Hi,

Last week I had a 40x60x6 stock tank dug before a big rain that filled it.
I'm at full pool.
Now the question is how much and of what can it hold?
The goal is to keep bluegill in it so my kids can have something to catch.
I was thinking adding about 1,000 minnows and a couple hundred fingerling bluegill.

Thoughts?

If you want strictly bluegill but would like some with size, I'd recommend feeding them as they get larger. Great fun to watch, my grandkids love it. Or one healthy female bass will keep BG from overpopulating and also provide sport with off chance of a real lunker in a few years.

Be sure to check on the exact provenance of the minnows. It's easy to get baby rough fish mixed in from careless or unscrupulous sources. Fathead minnows are generally best starter.

https://i.ibb.co/M5tBvBT/00000-IMG-00000-BURST20210308164203062-COVER.jpg

Thanks, I'm between Overton and Tyler Fish Farm so either can be a source for me.
Thanks for the advice on the single bass.
TFF recommended 100 catfish but that seemed like overkill for a 40x60 tank


I planned on feeding them to ensure proper size
Even if it is dumping more FHM in.

Good planning. Channel cats usually do well in smaller waters, but you'll need to harvest as they grow or you could run into water quality issues. For sure you'd need to keep a close eye on the situation. I know nothing about TFF, but have dealt with Overtons and been pleased.

100 CC seems like a lot to me too! Unless you plan on harvesting most of them at the 1 pound stage. That's a lot of fillets and could still be a dangerous with regards to an oxygen crash. That's 100 pounds of fish in less than a 1/16th acre pond. 20 sounds better to me and just feed them pellets and grow some big cats taking a few every year.

Anthropic gets my vote for BG pond with the one LMB as population control. Maybe consider HBG (hybrid blue gill).

With regards to the FHM's. Stock them early, like now, and give the pond most of the summer before adding the game fish. This will make many, many more so long as you give them some pallets (or the like) for laying their eggs on. After that, adding FHM's will just be expensive food. Use pellets instead.

I had a carp hitch hike in with my FHM's. So, you cannot be too careful when inspecting the to-be-stocked fish for unwanted species.

Crowd control in a small body of water is easy with a cast net or seine.

Small ponds can become over populated in a hurry leading to O2 depletion. I believe I would go with hybrid bluegills and be my own predator.

Hmmmm
Maybe back down to 100 CNBG
Keep the same 1k FHM
Next year add two "Camelot Bell" LMB and maybe five channel cats

What about vegetation, should I introduce any plants or grasses in a pond this tiny?

First off, welcome.

Secondly, slow down. Your stock tank is smaller than my brood ponds and there is no way I would put that many fish in one of my brood ponds. YOU are asking for trouble.

I have found that introducing a few selective fish into a pond that small is the best I can do. They will populate the pond very quickly. Remember, there is no food in that pond right now, so you have to add food as well. FHM are great, but they need food and habitat to reproduce. If you are just adding them as a snack, so be it. I have found introducing them with the right food sources and habitat works well.

I have found ONE and ONLY one predator is needed. DO NOT add two LMB or you will be starting over at some point. If you add ONE BC that would also be find, but it is an either/or.

If you toss in the FHMs now and add some habitat and food, you can then later add the BG of choice and after they are established, ONE and ONLY one Predator.

2 Cents complete.

I would +1 highflyer's ideas of selected few fish. I also like Dave's idea of a panfish with limited reproductive potential like hybrids with single predator. I would add a few more thoughts. Since we generally talk about fish carrying capacity in terms of weight/per acre, it is useful to prorate to your particular pond. There is no reason, if you intend to feed, that you couldn't carry 400 lbs/acre (you could carry more but this would widely be accepted as fertile water). So you have about 5.5% of an acre and 22 lbs is a good number to work with. If the average weight of those fish was 2/3 a pound then you could have around 36 of them. So you might begin with 24 BG males in the 6" to 7" range and then the following year harvest 9 of them and begin stocking 12 males annually thereafter. Such a plan would not need a predator. Were it me, after the second year, I think I would harvest any BG > 10" in order to allow the stocked recruits to grow well. While BG can live for 5 years or longer, there is usually annual mortality that prevents most from attaining that age. After 5 years, even after having stocked 72 BG, you would probably only be carrying 40 or maybe a few more of them. If you don't harvest >10" BG it probably wont make a big difference in the numbers, there will probably not be much over 50 in the pond.

