the trout i planted in the spring are doing good so far, if they make it and are able to live year round i was wondering if they would breed in a small pond like mine?
i have a 1/8 acre pond that is 17foot deep with aeration... clay bottom....
No.
Running water and a gravel substrate, like in a steam, would likely be the minimum requirements.
Actually it depends on the species of trout. I have seen brooks go through the ritual on some gravel in one of my ponds. And brooks have been known to successfully spawn on upwelling in natural ponds so much so they have overpopulated their habitat. They also spawn on shoals in larger lakes as in Lake Nipigon (but Lake Nipigon is hardly a pond)!
But of course even though we call a brook trout a trout it's really a char.
As far as rainbows or browns, the odds of a successful hatch in a pond are nil to none in line with what Theo said. So don't even count on it.
Trout are relatively cheaply priced compared to the same size of bass, perch or walleye thus why the desire to get them to spawn in your pond/. Unless you are talking 1000's of fish, annula or biannual replacement of a few harvested fish is relatively inexpensive in the whole long term picture of having a pond, esp if the total includes herbicides for weed management. The cost of a few fish is fairly low compared to the cost of daily smoking, casual drinking, or the annual cost of owning and bimonthly operating a decent sized fishing boat.
When a sportfish spawns in a pond, yes the new fish are free, but you run the high risk of them becoming too abundant and quickly over eating the natural foods, then they have poor or little growth or even stunt. This is bad and very likey to occur when sport fish reproduce. When one has an overpopulation of small, slow or non growing fish, then it is troublesome and or expensive in time or money to correct the problem. If one is expecting a spawn and it does not occur then the population should be checked and monitored to verify the number of new fish so corrective steps can be taken if necessary. This takes extra time and usually some sort of specialized effort to correctly sample small fish. Again extra effort due to a spawn or lack of a spawn.
IMO it is much better to not have the fish reproduce and be able to have good control of their known numbers which usually leads to good, fast, optimum growth because the known numbers of fish present are not overeating the planned food base. Having good control of the fishery, and supplimental stocking when needed, is the best method for growing a high quality fishery. The more one loses control of the numbes in each population, generally the poorer quality that fishery becomes. High quality fisheries are usually due to high quality management that is in good control of all the numbers of fish or as many numbers of each type or species as possible.
My wife and I are moving to some land in wisconsin which has an artesian spring fed trout pond, maybe 1/3 acre, up to 10 ft deep. There are only a couple of rainbows left from a stocking 5 years ago. Like sadworld, I'm also interested in stocking a breeding population of trout, preferable rainbows although from what i've been hearing, that's near to impossible. Paul from Rushing Waters trout farm in Palmyra swung out and checked out the pond and said it would be excellent for raising trout, but said that very few people attempt to breed them and couldn't offer much info. I'd like to try it for the sense of sustainability (in the same way that I plant a lot of perennials but no annuals), but also because I was biology and genetics major and just want to do it as a hobby project. Does anyone know what the major problems with breeding tend to be? Any experience or tips? Also, are there any good books/texts/resources out there to refer to? I've been looking but haven't found much yet.
dr. dave, There's a great article in the sept. - oct.2006 issue of pond boss by Mark Cornwell, how to build a spawning box for brook trout, check it out.
BTW, a belated "Howdy!", dr. dave, l.c. (lower case).
Your official Pond Boss "Too Many Daves" name is "Biffalo Buff."
dr. dave, eh? I'll have to give this some thought!!
Good thing we have Theo "Otter" Gallus to help us with these tough chores. Or maybe Theo "Bluto" Gallus?
Hi Dr. Dave, and welcome to Pond Boss!
Your official Pond Boss "Too Many Daves" name is "Biffalo Buff."
Biffalo Buff? Where the heck did that come from?
Biffalo Buff? Where the heck did that come from?
Often discussed, now presented in it's entirety, with apologies to Dave Willis, Dave Davidson, DIED, davatsa, etc. (all you Daves know who you are):
Too Many Davesby Dr. Seuss (
Theodor Geisel)
Did I ever tell you that Mrs. McCave
Had twenty-three sons and she named them all Dave?
Well, she did. And that wasn't a smart thing to do.
You see, when she wants one and calls out, "Yoo-Hoo!
Come into the house, Dave!" she doesn't get one.
All twenty-three Daves of hers come on the run!
This makes things quite difficult at the McCaves'
As you can imagine, with so many Daves.
And often she wishes that, when they were born,
She had named one of them Bodkin Van Horn
And one of them Hoos-Foos. And one of them Snimm.
And one of them Hot-Shot. And one Sunny Jim.
And one of them Shadrack. And one of them Blinkey.
And one of them Stuffy. And one of them Stinkey.
Another one Putt-Putt. Another one Moon Face.
Another one Marvin O'Gravel Balloon Face.
And one of them Ziggy. And one Soggy Muff.
One Buffalo Bill. And one Biffalo Buff.
And one of them Sneepy. And one Weepy Weed.
And one Paris Garters. And one Harris Tweed.
And one of them Sir Michael Carmichael Zutt
And one of them Oliver Boliver Butt
And one of them Zanzibar Buck-Buck McFate ...
But she didn't do it. And now it's too late.
Whew! Judging from that list he got of easy with Biffalo Buff.
You guys are all just a little bit crazy, huh? I didn't realize that running a pond would do that to you:) haha, I like Bifallo Buff, though. In another 20 years, the name Dave is going to be like "Harvey" or "Clifford" (my 2 grandfathers) and there will be 20 guys named "Hayden" on this site.
