I'm part of a HOA Lake Habitat Committee in Mesa, AZ. We are about a 5000 home community southeast of Phoenix. I have no idea why we call them lakes out here when all they are is ponds. But since we get very little rain here we could think a puddle was a lake here. Even when it rains here the news considers it as breaking news sometimes or they the will film a puddle forming. But anyways we are a 40+ year old community that has 70 acres of lakes(all different sizes). It was built for retaining rain. So we get about 30% of are water is from runoff the other 70% comes from a big lake chain to the west of here the Salt River Lake Chain. Are lakes in the last 20 years have been poorly managed at least in the fish department. Nothing but grass carp, Fatheads and 3" redear were stocked, 80 per acre a year. But the plan is to start a fish hatchery on are smallest lake so it can be secured. The HOA has approved a aerator were trying to get it in before it gets hot. So it will be nice to get some feed back from you folks. Thanks up Front
Sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Welcome to PB, you've come to the right place!
Welcome to PBF!
Can you give us more details on your hatchery pond? Size, depth, current fish, what you want to raise, ...Etc?
Sorry I guess I did cut that short. Lake size is just short of 3 acres max depth is 9.5 feet. We want to grow bass and catfish in cages.And have tilapia and Redear as forage. We would really like to get F1 bass if possible. I've talked to Overton's and American Sport Fish and none of them want to ship to us. The whole purpose is to get redear in lakes because we have Quagga Mussels knocking on are door. The Salt River Chain has them that feeds are lakes. So then the debate became just to renovate all the lakes. We don't have a real number on current fish yet. Its kind of hard to find someone with a boat that has electroshock rig here in Arizona because there isn't quite any ponds for someone to have one. We might reach out to Arizona Game and Fish because they have one. But is that worth the headache to deal with. In my opinion we will be holding are breath for them to help us. But you never know. I'm a electrician by trade and would love to get my hands on one.
It can be done there. We had a member here who raised some impressive fish in a smaller pond than that in your area. Don’t remember his name but he was a dentist.
Spent 4 years at Luke AFB and learned to love the desert.
Yes check out the posts of
AaronM (Member #3055)
Phoenix, AZ
Thanks everyone for the replies, Hey Ewest where is a good place to start out of your 782 pages? Thanks
Not mine - look at AaronM as he grew CNBG and SMB and others in his Phoenix, AZ house/back yard.
http://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showprofile&User=3055