Your stated your goal was "... to keep bluegill in it so my kids can have something to catch." There are other possibilities that might produce more fish annually but where the experience would be similar. For example TP are a possibility depending on the timing of release to supplement a limited BG fishery. Catfish as others have mentioned. But as long as you were to be careful not to stock female BG you could have some trophy BG as your handle suggests you would like to have.

For habitat I tossed some lengths of 12-15" corrugated plastic culvert I recycled from the side of the road. The county is replacing all culverts with concrete.

For FHM food, I know they eat phytoplankton but what can I buy right now to give them a jump start?
Dried mealworms?
Blood meal?
Cottonseed meal?

I'll add the FHM this week and wait until about memorial day to add CNBG

You think 10 weeks will be good enough head start?
Or can I shorten the timeframe?

I buy Optimal fish food and they have several sizes of pellets. The #1 would work well, but I don't see a smaller bag than 40 pounds on their website...that would be way too much for your size pond for the first year. Maybe contact them and ask for a smaller amount. They seem very good to work with and would likely sell you a 10 pound bag.

https://optimalfishfood.com/contact/


I gave my pond a full year with just the FHM's and am glad I did. 10 weeks is better than less is all I can firmly say.

I have a koi pond sized water hole that I kept goldfish in.
I'd toss them a hand full of bread crumbs every other day and they were fine until the freeze.

Would this work for FHM?

I tub of bread crumbs is a dollar at Walmart

I went ahead and got the CNBG too
He convinced me

I would go ahead and get a bag of Optimal #4. Both the CNBG and FHM will eat it.

Is sealing the bed of your pickup and adding water an option?

I see everything else you need for a good pond. Fish, a substrate, good steep sides, wading boots for the kids, and a fishing pole!

Good luck on your project.

I should of added that is what Dustin at Optimal recommended to me when I just had FHM and told me to start my BG off with it when I stocked them. I think it is the smallest they make that floats. It is a lot of fun to watch them feed on floating pellets.

I get you are excited about your new pond, but there is more to learn and patients must be the first thing you learn.

So how many CNBG did you get? And how many FHM did you get?

Also, where did you get the fish?

Finally, have you tested your water chemistry?

I also tossed a half bucket of cottonseed meal in the pond
See how that does as far as food

Pond was dug on February 24
It rained Feb 25 - 28
Been full pool since March 1st
I can get the water tested by haven't yet
I got 1k FHM
300 CNBG
But some of those CNBG didn't survive as I had to wait and do a project with my daughter's class that took an hour.

I got the fish from Tyler Fish Farm in Ben Wheeler

Besides a feeder I'm wondering about aeration
Should I????

Well I don't know if this is going to sit well, but no, do not aerate. You have a very small stock tank. Don't buy a feeder, don't aerate. They will only add to your problems.

You will understand sooner or later. Sadly some lessons just have to be learned the hard way.

Best of luck.

Oh, and when you have to restock, call Todd at Overton's. He is a better teacher than I am.

Again, best of luck, let us know how it goes.

Agree with skipping the aeration on this one. My bait pond is only slightly larger than the pond described here, and about 4' max depth - no aeration.
The BG/HBG in there came out from under ~8 weeks of ice cover with no apparent ill effects.
I do feed my bait pond, for the sole reason of growing the fish to appropriate size to use as catfish bait.
I have no intention to do any hook and line fishing in that pond, and will be removing 50-100 fish on a weekend that I'm running lines on the Missouri River.

This is not optima but it's all my local feed store has

highflyer and Augie,

I think I understand why the pellet feeding could cause problems in a tiny pond.

I don't understand why the aerator is probably a detrimental item?

