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I doubt they are not available commercially, but has anyone had any experience with red-finned or chain pike, specifically red-finned as they don't grow near as large. Since I intend to make my pond a mostly catch and release except for management purposes I thought it might add to the diversity a bit...


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Hi Eddie,

You can find chain and grass pickerel for sale but they'll be expensive. It would usually be from aquarium enthusiasts who have collected them from the wild.

I'm going to be stocking chain and grass pickerel in my girlfriend's pond at some point. I'll probably get a sturdy net and wade in some local creeks and rivers. At certain times of the year you can just run a good net into the weeds and get fingerlings.



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Hey GW...

I read your BSF blog, that's actually how I found this blog. It's a little late in the season, but I'm actually going to be starting one of three 36" BSF colonies in the spring. My wife and I own an alpaca farm as well as free range chickens so they will be getting chicken offal, whatever cull fish my livestock dogs don't get, waste veggies from the garden and the bulk will be made up of alpaca beans. My goal is to be running two colonies for the chickens and one for the fish when the pond is finished. I expect to be able to run through 30# a day of fodder. Should cut my feed down signifigantly, since my chickens forage anyway.

I know you really support the company that makes them, which is cool. However, I can't justify the cost when I can make them out of big plastic tree planters and a little scrap plywood. Thanks for the heads up on the pike. I think the red-fins are the way to go, the chain pike can get really big. I was going to go with some blue cats too, but have dropped that idea also, biggest thing I want swimming in my pond are some really aggressive 3lb bass. If it can't be caught on a cane pole or a light weight spinner w/ 4-6lb test...I don't think it's going in my pond.


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Eddie, the national record CP is 9 lbs. and in many states the record is less than 6 lbs and the average is only 2 or 3. Seems like a good size to put pressure on sm-med fish. The nice thing is that you can always add different fish later if you change your mind. \:\)

Good luck with your BSF units, I'm sure you'll enjoy building and operating them. I suppose you know that it's risky to feed the larvae back to animals that made the manure that was fed to the larvae. With 3 units you can avoid that.

I don't have experience processing manure, but I wonder how practical it is, even in a large unit. About the best you can expect is that the BSF will reduce the weight of the manure by half, so when you shovel in 30 lbs you'll have to remove 15. Maybe it's worth it since you use a lot of feed. Also, BSF tend to liquify manure making it harder to move around. Anyway, there's a solution for every problem and I hope you'll let me know how it goes. However it goes I bet you'll find some way to incorporate BSF into your operation.



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They wouldn't be getting any chicken manure...that stays on the pasture...the only manure that would be going in would be from the alpacas who obviously are herbivores and don't eat insects. We'll have see how it goes with the manure. I'd like to put the units on a gravel/sand base to leach all the liquid down, but who knows...have to see how much is produced. The principle use of the BSF would be to consume chicken offal, the manure would just be to feed the BSF between slaughters. Alpaca are very efficient at getting most of the usable proteins from their forage, so I don't know how much is available for the BSF.


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I'm afraid the same is true of using offal as BSF food and then feeding the larvae to the same species that produced the offal. I don't know a lot about this subject, but the people who produce the BioPods clearly state that this type of loop is risky and not recommended.

Since you have fish to feed you can always use the larvae produced from chicken scraps to them. Also, I'll bet the BSF larvae will do fine on the alpaca manure so the chickens don't need to be left out.

I don't think you'll have a problem draining the liquid into the ground. It's best if the liquid isn't exposed though, because a significant number of BSF females might be attracted to it and lay their eggs outside of your units. If the units are sitting directly on the ground it shouldn't be a problem.



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Seems like it would be easy enough with running multiple units to make sure that the intake and output is crossing species. It's all supplemental forage anyway, just to recycle the organic waste the farm is producing. If I get into rabbit production for the dogs as well (my dogs all eat a raw diet) then I can send that the chicken direction. My biggest concern is finding enough food to keep the BSF colonies cranking at capacity. I have plenty of fresh manure but the animal protein sources will be intermittent as we only slaughter every eight weeks right now. Eventually I hope it will be a monthly and even a bi-weekly event. I'd love to see a 4'(or larger) unit in each of my three grow out paddocks cranking out 10# of larvae a day for the 50 chickens in each one. Plus another 4' unit pushing at full capacity for my little finned friends. That would be pretty cool.

I figured as much about the BSF females, that's why I want to put them on a sand/gravel drainage "pad"

It will obviously be next year but if this works out, I would love to be able to do an article on my farm site about the Alpaca/BSF/Chicken and Fish loop.

Before I learned about soldier flies my intention was just to go with the bucket method and use the bottle flies that frequent the manure piles. They do the same thing, but are not near as efficient so the "smell" factor comes into play.

Hopefully it won't be an issue getting a colony started, I don't know if I have BSF here or not. I had two of my goats killed last year and they were crawling with white maggots within 36 hours...took me a little while to get them buried.


