Me and my grandpaw have been talking about building a new pond for quite some time now. We are thinking about what types of fish to stock. We want shellcrackers and catfish. We are also thinking about smallmouth bass. Our location is located in the piedmont traid area. Would this be suitible habitat for ths smallmouths?

If smallies can survive in a small pond in Arizona, they should do okay in the piedmont area. Before you decide on smallies for your new pond first locate a supplier of them in your region or latitude. Try to get smallies raised in your area or temperature zone because they will have a better chance of surviving, plus they will be cheaper than getting them next day air from afar. If no one in your region (within 200mi) sells them, then that should tell you they could have survial problems for you unless you use special management of your pond, i.e. maintaining reletively clear, clean water, but not necesarily cool water.

Design the pond so it is within 200 ft of electric power (20-100' is better) for aeration. You will want to maintain good water quality for SMB meaning water clarities 3 ft or better which is not considered the optimum water clarity for catfish who do best in very warm murky water. You are wanting to blend two fish species who prefer opposite ends of the water quality spectrum. Actually RES also 'prefer' clearer water to readily locate snails their preferred food.

IMO smallies and catfish (CC) are not ideally compatable. IMO Largemouth is a better fish to stock with CC. CC eat quite a few fish as they get larger and could eat most all the reproduction of the smallies and you would have to restock smallies regularly to maintain a good mix of sizes. The problem is if you can't regularly get larger sized stocker SMB then restocking fingerlings results is expensive fish food for CC. Are CC worth it?? With proper habitat (spawn sites & cover), it is possible, the CC could over populate with too few smallies as the dominant predator. I am not aware of anyone that has this CC-SMB-RES combination. If you regularly fed the CC the chances of it working become better b/c it takes predation pressure off the SMB and RES - both low production spawners.

Here is a quote from a PBoss member with LMB and HSB in the pond. You don't what this happening with SMB as the main predators:
"My catfish reproduce and start to show up at the feeders at about six inches. I have five feeders and the feeder closest to the dry creek has most of the small catfish which make me think the catfish are somehow spawning around that area of the pond. When your feeders go off and most of the fish at the feeders are catfish its time to start removing them. I am going to place the trap this weekend. I have been out of town a lot lately."

I'd look into getting a few back issues of the PB magazine. Someone by the name of Bill Cody penned a few articles about how to raise SMB in ponds. I think that if you are seriously considering SMB in a pond, then the articles should be required reading.

I have CC and LMB in my pond, and am slowly working at getting the CC out. They are harder to catch than the LMB in the pond.

Bill with regards to aeration, how far could he run an airline under ground if he couldn't get electric that close to the pond, and how big should the air line be? A fellow PB'er ran air 900' to his diffusers, but he is using windmills.

I can see smallmouth is not a great fish with catfish.

AERATION AIRLINE Answer.
"".... how far could he run an airline under ground if he couldn't get electric that close to the pond, and how big should the air line be?"" It all depends. Not a real simple answer unless one knows the type of compressor to be used. For long airline runs, the diameter of airline should be matched to the type of compressor, the pressure - cfm (air flow) that the pump puts out and the distance. The smaller diameter hose causes more friction as air passes through the hose. Generally the higher pressure compressors can push air further and easier through smaller diameter hose becasue these systems have extra / excess pressure to allow for friction loss. Low pressure pumps (rotary vane 10psi) don't have enough pressure to move air adequately through long distances (>300ft) and smaller tubing 1/2". Upsizing the tubing to 3/4" can more than double the distance low pressure pumps can effectively push air and still maintain 9.5-10psi and air flow. The longer and smaller the diameter the hose, the greater the pressure loss due to friction. To compensate for friction pressure loss one can increase the diameter of hose to maintain the same general pressure and air flow. The higher pressure compressors of 15-50 psi (piston rocking piston) can push air 1000 ft or more through 1/2" tubing with still adequate air flow & presure at the end to operate diffusers. There are formulae and charts to calculate pressure loss for various applications.
Remember pressure is what is needed to get air to depths and air flow / volume is what determines how much air comes out at a specific depth. Pore size of the diffuser determines how many bubbles per minute are produced from each cubic ft of air released. Generally one needs 0.5 psi for each foot of depth.
All this probably clear as mud?

If you understood all the above, the guy with the windmill in 'esshup's' example above would get his bubbler working sooner and more often using the windmill if the 900 ft airline was shorter. Why? Because the significantly longer airline requires a stronger wind, more pumping action, and greater pressure buildup before bubbles will be produced due to more friction required by the longer airline. Standard windmill airlines are often 3/8" dia. Increased depth has the same affect of requiring more pressure before bubbles will be released. Some slow winds will not produce adequate pressure to get the air through a long vs short, low friction airline. To compensate for this problem in the long airline example, one can increase the diameter of airline. Or just ignore it and get less action from the diffuser compared to if it was significantly closer to the windmill. Generally some bubbling is much better than none. There are many times my windmill is turning in a slow wind and no bubbles are produced. This is because the windmill is not turning fast enough and generating enough pressure at the diffuser depth to push air out the diffuser. As the wind speed increases, bubbles appear at the surface.