(I have followed snrub's micro-pond posts. He had great success growing out RES and HSB last year in a 0.1 acre pond with aeration.)

highflyer, you made a concerted effort to help. Sometimes the school of hard knocks is the best and only teacher.

Yep, sometimes someone wants to be told what they want to hear and not listen to what they don't want to hear. Mother Nature will tell them what they don't want to hear in no uncertain terms.

I understand, but three fisheries(called two more) told me I'd be fine stocking CNBG and FHM at the same time.
Up above, Anthropic's info conflicts with Highflyer because Highflyer says only one predator but Anthtropic says I should/could have two (BG and one bass).

So now the question is whom do I follow?

Bluegills aren't considered predators. They typically are considered to be forage fish for predators such as LMB. Unless you will be taking out a lot of BG from the pond to eat, it will need a predator, but stocking too many will lead to a stunted LMB pond. With a pond that small, the better route to go would have been only Hybrid Bluegill or only Redear Sunfish because they reproduce less than CNBG or BG. Still, without you being the control of the panfish via harvesting, you will need one predator if they reproduce, or a few if they don't reproduce.

Nor do I. My assumption is that a bottom diffuser, not a surface agitator, is what others are referring to. "If" a quality fish food is used correctly, of course you should feed them. In any group of fish there are jumpers that are more aggressive, and grow faster than the majority of the fish stocked. Those are the fish you want to target so, quality food, decreased throw times, and chasing the BG's gape works very well. Or at least it has here over the last 7-8 years, but I would be interested in hearing other's personal long term experiences as well.

When I reference "chasing the gape", I mean don't feed 10" BG smaller pellets in bulk. The 15 minute rule for feeding fish doesn't apply here. You're only wanting to feed a small percentage of the fish. Feeding a limited number of larger fish food pellets to the most aggressive BG is not much different than Darwin's theory.

Cody Note: "chasing the gape" noted above also applies to feeding fish too large of a pellet to small fish. Yes eventually the large pellet will soften and small fish pick it apart, but if you listen to the expert fish food people they will tell you that pellets soaking in water leaches out a lot of the important soluble materials before the pellet can be pulled apart, thus making the pellet less nutritious. So one should choose a pellet that is the appropriate size for the fish you mainly intend to feed. Small pellets for small gape fish and large pellets for larger gape fish - "chasing the gape".

Ditto on the aeration. I shoved the whole 1/4 acre fish population in my pond to a 1/20th acre of it while it was renovated and used a bottom diffuser aeration system to keep them alive, and I only had 1 BG croak.

Augie, what kind of catfish do you usually catch? I've heard flatheads are the very best eating, does that accord with your experience?

Didn't say that aeration would be detrimental, said I wouldn't bother in a pond that size.

If OP is planning to put 1/4ac worth of fish in a 1/20ac pond, yes, it will probably need aeration to keep the fish alive.

There are other water quality issues to consider. OPs BOW is ~14000 gallons. That's not a lot of water.

You are getting good advice even though some of it appears conflicting. The advice that appears conflicting is very likely not conflicting if you know the rest of the story or the 'whole' story. All the advisors above so far are well experienced. IMO the fish farms are very willing to sell you too many fish because that is how they make a lot of their money. Then when the fish are not doing well you go buy more fish from them to fix their original sales "pitch". Do you see their plan?

Example: you stocked or would have stocked, before some died in the bag, 300CNBG into 1/20th ac; that is 6000BG/ac. General standard standard BG stocking often is maximum of 2000/ac. In this tiny pond IMO you should have taken some of the advice and stocked HBG who are a great small anglers fish and grow faster and often BIGGER that BG for tiny ponds. That is why one advisor suggested only male BG for your pond. I would have used a slightly different plan but IMO you did not do due good planning, and diligence nor good homework; too big of a hurry very often results in poor results.

Fish food of 32% is designed mainly for growing catfish; notice the type of fish pictured on the bag in your picture. Plus the lower % protein foods always results in sport fish having MORE undigested / undigestable waste material production in terms of excess manure and lower water quality. With the current over crowded newly stocked fish in your tiny pond, you DO NOT need excess fish waste manure. As all the current fish now grow because you are feeding them and will soon reproduce, they will become even MORE overcrowded. Not a good thing!