Anyways, thanks ewest...I looked over those articles. Jeez, who would have thought that raising trout would be so complicated? You would think that given their basic natural environment, they would just let nature take it's course and reproduce! It almost makes me miss my old pond, duckweed and DO issues and all. Throw a few bass and bluegill in, and then next year, fry everywhere.
It might still be fun to try it. At least with Brook trout (I know, not technically trout), it might be doable. I'll check out that '06 article. Thanks ad-pond. And thanks for explaining the name, Theo. Did you just know that Dr. Suess thing offhand?
I'll let you guys know as things progress. I'm still waiting for the fish farm license.
And thanks for explaining the name, Theo. Did you just know that Dr. Suess thing offhand?
I had to check some of the spelling.
What about the trout question?
http://www.manta.com/coms2/dnbcompany_6tgv9b
Glad to see you're remotely on topic Burger.
hoo hoo ha ha good stuff burgermeister
This was posted a while ago but I thought I would share some info I learned when I stocked my pond last fall with 2-3Lbs rainbows.
I stocked aprox 80 fish and asked the guy where I got them from if there is any chance they would reproduce...he said never and not because there isn't running water or a gravel bed but because all the fish they have are Female.
I thought that was strange so I asked how do you guys get them to breed. Turns out that when they lower the water temps down to a certain temp and change there food in one of the tanks the females that were in that tank start producing sperm.....
I am not at all into this science stuff and sounds pretty freaky to me but I guess it works! Most of the places they sell there fish to are for food and he says by having all femails the mortality rate drops down to almost 0 as they don't fight or get marked up nearly as bad.
The place where I got them from also has Artic Char and he says its the same for them. I asked about possibly getting a few of them and he said no...they are under strict guidelines from the MNR so they can't sell them and they also can't come in contact with any surface water or water that will be come surface water.
Anyone else know anything about this whole self reproducing female rainbow trout thing?
Ryan
I know male bass in the Potomac river are growing ovaries, but no clue about the rainbow trout in hatcheries. It wouldn't surprise me though...
This was posted a while ago but I thought I would share some info I learned when I stocked my pond last fall with 2-3Lbs rainbows.
I stocked aprox 80 fish and asked the guy where I got them from if there is any chance they would reproduce...he said never and not because there isn't running water or a gravel bed but because all the fish they have are Female.
I thought that was strange so I asked how do you guys get them to breed. Turns out that when they lower the water temps down to a certain temp and change there food in one of the tanks the females that were in that tank start producing sperm.....
I am not at all into this science stuff and sounds pretty freaky to me but I guess it works! Most of the places they sell there fish to are for food and he says by having all femails the mortality rate drops down to almost 0 as they don't fight or get marked up nearly as bad.
The place where I got them from also has Artic Char and he says its the same for them. I asked about possibly getting a few of them and he said no...they are under strict guidelines from the MNR so they can't sell them and they also can't come in contact with any surface water or water that will be come surface water.
Anyone else know anything about this whole self reproducing female rainbow trout thing?
Ryan
Believe it or not a good proportion of rainbow trout on farms these days are sterile females or triploids. Even my DNR has planted some sterile females. Instead of going to expense of keeping broodfish on hand, feeding them and the hassle of manually spawning them in uncomfortable cold temps (for the workers) many farms are ordering eggs from companies like the following:
http://www.troutlodge.com/?pageID=8D8C9607-3048-7B4D-A94D5EA9242EBCB3I believe your questions are answered on the site.
One added benefit of the sterile females is they put the energy they would have put into gonadal development into growth.
I just wanted to update people on my progress. So I did some research and ended up stocking with brook trout. There were two reasons for this. First, they tend to be more insectivorous and less cannibalistic than rainbows and browns. Second, they build their redds (nests) over upwelling springs through gravel. The springs at the bottom of my pond looked like sand, but I just poured a bunch of pea gravel over them. They've definately spawned over them, and lo and behold, I've had decent reproduction for the last two years. If I had to estimate the number that have survived to a harvestable size (in my 1/2 acre pond), I would say 10-15 fish. Which is perfect for me, because that's about what I harvest each year. So I just cull out a couple of the bigger ones every month or two and cook them up, and they seem to be replacing themselves so far. Thanks for all your help!
Good to hear that you've been successful in getting your brookies to spawn and grow, it's a rare pond that can do that.
When you get a chance post some photo's, us trout ponders are more rare than GSF lovers.
Pretty cool to have your own self sustaining trout population.!!
Ill have one some day too, I hope.
That is quite the rare pond indeed! I'd love to see some phots of your brookies...
I just wanted to update people on my progress. So I did some research and ended up stocking with brook trout. There were two reasons for this. First, they tend to be more insectivorous and less cannibalistic than rainbows and browns. Second, they build their redds (nests) over upwelling springs through gravel. The springs at the bottom of my pond looked like sand, but I just poured a bunch of pea gravel over them. They've definately spawned over them, and lo and behold, I've had decent reproduction for the last two years. If I had to estimate the number that have survived to a harvestable size (in my 1/2 acre pond), I would say 10-15 fish. Which is perfect for me, because that's about what I harvest each year. So I just cull out a couple of the bigger ones every month or two and cook them up, and they seem to be replacing themselves so far. Thanks for all your help!
Old thread but hoping for some updates and pics Dr Dave!!