Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - How long to wait before adding fish to new pond

So my pond just filled up about half way with the latest rounds of rains we just got. This got me thinking about when I should stock my forage fish. How long should I wait once the pond is full before adding fat head minnows and BG? Also can I start tossing them in now before the pond is full? Our rain falls off mid June so if this pond isn't full by then then it likely won't fill until the fall. Seems like my forage fish can be doing a lot of spawning this summer that I don't want to miss out on. Thanks,

David

When I drain and then refill my hatchery pond, I start over with the water, not the fish. Texas water can be funky so I add lime and gypsum first, then go from there. Lime balances the PH and helps alkalinity. Gypsum adds the hardness fry need, and may also add clearness to the water. Getting the water numbers right will help all successful spawns.

Hint: If you are angling for the stocker breeder size BG do some GOOD homework to be able to recognize male and female BG. You could erronously bias the 50:50 M-F ratio by catching and stocking more numbers of one gender. ewest here has presented several posts showing pictures from my PBoss articles of growing Behemoth BG for the differences between M&F BG. Hopefully some member here will provide a link to that information.

Here is one example of ewests PB forum post provided by Google, This entire thread is excellent info for sex determination of BG. Note the noted regional, water clarity and seasonal issues for the differences of determining gender of BG.
https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=422568

For best success for amateurs or novices recognizing M & F BG it is best done 2-3 weeks prespawn or during the main spawning season when male and female dimorphic features are most prominent.

We gave our bluegill, and shell crackers a 6 month head start (April 2024). Started our feeding program immediately to help supplement them. One piece of advice here is to be patient with the feeder. The fish are small in the beginning and it takes them some acclimation time to get adjusted to the feed. Once they do it's certainly a sight to see. Don't be surprised if this takes multiple weeks.

(October 2024) we added F1 tiger bass from the Montgomery, Alabama hatchery and additional fat head minnows for an added boost.

Very happy with our decision to wait 6 months; our fish surveyed(Spring 2025) are very healthy. My best approximation is our bluegill to bass ratio is around 20 to 1 right now perhaps a little higher than that. There are visibly zero fat head minnows left. As spawning takes place, it's going to be important for us to supplement & cull to keep that abundant bluegill to bass ratio high.

This is a matter of opinion and the ratio can be debated To my knowledge a male will allow multiple females to lay eggs in the nest. In one of your posts I recall you said for this forage pond you planned to stock 50 BG. I initially incorrectly assumed you were getting them from a fishfarm. Not true now.

If your BG stock goal is around 50 adults as best you can determine, I would shew the ratio to more females compared to males. Read through the information in the link provided previously above.

If it were my forage pond, I would chose the biggest best looking males from the total that you catch as maybe 10 to 15 males and the rest of the 50 being females (1male to every 2 females). . The 8" female BG when healthy can have around 30,000 eggs and a 6.5"-7" female can have 13,000-16,000 eggs.BG here on the PB forum are said to have a rolling spawn where females can produce a few to several spawns per season depending on geographic location. . A 5"+ female BG in TX was found to produce 80.000 eggs during the entire summer spawning season. Thus 10-16 good quality 6"-8" females could produce 100,000+ fry. How many that survive is dependant of numerous factors in the pond such as insect or hydra species presence and their ability of fish fry predation, pond fertility, plankton production and proper sized zooplankton availability as foods and who knows what other numerous factors that limit the survival of BG fry to 1+" long. I very much doubt that the forage pond co-habitants of FHM will eat very few if any BG early hatchling fry. IMO Insect predation will consume many more early fry aka pro lavae) compared to the fry consumption by adult FHM.

Try and get some close good side pictures of the BG you catch from the donar pond and keep up up dated on the progress of your forage pond. We are keenly interested in your experiences with this project. .