You in the future with this many fish will have fish health problems and will very likely NEED to go back the the fish farm to buy more fish for one or several reasons. Again - See their plan? BG will eat your cheap 32% fish food but their growth will be way less than it could be if using a premium fish food (40%or 40%+) that you would/should buy from the place where you bought your fish. Overtons would have a better quality fish food available. Optimal has been proven to grow quickly big BG who produce minimal waste material. Go over to Overtons and buy 10 or 15 lbs of what ever they have for APROPRIATE sized food for fingerling BG. Small fish need small food for best growth. They might even be using Optimal, Skretting or Cargill - Purina which should tell you something. Fish farms do not want excess fish waste materials in their ponds. Explain your situation and they should sell you a lesser amount because 40-50 lbs of food is likely to go moldly or go "bad" buy decomposing vitamins before you get the whole bag fed. Fish food should not be kept longer than 8-12 months and better not longer than 6 months. Vitamin C is often the 1st thing in fish food to decompose. Overcrowded fish and bad food will soon cause dead fish, BAD WATER QUALITY, and the best thing that can happen is slow growing stunted, poor quality fish. You will definitely not be producing 'trophybg'.

The fish farm was correct,,, one can stock FHM and BG together as first fish BUT is mixed sex BG or CNBG the best fish to use for a 1/20 acre small angler's pond where the goal is young angler, high catch rate, large panfish?????? IMO maybe and probably not. Having highly prolific and too many panfish and / or predators in a sport fish pond is probably one of the most common problems in all sizes of ponds on this pond management forum. This is especially true for in smaller ponds where too many fish become a problem faster than in a larger pond.

From your pond picture, the pond looks muddy. How much natural fish foods do you think will grow in muddy water? Answer - VERY LITTLE. . Phytoplankton needs light penetration to grow. Depth of the plankton growth production zone depend on water clarity and lack of suspended mud, silt, clay and detritus. I would have first allowed the pond to develop some clearish water and hopefully a good plankton bloom to mostly feed the fingerling BG. Another bit of knowledge, and contrary to what you posted above, """ For FHM food, I know they eat phytoplankton but what can I buy right now to give them a jump start? Dried mealworms? Blood meal? Cottonseed meal? """
FHM as yearlings and adults eat a low percentage of phytoplankton, and not mainly phytoplankton. Most of their food is benthic plant (periphyton oriented) and animal materials.
The blood meal and cottonseed meal is primarily for enhancing zooplankton blooms not as direct food for fish.

Others have tried to give good experienced advice that has so far been pretty much overlooked or rejected. Fish farms are generally experts in growing small fish. We here on the PB forum are experts in growing high quality, big, healthy fish once the fingerlings are stocked - if our advice is followed. Your experiences so far will educate you. Should have, could have, would of. Time will tell the rest of the story.

I think you were so excited about your new pond and wanting to get things rolling that you didn't fully process the advice you received. It takes time to process that advice in order to understand the reasons underlying. All isn't lost but the stage is set for you to need to drain and kill the pond in order to start over. You just stocked your pond at the rate of 6000 BG/Acre. Not a reasonable scenario and one that will fail to produce what you probably imagine it will.

The best advice was from highflyer when he said "Whoa, slow down a bit" because you need to think through a plan and have an understanding of what to expect the results to be. Please don't go away ... rather ... take this as an opportunity to learn and share your experience. You will find that members are very willing to help but to fully understand the advice you may need to ask additional questions and give the recommendations deeper consideration and thought.

Very interesting thread and educational for me. Here is some of the "rest of the story".
I went onto the Tyler Fish Farm website and found that the person there that convinced 'trophybg' to buy 300 CNBG for a 1/20ac went against the TFF's standard recommendations. Here is from their website:
Coppernose Bluegill & Redear Sunfish Mix (15% Redear) 1"-3" $300 per 1000/ac. 3" to 5" $75 /100. Suggestion was for all sizes of ponds and for both sizes of BG to stock 1000/ac.
This 1000/ac equates to 50 BG to be placed in a 1/20 ac pond. Also note the fish of CNBG listing is said to very likely have mixed species of BG and RES and maybe even some hybrid BG(HBG) could be present.