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I have a good amount of experience with pickerel in fish tanks and also have attempted some pond stocking. Almost no hatcheries carry them - like said before $15 for a 3 inch one for aquariums - expensive food for a LMB. Red fin (similar to grass pickerel - subspecies) are very small and only get to around 12 inch max. Since they are so thin and torpedo-like, they can still get eaten easily by LMB if you have those as well. I would go with chain pickerel as they will probably only get to 24 inches and 3-5 pounds in a farm pond max. I have actually stocked both in my uncle's farm pond because I caught both in a local river. Have not seen them since as they like weeds to hide in and his pond has minimal weeds. I read much about them and the red fin and chain will hybridize leaving a mid range size that is still fertile, so I thought I could put both in and get some ideal size hybrids. I am working on getting some more plants growing to give an area for them - you need weedy areas for them to thrive as they are ambush predators and also they need plants to lay their eggs on (similar to perch - they don't build nests or guard young like sunfish or bass). They breed in March/April in NY and I can catch tons of fingerlings (2-3 inch)in late May/June by (very quietly) pouncing on the weed areas with a minnow net - they are smart and swim away fast - probably earlier breeding season down South.

They are a great fish - could never get them to eat anything in the aquarium but live fish (goldfish, guppies, and gambusia, etc.). Also, highly cannibalistic - I had 8 of them (1.5 to 2.5 inches) in a fish tank for a week waiting to bring them to the pond. A 2 inch one will swallow a 1.5 inch one and wait for it to digest (tail hanging out of mouth for 3 days!!!). I added plenty of micro minnows for bait, but still, after 5 days I had 4 fat pickerel, reduced from from 8. I think it is more territorial than hunger with these guys. Now I separate them.

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Thanks for that info oldsconv, it will be helpful when I get to that point in my stocking plans.

Eddie, there are plenty of BSF in NC. I look forward to hearing about your progress.

If you felt like playing around with a small colony this winter you may have time. I'm still seeing a lot of egg laying activity in Georgia now, more than all summer in fact. You could get a decent colony established and maintain it through the winter with insulation. You can process scraps/waste with the same BSF individuals all winter because their development stalls until the spring time. Just feed them daily and keep them insulated. I have a post about it here.

If you want "instant colony" I'd be willing to send you BSF eggs for pretty cheap. It might not hurt to get some mature larvae as well in case it's warm enough to get one last mating. If you're interested send me a message via my contact form on my blog.

You'll like BSF much more than bottle flies which would tend to pester you and your animals. The maggots you found on your goats were probably bottle fly larvae. It takes BSF eggs 4 days to hatch and their growth after that is relatively slow. Also, mammals have to decompose for several weeks before BSF larvae can utilize them for food. BSFL are actually better suited to eating fruits and vegetables but can get by on animal protein.



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GW,

Thanks for the offer. My wife has enough of my projects to look after in my absence. I won't be home for another month, so I'll save her the grief. We are on our last set of peeps for the season anyway. Next spring though, it's definitely number one on my list. Probably just for the hens first, but we'll see.

Oldconsv,

Thanks for your contribution about the pike. I wonder how easy they are to find in my neck of the woods (n. central NC). I'm sure they're here, but I've never seen them. Then again, I've only been here a year and only fishing twice since then.


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I would google pickerel and see, but I think I have seen before when I researched that chain pickerel and grass pickerel(subspecies of redfin) are present all the way down to Florida. If they are around you, they would be found in very weedy (lily pads, etc.) areas of lakes and rivers. I have fished for them with spinners right along weed beds, or as mentioned, use a minnow net early in the year to catch babies. Doublecheck your local rules about size limitations before taking them.

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Eddie, you've got a great opportunity to test BSF in several ways and I'm happy to help out however I can. Let me know if you need anything next spring.



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No doubt GW...I'm pretty excited about it. I love being able to incorporate ecological/environmental loops into my farm. Obviously you can't have a farm with a completely closed loop if you have production going out but you can certainly recycle and be highly efficient. I know a couple universities are doing some large scale studies, but I don't know how large. Right now I have upwards of 75# of mixed vegetative/animal sourced organic matter per day that needs to be composted/recycled ... If the system works and can be made efficient I have the resources (read manure and animal entrails) to double or triple that amount in time. Come spring I'll touch base and let you know how things are working out.


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Anyone know of any NE US hatcheries with Chain Pickerel's, Id love to put a few in my pond as well, for diversity sake....

We have the Red Fins and Northern Pike here locally but no Chains.

Salmonid (SW Ohio)


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Chain pickerel were introduced into Ohio in the 30's Mark. Are you anywhere near Long Lake?



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Mark, I have a listing for Northeastern Aquatics 1 kerr rd.,suite 2 P.O. box 575, Rhinebeck, NY 12575. Phone- (845) 876-3983. They list both Chain & Redfin Pickerel.
Also Arcadia Aquatics, 653 Geer rd., Arcade, NY 14009 (716)496-7309
they list Pickerel. Hope this helps.
Arcade NY is closer to you it's near Buffalo.

Last edited by adirondack pond; 09/23/08 06:27 PM.


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Just an FYI - I have called both of the above hatcheries. Both great guys, but they did not have any when I called. They said no one really raises them as the demand for them is almost nil, so they catch them wild and only have them intermittently. I would call anyway to put in an order or get put on a waiting list. I only found one hatchery in PA that breeds them, but it is a state run hatchery for stocking wild waters and will not sell to private individuals. Breeding is very similar to Northern Pike and Muskie, but those fish have a big demand for stocking unlike pickerel, so most hatcheries do not bother. Kind of sad - really an awesome fish and predator and I have heard (unlike Northern Pike in a farm pond) that they will not really take over and will balance out and help prevent stunting of LMB and BG as they eat both. And, unless your pond is overun with lily pads and water plants, pickerel will not take over due to lack of habitat.

I will keep people posted if I ever manage to get pickerel established in my uncle's farmpond in NJ.


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