I recently built a new 1 acre pond that is spring feed with an average depth of 16 feet. It is fed from a spring with a flow of 50 gallons a minute. There is enough flow from the spring that it does not freeze over in the winter.

I was thinking about stocking it with Rainbow Trout. What other fih would complement the Rainbows?

Yours is a great candidate for tiger trout, too. They are aggressive, fast growing, fairly easy to catch. You can diversify with browns and maybe brookies, too, but they aren't as easy to raise and catch. Rainbows and tiger trout are trained to eat fish food, making them a great fish in small ponds. There are a couple of sources of tigers in NY that I know of..

jas :

Welcome to the PB forum. We are getting quite a few Northeasterners in the mix.

Tiger trout would be great. Do you envision artificial feeding? What kinds of sources do you have for fish?

Thanks for the suggestion about tiger trout. I am unfamilar with them. Where can I find out more information about them?

Thanks, JAS

I know a bit about the science but not a lot about how they do in ponds. Tiger Trout are a cross between Brown and Brook trout. This cross occurs naturally but they are pretty rare. They are a pretty fish that can grow to 25"+ It sounds like a neat fish to stock.

Are there any fish in the pond now?
Forage fish?
Preditors?

Here's a link to Tiger trout: http://www.assabetriver.org/streamwatch/tigertrout.html

Ric :

Nice link and a good looking fish.

Performance and Developmental Stability of Triploid Tiger Trout (Brown Trout X Brook Trout )
PAUL D. SCHEERER and GARY H. THORGAARD

Department of Zoology and Program in Genetics and Cell Biology, Washington State University, Pullman, Washington 99164, USA

JAMES E. SEEB

School of Fisheries, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington 98195, USA

Abstract.—Triploid fish hybrids frequently survive better than diploid hybrids. Tiger trout are a sterile hybrid between female brown trout Salmo trutta and male brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis; they have a poor early survival rate but a good growth rate. We produced triploid tiger trout by heat shock treatments of fertilized eggs and examined their survival and growth under hatchery conditions. Triploid tiger trout survived better to the initiation of feeding (34%) than did diploid tiger trout (5%) but had lower survival than brown trout (70%).

No offense meant whatsoever but I respectfully feel the tiger trout is over rated. I know someone said they fare better in marginal water temps, but I find that very hard to believe especially considering they are partly brook trout which is actually a char and prefers cooler temps. I've also seen some strains of browns that don't do well in marginally warm water.

I have seen tigers in very poor condition even in better than marginal water temps in a Massachusetts lake.

Furthermore finding feed trained trout of any species is not difficult at all. If they are propogated they are feed trained as soon as they swim up for feed. Some trout have been domesticated for at least 100 years so feed training them is a cinch.

And typically from my experience brook trout are easy to catch just as tiger trout are. However rainbows are next most difficult to catch with brown trout the most challenging.

50 gpm is a good flow but a 1 acre pond is good size for that flow. Your water temps may have to be watched in summer unless you have good shading or you are at high altitude.

At only 50 gpms into a 1 acre pond I would be inclined to believe your pond would form a thermocline in summer. If that is the case you may have a period of time where they won't come up for feed.

We stocked tiger trout into a 3/4 acre pond east of Rochester, NY last year. The pond was excavated, material used to build a private road. The pond is about 20 feet deep. We bought and stocked 150 tiger trout, ranging in size from 10-14 inches long. We chose not to feed them during summer months. We thought it best not to attract them to the surface during one of the hottest NY summers on record. We monitored oxygen and temperatures weekly. Surface temps pushed 80 degrees with 5 ppm oxygen levels. But, at ten feet deep, temp was 60 and oxygen was 7-8 ppm. Then, last fall, as air temps began to drop, we set up a feeder and it wasn't long before the trout responded. Also, we stocked fathead minnows seven or eight times during the summer and fall, to supplement natural feeds.
Another lake on that preserve is 20 acres. Several types of trout have been in that lake for at least ten years. Deepest water is 32 feet. Trout live year round, and feed voraciously all year, except the warmest summer months. There are rainbows, tiger trout, brookies and browns. The tiger trout, by far, are the easiest to catch.
While I don't profess to know much about cold water fisheries, these two short term experiences have given some short term insight into the fish.
The larger lake has about 60% rainbows, 20% tiger trout, 15% brown trout and 5% brookies.

Bob,

Well I don't profess to an expert on anything and you have probably forgotten more than I will ever know.

Did these ponds have any coldwater flow coming into them? If so how much?

Cecil,
You are a pro...I just have some limited experience in specific parts of the country with cold water fish. The smaller pond has no flow at all, it just sits. But, the water is deep and hard, and it seems to be working. We'll know in a year or two.
The bigger lake is gin clear and is constantly fed with a water well. This lake is used as a water supply to feed a large lodge and conference center. It, too, is deep. It just seems to be the nature of both lakes to have adequate oxygen below the thermocline. That's a foreign concept to someone like me from the south. I may come back in a year or two with a completely different opinion, but for now, I'm optimistic about year round trout in upstate NY.

Thank you for the kind words but I have a lot ot learn.