TFF does not list fish food for sale so one does not know what brand/s of fish food TFF uses to grow fish. This is not the same as Overton's who advertise and sell Cargill fish food to customers.

Bill are they saying that their fish production ponds are contaminated (multi species and crosses) ? Yikes !

RES and BG yoy growing out in same pond is ok.

Cody Note: Here is a link to the TFF price list
https://tylerfishfarm.com/pricelist
A mix of BG and RES was my interpretation of the wording. Maybe they are saying the farm will blend the CNBG order with 15% RES? What do you think the wording means?

Providing you are not stocking a pond with strictly SMB as a top end predator.....

I have a pond that is like that and now BG are starting to show up. So a mad scramble is on to try and limit their numbers. There were HBG stocked along with RES. The HBG were all hand sorted and 6 BG were pulled from them before they were stocked in the pond. The RES were just stocked, and I think that is possibly where they came from. No runoff or water from another BOW or creek can enter the pond.

I will be spending a lot of time at this pond on my dime this year seining, trapping and angling to remove any BG that can be removed.

IMHO, a fishery supplier has the responsibility to keep lines selected and pure. Period. There is no excuse for the occurrence of unintentional hybrids interspersed in BG stock or RES stock.

With regard to advice received from TFF, I would just urge restraint. We don't know if the quantity of fish was trophybg's idea and he was just placing an order resisting advice or conversation. I used to be in a line of business where I frequently refused business because I felt to do the business would violate a personal ethical standard of helping a customer while doing no harm. I would sometimes hear about them bad talking me for refusing to give them a loan. My competition, people with no scruples, had no reservations about it. But in many, many cases, these same people returned to me saying that they wished they had followed my advice and we worked to resolve, sometimes successful and sometimes not, what turned into a difficult situation for them.

There are some people who don't want advice. They want you to give them what they asked for and shut up. We must keep this in mind before drawing conclusions about the level of knowledge TFF had regarding this incident.

My comment was indicating that many hatcheries grow out RES and BG in % in the same pond to use in stocking new ponds. I was not indicating that I like or approve of the practice - I don't and wont buy them that way.

Cody Note Repeated from ewest's post above.
Here is a link to the price list
https://tylerfishfarm.com/pricelist
A mix of BG and RES was my interpretation of the wording. Maybe they are saying the farm will blend the CNBG order with 15% RES? What do you all think the wording means? Only TFF knows the rest of the story.

In defense of fish farms, I have watched mixed fish being sorted and I have sorted some mixed species myself. Pressure is there to "Get 'er Done". When sorting mixed freshly seined fishes one or a few can easily get into the wrong bucket or tank by floping out of a net or out your hand or commonly even be misidentified especially when the mixed sunfish are only 1"-3" long. If you have several thousand fish that have already been sorted in a tank and all are sunfish, what do you do when a wrong one flops into the wrong location or into the sorted fish???. Start sorting over or keep sorting? Stuff like this commonly happens. Almost always everyone will just keep sorting. It is not the end of the world when a wrong specie is in the for sale container or tank - considering everything involved. That is why we here on the forum say if it is extremely important to have a pure culture resort the fish before release into your pond.

Trophy BG,

Bill, Eric, and Scott are some of the most experienced members here. All three are mods, all are experts in their fields. All have been peer reviewed published. They have over 100 years of combined knowledge. They are freely giving you advice and sharing their experiences. This is why Pondboss is a great "family."

I came across a situation near Jefferson, Tx where a developer had a lake stocked with what he thought were channel catfish. As I was interested in buying a home, paid for a survey out of my own pocket and discovered that there were no CC, just bullheads. Don't think the developer was trying to con me, he seemed shocked at the news and asked for a copy of the survey report.

Please don't misunderstand this to mean that I'm casting blame on TFF! I have no idea who did the stocking. But if whoever did this cannot tell the difference between CC and bullhead, they should be in another line of business. Gross incompetence or maybe even dishonesty. This is why I prefer dealing with just a few stockers who I know are top notch.

