Pond Boss Forums Thread Like Summary - Forage Base - Where can I find other minnow types

I'm in midwest ohio and I'm looking to purchase other minnows other than just fatheads. I'm trying to put together a forage base that may survive and sustain themselves in my future HSB, YP, RES pond. I'm willing to be patient and really get a good forage base going. I've heard good things about mosquito fish, but less good things about GSH? Only things I can find locally are FHM and GSH, anyone have any recommendations near me?

tylerd1994

I'm also in Ohio and looking to not pellet feed, i.e., build or restock forage as necessary but within limits! So, in this forum I found a great reference source on finding locations to trap or 'collect' forage fish and their eggs.


So let's say your pond is in Greenville, Ohio 45331 is the important bit.

Go here and plug (your) zipcode into the Watershed: http://fishmap.org/watershed.html
- note some zipcodes have multiple watersheds so all you do is click on a watershed until the you have the one where your pond is located.




From there you find your watershed by clicking one after the other until your map comes up with your pond.





Once you have that up, you can look below it and if every species of finfish observed is listed by common name. Simply scroll down to the species you're interested in and click it.


Click that species.... it brings up all observations and breaks that into native, historic and introduced.




Zoom into your watershed and the locations where it's been documented by whom and when shows up.




Select a location and zoom in.... It shows, usually a common access area to possibly put a trap or egg collection up. The intersection of Holler Rd. and West Branch Greenville Creek



You can bet I'll be doing this as I found access to a stream that has populations of both SFS and BNM.

Be well...

. If you are in Ohio BNM and spotfin are very common fish in streams where good numbers as broodstock can be easily collected by seining and / or trapping. PM me for options. These species are not raised by fish farms. There is one public place that sells these for aquarium use/trade; although they are expensive as in $4-$5 each. Higher quanities and if picked up on site are a little cheaper. I think his prices maybe include shipping???? Contact them for prices and availability. Those high prices give one an indication of their availability and rarity. http://jonahsaquarium.com/jonahsite/fishlist.htm
There is a small farm in NW Ohio that sells spotfins although the SFS pond is in transition due to a GSF invasion and no SFS will probably be sold until fall 2022. This farm does not ship fish due to fish virus restrictions and testing requirement of the Great Lakes region.

IMO my experience so far, if the pond has predators other than YP, I think BNM and SFS are not a good long term forage fish unless the pond has lots of submerged and marginal weed habitat. In a pond this usually amounts to 25-35% or more of the pond bottom or shoreline having dense habitat. Few pond owners will tolerate this much good weed habitat. Think about the amount of weed growth the surrounds high quality fisheries in natural lakes. BNM and SFS need lots and lots of underwater weed type habitat to survive any amount of normal bass, HSB and WE predation. I discovered WE choose mostly the large breeder SFS.

All the minnow types of FHM, BNM, and SFS have relatively small maximum sized adults that significantly struggle to survive a common presence of predators larger than 12-14". When you loose the large breeders the population is soon to be eliminated as evidenced by FHM in ponds. Golden shiners serve as better long term soft rayed forage than these smaller minnows when common bass predation is present. More study needs to be done in private ponds with uncommon forage such as lake chubsucker, mudminnows, steelcolor shiner, alewife(landlocked 3"-6"), and even the exotic invasive round goby (4"-8"). I know of a YP-WE pond that now has the round goby invader. Time will tell the rest of this story.

If the pond is mainly for growing bass or CC then the various sunfishes and YP are very good forage fishes that also serve well as guests to dinner.

I've found (at my place) the BNM are out-producing the FHM for some reason-maybe a stronger more proficient feeder, not sure, but they darn sure hold their own.

Thanks, Stressless!

That appears to be a great resource. Hopefully some members can chime in on its accuracy.

I plan on trapping in my creek this spring to determine the native forage population.

Rod, let me know sometime when you start catching minnows and I'll come down and we'll try to do some ID work.
Have a good size tank ready to support the catch. I'm guessing the number of species in your area will be many.

Success of keeping some caught - collected creek minnows in aquariums depends on the fish species, what you have available to properly feed it and your ability to maintain good healthy water quality in the aquarium. Numerous stream minnow species can be kept in the aquarium. Not to over crowd them and maintain good water are very important items for success. Knowledgeable and careful aquarium guys can even get numerous minnow species to spawn in the aquarium. Snipe got spotfins and I think red shiner to spawn in his aquarium. FHM easily will spawn in an aquarium. Some stream minnow shiner species have specific needs to spawn in an aquarium habitat. Moving good water quality is paramount. There should be good information of how to do it on the internet of how to maintain lots of different minnow species in an aquarium. Know the fish's needs then imitate those needs. Lots of the stream shiner species will not spawn in a still water pond.

FishinRod, I believe you can do exactly what you are wanting to do, BUT you might have to set up the water into and out of the tank to create a meandering stream like water flow from one side to the other. Try it without and see if you observe the breeding behavior like you are expecting!

Thanks so much for this!

I sourced a few BNM spots nearby to me I'll have to give a try this summer