost identical, depth where they are coming from is 22 ft and my pond is only 10 ft .

They are filter feeders, so the clearer the water, the less food there is for them. What is the water clarity in the ponds that they are coming from and what is the alkalinity there?

The lake they come from is 12 acres with water clarity of 18 inches and great algae blooms throughout the year. There are so many shad in it the relative weights of the bass typically run 100 -130, I’m having to cull bass with relative weights of 95+ that look great to allow the others to grow to maximum potential.

The most recent alkalinity checked there was 120.

Thanks! The clarity is probably due to phytoplankton, and the phytoplankton is due to the potentially higher nutrient levels and the higher alkalinity levels which allow the nutrients to be available to be used, which in turn is what the TFS are eating and why they are doing so well. Like I said, go ahead and add them to your pond, it's a cheap experiment!

Okay as long a you collect them carefully, handle them carefully, transport them with good oxygenated methods, then I think some will live in your 10ft deep pond. Your pond has adequate phytoplankton and zooplankton to feed current fish fry such as bluegill. The number that live and survive is what esshup said - "so the clearer the water, the less food there is for them. " Survival and amount of recruitment will depend on the amount of available food for them. I think some will survive and be able to recruit some new TFS each year as long as the pond conditions will allow. Some TFS present even if not abundant will diversify the forage base. The population size of the TFS will depend on the amount and quality of their food source. Clear pond water conditions might allow better predation upon the offspring of the TFS, thus the numbers may not be very abundant. IMO yearly numbers of TFS will again depend on plankton densities.

Thanks guys, i really appreciate the help. This sight is amazing but also like drinking from the fire hydrant. I will give it a shot and see how it goes. I will update in a month and let you know if any survived.

I am only typing this to highlight Bill Cody's TFS handling advice above.

I am NOT an expert, but I believe several of the actual fish stockers on Pond Boss have commented about how fragile TFS are to transport relative to other baitfish or small gamefish.

You might try stocking your TFS in several small batches. That way, if they do NOT survive in your pond, it is likely due to adverse pond conditions, rather than they just had a rough transport and were placed in a pond where the conditions that day were not to their liking. That way, hopefully you have one batch where everything was perfect.

We don't stock TFS up here, but check to see what the shape of the transport tanks that the people who stock TFS are. I may be wrong, but I thought the tanks had to be round on the inside to prevent them from piling up in a corner of the tank.

My tank is round and holds about 250 gallons of water, I have 3 aerators running and a bait pump that circulates the water around the tank. The fish I’ve moved before face into the current, I use a granular shad support product that adds blue dye to water so they don’t stress as bad. My travel from pond to pond is only 15 minutes. I like the idea of trying small batches to see if i get an idea of if it’s my water vs some other factor. The water temps are within 2-3 degrees of one another. Will TFS have any effect of FA?

The setup you have will work great. Look into seeing if adding non-iodized salt to the water would help.

I doubt that they will help with FA.

I believe their diet is usually zooplankton, phytoplankton, and a bit of algae. Unfortunately, FA "clumps up" so rapidly I doubt they would make any dent based on the food size preference of their filter feeding habits.

If your pond was absolutely teeming with TFS, they might actually make the FA worse as they cleared up the rest of the bloom in your water column such that sunlight could penetrate further.

However, in my (non-expert) opinion, that is VERY unlikely. Many gamefish love them some TFS.

FA (filamentous algae) always starts growing on the bottom then later for several reasons rises to the top - floats. Those masses, "wads" or gatherings of green filaments form wig like masses that you are seeing on the surface and along the shorelines. TFS are not built to collect and eat grouped filaments or strands of FA. For food items, TFS gill rakers strain tiny individual particles out of the water column. See below.

If you want the TFS to benefit from the FA then stock tilapia (TP) who love to eat FA. Then the manure produced by the tilapia fertilizes the water to grow more suspended plankton that the TFS are designed and adapted to eat. Win - Win and Win. You get rid of the FA and then the water is able to grow more plankton to feed the TFS and you can harvest and eat the TP near or at the end of the growing season. IMO pond raised TP are better dinner guests compared to TP bought at the grocery. NOTE: IMO it is always better to stock too many TP than too few because then when TP have eaten all the edible plant materials, TP will and are able to eat and digest organic bottom sediments. This recycles some of the nutrients bound up in bottom organic materials to help grow more plankton both phytoplankton and zooplankton that are relished by TFS.

When I harvest and clean TP near the end of growing season, the TP intestines are full of bottom sediment materials. TP fillets have some added fat content. Why not try to smoking the TP fillets???. They might be as good as smoked salmon.

AI - Threadfin shad are filter feeders that consume plankton, including phytoplankton (microscopic algae/diatoms) and zooplankton (rotifers, small crustaceans), as well as organic detritus.
Gill rakers of TFS are similarly constructed as those of American Shad and gizzard shad.
https://www.researchgate.net/figure...h-and-pharynx-proportions_fig1_372617621

Plus, if the Tilapia eat enough of the FA, and you get a good bloom going, that will also act as a pond dye to reduce the number of aquatic plants growing in deeper water also.

That’s great information and makes complete sense. Is there any truth to TP outcompeting LMB for bedding sites or eating bass eggs? I read something years ago that TP are good and bad for LMB for this reason, they are a food source when young and small but hurt recruitment down the road.

In the years of stocking TP, I've never seen that to be a problem.

How many would you put in a 2 acre pond with no large bass yet?

For algae control we have found that in this area we have to stock a mixture of 50/50 male/female Blue Tilapia at the rate of 40# per surface acre to control the algae. FA HAS TO be treated (killed) within about 5 days of stocking them, either pre or post stocking. If the existing FA is not killed, we have stocked up to 100# per surface acre with absolutely ZERO results - it looked like they weren't even in the pond. The fish that we stock are 6"-9" in length, and they start spawning within a month of stocking when the water temp warms up.

We have stocked food grade Tilapia (90% male) and have not seen anywhere near the amount of FA control that stocking 50/50 males/females have given us. It's all the babies that do a tremendous amount of FA consumption, like teenagers raiding a refrigerator.

For a number of years I have tried different stocking rates in my personal pond. 15, 20, 30, 40, 60 and 100 pounds per acre. Both killing the FA at the time of stocking and not killing the FA. Not killing the FA isn't an option for me any more. it HAS TO be killed for the Tilapia to work the way they are supposed to.

15 and 20 pounds per surface acre didn't do squat. 30#/acre required treating FA about every 4 weeks during the growing season. We have settled on stocking 40#/surface acre and having the pond owner spray Cutrine Plus liquid on any FA that is seen growing. We do a pond assessment when the Tilapia are stocked if the homeowner hasn't killed the FA and tell them how much they need to apply.

Incredible information in this post.