OK. That's easy enough


That's why its so easy.


That's why I think that the inference is ridiculous. Just don't think it happened as you imagined it did. I know several members who have Bullheads in the their ponds. I don't think any of them got there as a CC stocking. I could even list the names of the suppliers, but I wont. But this much I know, some would be defended while others would not.

I don't understand why you didn't just ask the developer to show evidence of the stocking. You know like with a receipt or something like that. But you did a survey at your expense. Sounds to me like you didn't trust the developer and if you didn't why are you letting him completely off the hook about "Gross incompetence or maybe even dishonesty". Though I think the facts are true ... I am rather skeptical of the extrapolations and opinions.

Well, you could be right, jpsdad. Perhaps the developer was disingenuous. Or maybe the stocker messed up. Heck, maybe there was a miscommunication, as the developer didn't strike me as very knowledgeable about fish. He could have asked for generic catfish assuming that they would be CC. Assumptions can be killers sometimes.

I do know that the developer wanted a copy of the survey report, he seemed pretty steamed. One way or another, it pays to check out the situation for yourself rather than relying on the words of other people. I didn't buy a home there, so the survey was some of the best $ I've ever spent.

Absolutely none of that seems likely to me. I think the more likely "rest of the story" is that BH were already in holes of the creek upon which the lake was built. It was servicing more than one home after all and so I presume it had a decent size. If they weren't in the lake from the beginning, then it is very likely they swam in from waters above or below in high water.

You see, it doesn't surprise me that survey didn't yield CC. Usually the procedure and settings for shocking them up is different. So I could see what survey revealed without drawing any of the conclusions.


Interesting thing about "true assumptions", is that they cannot be proven false. In fact, good assumptions are required to arrive at potential truth. What you describe as potential truth are the presumptions that you are ready to accept as true. There is a big difference. The developer was disingenuous, the stocker messed up, there was a miscommunication, these are all things that can be proven false with sufficient inquiry into evidence. Same goes for the more likely scenario that BH were already in the watershed.


I think I know you well enough, though please correct me if I am wrong, to conclude it wasn't the lack of CC in a CC lake that caused you to back out. You don't seem to be to be a channel catfish kind of guy. It seems more likely the presence of BH in an LMB lake that discouraged you. I have to wonder how the fishing is there now (I suppose many years later). Maybe its a trophy bass lake, not assuming mind you as one could prove it false, even so it is a potential truth.

From what I saw of what passed for a creek, it only flowed during rain events. No pools. Rainfall in surrounding watershed seemed main source of water. Unlikely source of BH.

Now it could be that BH got in through bird feces & maybe feathers. Coons, turtles or crawfish are a possibility, too. There were maybe eight ponds in the development, cross contamination is very likely. Though I'd still question no CC at all in the survey of a shallow BOW.

I prefer LMB and BG to CC, but CC wouldn't have been a show stopper the way BH were. That was back when I didn't realize how much CC would compete with LMB. Also, the developer boasted about good crappie catches near a submerged tree, and I'm not a crappie fan. I don't even particularly like to eat them!

Shallowness turned out to be an issue, too. I did know, even then, that too much shallow water meant huge weed problems. Survey showed lots of water 3 feet deep or less, though I'd been told it was deeper.

My inferences are just that, inferences. But they are based on hard data, which is the best we can do. All I can say for sure is that the survey idea, which I got from PB, saved me from a terrible blunder!

Guys, I have to say I am very disappointed in a reply I received from TFF.

I told him "For reasons we don't understand, he stocked his 1/20 acre pond at the rate of 6000 bluegill per acre. It would be great to hear your side of the story and much better if you could reach out to that customer and help set him on the right path."

This was his reply. "Thank you for your email, The stocking rate is within American Fisheries Society guidelines. In a small pond, a higher stocking (r)ate is something recommended to reduce spawning activity."

So their side of the story is that they made the right recommendation. I do not agree with them and I am certain that I personally ... will never seek stock from them. I suppose they meant well, but IMO, its not good advice.

