Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Raising Forage and Bait Fathead spawning question

I have some fatheads in a 300 gal tote. I put some pieces of PVC pipe in the bottom. Water temp is 62 F and should be coming up fast in the next week. The tote is in a shed that allows minimal sunlight if the door is not open. Will the fatheads spawn in this environment or do I need to put a light source in there for them?

I may be wrong, but I have read that fatheads spawn on the bottom side of floating logs and pallets and not necessarily on the bottom like some fish.

Most fish require 2 factors in the prep to spawn - water temp and photoperiod. You need the right amount of light. FH will spawn in pvc on the bottom in shallow water or on the underside of wood , grass , in rock crevices etc but not on the bare bottom like BG or LMB.

mtalley - If PVC pipe pieces are such that minnows can get to an underside then spawn will occur on undersides of those pieces at bottom of your tank. Numerous nooks and crannies are beneficial for FH spawning sites. Does shed have a window? Then that will be enough ambient light for spawning. If no window then leave the door open. Or if shed has power then put a light on a timer and correspond the timer to the daylength as spring progresses.

To make use of the entire water column, if you can provide shelf like structures in the tote then minnows will spawn on undersides of things up off the bottom and probably pieces of wood floating and affixed to the side or tethered on the surface.

Thanks all. This evening I dropped about 100 very small (1-inch) FH into one of my sediment ponds. I was hoping they would spawn in deep leaves at the bottom. I have no real plans for them, except to see if they will grow and reproduce.

Based on what I've read here, I think I'll cut up some of the 2-inch and 6-inch PVC pipe laying behind the barn, and throw it into the sediment pond.

There are no windows just some vents. I have a timer and light so I will go with that and maybe add additional spawning structure. Thanks for all the great advice.

cmdoo - Whole or Broken clay tile work good. Broken cement blocks or glazed building blocks, pieces of slate work, along with broken pieces of thinner (2"-4") concrete. I've also used cedar roofing shingles pounded at an angle into the bank. One can also attach pieces of boards separated by abt 12" to a rope. Thether each end of rope to the bank. FH will lay eggs under floating boards along shore.
Concrete pieces may help add some hardness and buffering to the woodland pools which may help hatching success.

Pallets , old style soda cases , milk crates all work.

1" plastic pipe cut into 4-5" pieces are perfect for FH spawning. Just make sure it's the kind of pipe that sinks.

I bought a couple of old cola wooden crates, tied them with rope to a concrete block and have them floating upside down in pond...works great.

I have put additional structure in my 300 gal tote, added a light so they are getting about 14 hours of daylight and the water temp is 64. It appears that a number of the fish are fat with eggs but I'm not noticing any changes to the heads of any fish nor have I seen any spawning behavior from the males.

mtalley, if you click the thumbnail you can see what mine looked like while in spawning mode.

Will FH minnows survive in a tank/pond that has heavy suspended clay? If so , what do they eat? There is very little algae or any algae that is visible. Need to supplement the feeder I have going on this cc tank.

I added FH to my 2 week old (muddy) pond on the advise of some here. The condition was only that I feed them. My pond is just a few months old and it's now loaded with FH.

To be fair I think my pond has matured rapidly because I get some overflow from a 12 year old pond upstream, and it passes through a marshy area too.