Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Selecting a site New WE/SMB/YP/RES Pond near Ft Wayne Indiana

I agree with Bill on the vertical slopes, I have a customer that has a 1/2 acre pond with pottery making type clay. He had vertical sides made when he renovated the pond. Those sides collapsed and fell into the pond. exposing the underground sprinkler system. His pond now is larger but 40% shallower because of all the material that fell into the pond.

With regards to your stocking, feeding and habitat plan, I see a few issues. BUT, this is on the assumption that you want to grow bigger SMB/HSB/WE than growing bigger YP/RES.Is that a correct assumption?

1) What habitat will the FHM utilize for spawning?
2) Your plan is way heavy on predators and really, really light on forage fish. I am including the YP, RES and FHM as forage fish. Putting a Texas Hunter directional feeder and feeding 2x day 7 days a week will mitigate some of that.
3) I really like having GSH in the pond, but again, what habitat will you have for them to use for reproduction?

SMB, like LMB need food that is 1/4-1/3 their body length to thrive. Feeding 2x week won't be enough for them, and they probably will not stay feed trained. Once those SMB get to 14" in length, what will their forage fish base be? Remember the 10# of forage fish = 1# fish flesh. Given that formula, I have a question for Bill because he knows YP way better than I do.

Bill, as you know, the gape of the SMB favors them eating a fusiform fish vs a round RES shaped fish. Since the forage fish will be small when stocked in the fall, and the predators in the Spring, the YP and RES will not have a chance to spawn for a year, so if the SMB, HSB, and WE want to eat fish, they have to eat the stockers (if they will fit in their mouths), and the FHM that are in the pond (no GSH). FHM won't feed fish larger than around 7" in length because of their caloric content will equal the caloric expenditure of a fish that is over around 7" in length.

If there are no GSH in the pond, then the predators will have a choice of eating FHM (max 3") for 1.5 years. I'm thinking YP hatched Spring 2028 won't surpass 3" in length until August of 2028. Iif no GSH are stocked Fall of 2026. RES stockers will be too big for SMB/HSB/We to consume. So, given the plan that is now in place in regards to stocking numbers and spawning habitat, the SMB alone will need to eat 250# of YP in 2028 to go from 1/4 - 1/3 pound (7" fish) to 1 1/4 - 1 1/3 pound fish in 2028. How many 3"-4" or 4"-5" YP does it take to weigh 250#? Is it possible that those 100 initial stocked YP can provide that amount of forage considering that both SMB, YP and WE will be eating the YP that hatched Spring of 2028?

If it was my pond, here's what I'd do.

1) Make sure that I had plenty of habitat that was specific to the preferred spawning habitat for FHM and GSH. I would add YP specific spawning habitat in the fall of 2027, the more the merrier. It can be removed in early May if it's objectionable.

I'd change the stocking numbers:

Fall Stocking Plan (when the pond is 50% full)
20-25 pounds of FHM
20-25 pounds of GSH
2 pounds of Rosy Reds
800 RES fingerlings 1"-2.5"(they will be eating any of the small FHM/RR that are stocked this winter under the ice in addition to any invertebrates that are in the pond) BUT you will need them in the Spring to start reproducing and since they only spawn once a year you need more to start than if you were to stock BG which I do NOT recommend given your predator fish. If you get that size fish, be dam sure that the RES don't have BG mixed in with them. It's pretty durn impossible to sort them for species at that size. Once they hit 3" in length they are a LOT easier to sort. Some hatcheries aren't that picky about keeping BG out of RES hatchery ponds.

Spring Stocking Plan (2027)
100 4"-6" YP
100 6"-8+" YP (see if you can stock them in Feb or March before they spawn)
25, *maybe* 50 SMB 4"-7" (Since they spawn in late April/early May, getting 2"-3" fish in April - June will be the runts left over from last year)
20-25 HSB 4"-6" or 6"-8"

Fall 2027

Walleye. They aren't available in the Spring........

Why stock the GSH? I feel that they will take some of the pressure off of the YP in a pond such as yours, and in a pond with HSB, they occupy the same area of the water column, so they are the perfect forage for them.

In your pond, I'd put up a Texas Hunter (solar powered) directional fish feeder and feed Endurance fish food. The first year I doubt you will feed more than 20#/month and after that I doubt you'd feed 2x that per month. You COULD feed up to 60-75 pounds a month but that would require more fish management - i.e. harvest than feeding a lower amount.

Your stocking plan is very similar to mine and our ponds are in similar climates. Speaking from experience (not to be confused with expertise), consider adding aeration sooner. I had two winter kills in a row before I determined that my DO levels 4' below the ice in the winter were 1ppm (not suitable for my YP or SMB). Thankfully my forage base survived, although they probably weren't thriving in those conditions.

I'll be adding a diffuser before winter comes in order to keep an area of open water all year, so the fish I have in there now (my third stocking effort) won't suffer the same fate. Not adding one sooner has set my fishery back a few years.

My winter kills weren't obvious (since only a few of the dead fish floated), so I carried on with blissful ignorance assuming the reason I couldn't catch any fish was that I was either a much worse fisherman than I'd like to admit, or there was so much forage that I couldn't entice them to bite. Unfortunately neither of those were true; my fish had just died.

Given that, consider adding a diffuser/aeration before ice sets in. I wish I had done so sooner.

Mainer, set the winter diffuser 1/4 the max depth of the pond, within about 20 feet of the shoreline. NOT in the deepest part of the pond. That is where the diffuser for the summer goes.

Thanks for the advice. Is there a particular brand or model that works well, or are they all probably adequate?

I think the rubber membrane diffusers are best - disk or tube style. Each added diffuser results in more water moved per hour assuming each diffuser receives at least around 1cfm of air so it operates efficiently. IMO Rubber membranes are easiest to clean producing good small 1mm dia bubbles.

Thanks for all the expert advice! I put some fatheads in to get them going.

Bill, any chance you would be interested in a little consulting work and coming to see my set up? I stopped in to Sportsman’s cove a few days ago, and Jason was telling me you weren’t far away and helped him to manage some monster perch.

Thanks,
Ryan

Schipprj - see your Private Messages category