Frank, I am still not sure I understand what kind of development you are talking about. I get these flyers every year about "lake front property" and that was the vision I had about that bow. Now I am getting the sense they were a group of pasture ponds or maybe water retention facilities in a typical subdivision? Whatever the case, I'm glad you didn't bite the bullet too.

"In a small pond, a higher stocking (r)ate is something recommended to reduce spawning activity."

They have perfected a 100% effective technique to avoid the stunting of fish in a pond due to a high reproductive rate.

The solution is to induce stunting of the fish by a high initial stocking rate!

It's a genius plan AND they get to sell more fish.

/sarc off

That's interesting. The American FIsheries Society guideline for stocking ponds in Texas dated 2005 says 750 BG per acre in a fertilized pond and 375 in an unfertilized pond. https://units.fisheries.org/tx/tc-manuals/

I thought about asking him to point me to a reference that places 6000 BG/acre within the guidelines ... but after 2 seconds ... I just went pffftt. I am done with it.

Swingle may have been the first ... if not one the first ... to demonstrate that fish density can inhibit reproduction. But as far as I know his recipe was around 1500 BG per acre (3750/hectare). He was able to grow them to about 6" from 2" fingerlings with Gambusia and fertilizer in about 5 months. Perhaps greater densities are appropriate for food fish production with surface aeration but I just can't imagine such densities for a small recreational pond.

I have the same problem up here. There is a fish farm in Mi. that is only concerned with selling fish, (and another place here in Indiana). The place in Mi only sells Hybrid Bluegills and recommended stocking 300 LMB per acre to a person with a 3 ac pond that wanted to grow large bass.

The place in Indiana did an electroshock survey and the LMB were 60%-70% RW. Their recommendation was to stock 100 LMB per surface acre to "diversify the genetics", and to stock another 1,000 BG per acre. They also recommended NOT removing any LMB for the next 2 years (that's when they were scheduled to do another e-shock survey).

True that. The developer knew water would attract home buyers so he had a bunch of ponds built, but I don't think he understood fisheries at all. I sometimes wonder what happened to those ponds during the 2011-15 drought, especially the shallower ones with limited watersheds. My guess would be a big headache, especially in the summer. Heartbreaker for retired folks who paid for their dream place next to the "lake." Without PB, I might have been one of them.

This kind of advice is disheartening indeed. Very sad to hear it. I have to wonder if people who make recommendations like that are just well meaning stupid people who have disillusioned themselves by cultivating lies to themselves. Or if they are really clever people who see an opportunity to fleece and take advantage of their customer's trust. Either is unacceptable of course.

I think it's the latter because both places have been in business for over 30 years (IIRC).

Last year I was stocking a pond with Triploid Grass Carp and the owner said that they stocked them last year but they never seemed to do any good. I asked how many and what size? Their reply was 14 (1 acre pond) and they were 8" long. (they have LMB that were in the 4# range.....) When I said that is probably why, because a bass can eat them easily at that size they said "I wonder why the other fish company never said anything. They knew what size the bass were in here."

That's the reason why we only stock 12"+ Triploid Grass Carp. Saves us from carrying different sizes and having to ask the customer what size bass they have in their pond, then trying to explain why stocking small ones in a pond with large bass isn't such a good idea (for the pond owner).

I've seen LMB in a pond when the TGC are stocked, glide up to one, grab it then about 3 -5 seconds later spit it out because they can't eat them.

What a treat.

That's a sight I hope to see someday too.

Hi,

I received similar advice from two other fish farms.
To protect them I won't mention them publicly but they deliver fish from out of state and they advertise locally in feed shops (simple flyer on front door).
I trusted TFF because they have been in business for quite some time and generally if you provide a bad product or service then you won't be around for long.

