Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Benefits of Wild Shiners

Is there any benefit to stocking Wild shiners over bait shop shiners ?

Stocking wild shiners has pros and cons. I have studied this topic for many years.
The main con is most stream shiner dwellers will not spawn in the pond habitat. So whatever of those species you stock, it is very doubtful they will ever spawn in your pond. That is why most of the species are found just in streams, thus no pond spawning. When you collect shiners in a lake, it often means there is a stream entering the lake for good shiner spawning habitat. About all the native shiners do not grow much bigger than 3”. Often bait shop shiners are purchased from Fish Farms that grow golden shiners. Sometimes bait shops will collect their own native area shiners. However these shiners depending on the specie and where it was collected have a big influence on if it will ever spawn in a pond. It has been proven and tested many times that emerald shiners basically do not spawn in pond habitats. A benefit (?) of most stream collected shiners is they will never overpopulate and cause a problem such as the common stream species of common carp, bullheads, green sunfish.
The main pro is a few shiner species will spawn in pond habitats. Another pro is shiners swim faster than FHM and survive measurably longer enduring predation. Shiner survival is highly dependent on type and amount of habitat and the specie of predator and number of those predators.

There are only a few species of ‘wild’ shiners species that will spawn in ponds. Most all "wild" shiner species spawn only in moving waters of streams or rivers. There is a PBoss Forum member (DonoBBD) from Canada that built a waterfall for his pond and he did get some wild shiners such as emerald shiner (Notropis athrenoides) and common shiner (Luxilus cornutus largest upto 8”) and I think a chub that spawned in the moving splashing water area around the waterfalls of his pond. You can search the PB forum for this info.

Golden shiners are the only farm raised shiners that are commercially available for stocking. There is large fish farm in AK called Anderson Fish Farm that sells shiner fry, small, and medium G. shiners (GSH) for pond stocking shipped to your door.

I have worked with this entire topic for many years starting in college and trying to learn how to identity them and what shiners will spawn in static water of a pond. Most shiner species belong to the genus Notropis and to the novice they basically ALL look alike. However There is a genus of shiner called Cyprinella with 30 different species that used to be in genus Notropis but was later separated to Cyprinella. Depending on the literature source the genus Notropis has from 90 to 325 different species. Most all look very similar to one another to the untrained observer especially when the individuals are 1" to 2" long. Note the golden shiner is technically a separate genus specie of Notemigonus crysolucas. Fine or small body feature details separate all the separate species in the shiner genera. For some of the identifying details one needs magnification to see the needed features to separate or identify the individual specie. I have had two college fish taxonomy courses for identifying fish.

Species in the genus Cyprinella will be the ones most likely to spawn in ponds, although they as wild fish are mostly found in streams. These fish are crevice spawners. They lay their eggs in narrow cracks and crevices that in streams consist most frequently as tree bark pulling away from the branches or cracks among stones / rocks.

The most common Cyprinella in my area of Ohio is Spotfin Shiner (Cyprinella spiloptera). To my knowledge there is just one producer for most of the spotfin shiners in the USA. I and several other local pond owners grow Spotfins in our ponds. Largest ones are close to 4.75” long. Largest Cyprinella specie that I know about is the Steelcolor shiner is up to 6.3” long. One PB member here was able to grow the Red Shiner (Cyprinella lutrensis) in his pond. Red shiner is called invasive by some sources. Red shiner largest is 3.5” and is most commonly found in central US states. Remember there are around 30 different species of Cyprinella spread out across the entire USA.

You being in NJ the most common Cyprinella is the Satinfin Shiner (C. analostana) that can be abundant in some eastern US streams. Largest ones are 4.3”. Do your homework for needed identification features and what streams in your area have good populations of Satinfins. Satinfin Shiner and its congener the Spotfin Shiner are highly difficult to differentiate in the field, and voucher specimens are the only way to obtain confident identification. One eastern US P.Boss member got satinfins to spawn in his pond. Remember -- just because you stock stream dwelling shiners in your pond does not mean there will be enough quality of habitat and enough habitat for them to survive the predation pressure the is proabably ever present in your pond.

Because you subscribed to the PBoss magazine, keep a watch for a planned article about Spotfin shiners. It might take a year or two to get enough time to prepare and complete the entire article. The information will be basically the same for Satinfin shiners. Both are very similar in characteristics and behavior. Satinfins and spotfins just live in different parts of the US. The article may briefly discuss the similiarities.

What I really want to do is find some Steelcolor shiners and get them growing in one of my ponds dedicated to growing minnows. Another good small fish that could be good for a forage specie that tolerates poor water quality is the mud minnow (Umbra limi - max size 5.2").