That's interesting. You know I hear a lot of folks say their pond is spring fed etc. etc. and they think it can support trout but typically D.O. levels crash in summer in that colder water as we all know. Apparently the water is not very euthropic in those ponds. Perhaps rocky and sand bottoms? Or perhaps like a farmer I know he has a rare situation where spring water runs in that is actually already aerated due to the limetone cavities etc. Not very common but apparently it happens.

I have sort of a "tangent" story on tiger trout, from one of my friends in Utah. They were doing some of the "conservation restorations" that are so common in the Rockies today. They were poisoning streams above barriers to get rid of non-native brook, brown, and rainbow trout, and then restocking with the native subspecies of cutthroat trout. To keep anglers happy and to ease the public relations process, they stocked triploid tiger trout of catchable size back into the renovated streams. That way, there was an immediate fishery available while the cutthroats had time to develop. The combination of triploidy and the far distance between the two parents (brook and brown are in different scientific genera, for those of you who might care about such things ) resulted in no reproduction. Anyway, here's the final point of this long story. Once the anglers got to fish for tigers, they wanted more, more, more! They really liked them, probably for the reasons that Bob stated above.

Bob:

Do you have a good idea yet what the organic sediment load in these ponds is like? "Clear as gin" would suggest to me that it is pretty light. I was wondering how the high O2 in the depths corresponded to the CW that a large organic load eats up oxygen down deep through decomposition.

I completed this pond on 6/15/05 and it filled up in a week. It was dug it silty clay and is 25 feet deep with an average depth of 16 feet. Sidewall were graded at 1:2 to keep weeds down.
Water comes into this pond from a waterfall I built at a constant 45 degrees so there is some aeration. Last summer was the hotest and dryest in a hundred years in New York. The surface temperature remained at 72 or less and five feet down it was 50 degrees. I put 1000 golden shiners in last July.

How many tiger trout are typically stocked per acre? Is it better to stock fingerlings or larger fish? what is the life span of tiger trout?

Bob Says - "We stocked tiger trout into a 3/4 acre pond east of Rochester, NY last year. The pond was excavated, material used to build a private road. The pond is about 20 feet deep. It just sits there (no spring water inflow). Surface temps pushed 80 degrees with 5 ppm oxygen levels. But, at ten feet deep, temp was 60 and oxygen was 7-8 ppm." This can be a common occurrence in new northern ponds. As the pond ages and eutrophication progresses keep a eye on the DO levels. They are likely to decline as nutrient levels and phytoplankton populations accumulate. It all depends on the rate of eutrophication.

jas,
Hopefully someone will respond with some knowledge wrt forage fish in your pond. I was hopeing Bill Cody would.
IMO Golden Shiners are not a good fit in a trout pond. They will compete directly with the trout thus decreasing the number of trout you will be able to support in your pond.
But as BC says, it depends. Maybe your goal is to have big Golden shiners.

Theo, the twenty acre lake is beginning to show some signs of eutrophication, but oxygen levels were great all summer. This summer the lake had its first real plankton bloom for a few weeks, enough that it had the water treatment guys worried about water flavor. But, the trout thrived.
The smaller pond is new, and water is fresh. That's why I am cautiously optimistic, and plan to follow it for several years.
jas...numbers are as numbers do. With trout, the more the merrier, up to a point. I would start with 100-150, feed them, and watch what happens. You will learn a lot. Each pond his its own merits, and that's part of the fun of pond management. You figure out what the pond will let you do, then manage it. I would stock larger fish, and feed them a bit.

jas,

I currently own a 3/4 acre pond that is very similar to yours.The pond is a silty clay, very steep slopes, with a average depth of 15ft. It is currently stocked with 200 2-3lb rainbow trout, and 7 5-8lb channel catfish. The only natural forage in the pond is a very large population of fathead minnows, a small population of crayfish, and a very small population of waterdogs. However, i do feed. My trout are thriving and i am very happy with my results.

Personally, i reccomend a mixture of rainbow's and tiger trout. Variety is always exciting. Make sure as far as forage goes to get a large base of fathead minnows to start off.

One last thing, with my trout, I seem to get alot of gut hooks with live bait. Therefore, In my pond i have limited the use of live bait to kids under the age of 8. Spoons and spinners work very well. Flyfishing is king on my lake and i have found that weighted wooly buggers are queen.

Good luck with your pond - Jighead

jas, In the above post Rick mentioned that I should add some input about golden shiners as forage for the trout. I am not real experienced with growing trout but here is what I would do. If you plan to feed the fish regularly then I would not add forage fish. Cecil manages to grow huge trout fairly quickly with just feeding pellets. Read his posts about trout. Trout respond well to that technique providing the water temperatures allow for feeding during summer.

If you do not plan to feed on a daily basis then I would follow Jighead's plan and use fathead minnows with only ocassional feeding. I see that you already stocked g. shiners. I would stock a few fatheads this spring. Watch to see which minnow survives best and come back occassionally to inform us of your experiences. Also if you do not plan to feed pellets you may want to seek additional advice regarding the stocking density of trout. Stock fewer trout if they are not fed pellets and have to rely primarily on natural foods.