I'm just glad I didn't go with the 100 channel cats as he suggested.

trophybg,

I am glad to see you post. I would just mention that is OK to tell your story and who was involved in it. Where advice was given, it is important to have context from which they gave the advice. Basically what knowledge they had of your goals and your water. In my case, I have a written record of my interaction and so I don't mind sharing it here because it's factual and I can back it up. I am neither trying to protect any supplier nor harm any supplier. My motivation was actually that the supplier help you get on a good path, I just wasn't sure we would get that opportunity here. I believe the most valuable thing a supplier does is give advice that's going to work. He doesn't get paid for the advice generally from someone inquiring about the purchase of fish but is compensated when he sells the fish. In many respects, it isn't fair to them when the value of the advice is much greater than the value of the fish ... something which is often the case.

I once read essup say "I would rather pay once and cry once." My father, now 93, on many occasions in my youth told me that I could learn lessons through the school of hard knocks, but that if I would pay attention, I could learn from the experience of others. That's been one the greatest lessons he taught me among many others.

Often the best or most easily accomplished path doesn't completely match our goals. I didn't think you wanted CC so I didn't go into any detail on options there when I made suggestions. But I will say this, the first option presented, 100 CC, was not bad advice in the way 300 BG appears bad to me. CC can stand much lower water quality and they usually will not reproduce until attaining lengths of 18" in length. They can be kept at higher standing weights without aeration. 100 CC was a workable recommendation that would work successfully provided you began harvesting before they got too large. $75 doesn't go very far now-a-days or they might have suggested 50 which would have allowed you to grow them to 1 pound without exceeding 1000 lbs/acre standing weight. The kids don't care what they are catching. I am speaking from experience. Some times my kids aren't even fishing when I take them, sometimes they are exploring nature and just hanging out with Dad.

Anyways, now is a good time for you to go through the forum posts in your thread and study them. Formulate questions about their advice in order to gain to additional knowledge. The advice varied and that is because there are a range of workable options. They all don't produce identical results and even don't produce the same results in different ponds. How your pond develops is unique but the principles of managing its unique development remain consistent. When you understand all the various recommendations and what to expect from them, then the question becomes, how do you get your pond to that sweet spot with its current situation. It's a small pond so it won't be very costly regardless of the path you choose. Forum members want to help you but it will be up to you to take advantage of that.

Hey highflyer,

I guess not adding a feeder won't clog up the small tank with uneaten food.
But what is the benefit of not providing the fish aeration/oxygen?

T BG,
You overstocked your tank without letting the water settle. You have no idea what your chemistry is like and you have no idea about the PH (yes I know that is part of the chemistry), In short, adding aeration will oxygenate. If you are going to use low cost bottom diffused aeration, it will just cause you problems. If you use a good surface aerator, you could help your issues.

A good bottom aeration system could be minimally beneficial as your water is not that deep and should not stratify much, but again surface aeration is what you are going to need if added. Good aeration is one place where you have to pay for quality.

All that said, it appears your tank is located in a protected location. Aeration would help, but you are going to have to learn about the differences and choose what will work best for you.

Adding aeration now is going to also add to your requirements to pull more fish as they get larger, or you will have a fish kill. Either way, you have caused yourself a lot of work to get back to balance point.

I know this sounds harsh, but believe me it is not meant that way. I wish you would have listened and taken a little more time to learn before buying too many fish. Your issue is correctable, but it's going to be a bit more work than I think you wanted. As you learn, your tank will be a really fun place for your children/grandchildren but it will take some time and effort.

Hi
Your response was not harsh at all.
You say use a "good surface aerator", could your recommend 2-3?

My biggest problem now is overflowing





There should be no water behind that log on the right.
That's full pool at 4.5' deep
Where it is in the picture it is 5.5' deep
And we have more rain forecasted the next five days straight.

Other than that
I'm seeing tons of FHM schools, still haven't seen any CNBG.
I have beehives a couple hundred feet away from the pond so lots of bees visit the shore daily and when they drown become fish food.

Water looks very brown (possible clay suspension) ? Suggest you get water and soil samples (inexpensive) so you know what is needed and what is not.

Soil sample from the bottom of the pond?
Or area that surrounds the pond?

Pond bottom but it will likely be very similar to that of watershed. see requirements of test facility (TX AM).

TX http://soiltesting.tamu.edu/