Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Trout Habitat and water conditions?

Questions and thoughts:

What is the combined flow of your two springs that flow year around? I run in about 41 gpms 24/7 from March to Novemember and my max temps in my 1/10th acre pond in the hottest part of the summer are the low 60's F. I also use a max pouunds rule of 12 lbs. per gpm final max size of trout. For example: If I ran 50 gpms of spring water into a pond I would not want to go above 600 lbs of trout. (50 X 12 = 600 lbs.) Lets say max size of rainbows is 7 lbs. average, that means if I waited to harvest them at an average size of 7 lbs. I would not want more than 85 of them in the pond at that size at one time. If you exceed carrying capacity you may run into D.O. problems and ammonia problems which could cause subsequent stress or even death.

Smaller is better when it comes to pond size for trout if you have cold water coming in as in the springs. It's easier to keep the temps down in the hottest part of the summer with a smaller pond. I wouldn't worry about max pond depth for winter as most likely your ponds won't freeze over with spring flow coming in. But make your banks as steep as possible to keep warming down in summer. If you do make them steep make adequate adjustments for anyone that could fall in whether they be tresspassers or children.

If possible funnel your spring water flow into a PVC pipe(s) and drop it over rocks etc. to aerate before dumping into the pond.

I wouldn't put any other species in with your trout for three reasons: 1.) The trout don't always compete well with other species and may get stressed. 2.) If the water is in the optimum temps for your trout they are suboptimal for fish that are not coldwater fish, and you many end up with thoses species stunted.3.) You could bring in disease that could cause serious problems with your trout.

Optimum conditions for trout in a pond are:

55 to 65 F. Lower temps than that are not a problem but you won't get optimum growth. I have less then optimum temps in my ponds from November to March but it doesn't hurt them at all. In fact, I shut off my well flow the 1st of November until sometime in March and allow the 1/10th acre pond to freeze over with no problems. No feeding then and I keep the snow off of the ice.

D.O. minimum 5.0 ppm more is better

If you have a trout choice between a source that is certified disease free and one that is not I would go with the certified source. No need to bring problems into your ponds that may be impossible to erradicate later.

Trout are a piece of cake if you have good water quality. The trout available these days are domesticated and adapt well to ponds.

Flowing your trout pond(s) into another large pond is not a bad idea, and if the pond is 2 acres it shouldn't be cooled to much for your warmwater fish. However be aware if you feed you fish (strongly recommended) you will be flowing in nutrients which can be fine if not excessive or cause weed and algae bloom problems if they are excessive. However that can be dealt with by various methods.

One more thing: Don't plant trout that vary significantly in size. If you do the smaller ones may not get enough to eat and stay small or if they are small enough trout chow for the bigger trout.