Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Help with new pond

Last Sept I had a new 200x90 pond dug, about .41 acre. It filled up quickly, and two weeks ago I went to our local farm supply to purchase fish from the Farleys and Farleys fish truck out of Cash, Arkansa. I was wanting 350 BG, 75 RES, 50 CC, 25 LMB, and 1000 FH Minnows. When I arrived at the truck all they had for BG was the Hybrid, which was not what I wanted. But wanting something in the pond I purchased 35 HBG, 12LMB, 12 RES, 50CC, and 1000 FH Minnows. After finding this forum and reading some of the post I am now sorry I bought the HBG. Since I put 35 HBG in the pond can I stock straight BG and not have a Green Sunfish problem down the road. And is my orginal stocking plan ok or not?

Donnie:

Your original stocking plan sounds good to me.

Don't sweat too much about having 10% of your BG being hybrids. I stocked 200 BG and 200 HBG 3 years ago; I did not see a HBG all last year, and no BG offspring in the pond have been observed with GSF traits. I will probably always have some GSF genes in the pond, as will you, but BG out reproduce the hybrids by a very large margin. If all you ever stocked was HBG, and your management practices favored GSF traits, you might have to worry about seeing some virtual GSF in the future. Otherwise, it should not be a problem.

I am a little worried about there being enough forage for your 12 LMB and possibly the CC. Could you tell us what size all the fish were stocked at (I'm assuming fairly small)? Does your 3 month old pond have an observable population of volunteer invertabrates (snails, bug, etc.) for the fingerlings to eat? Are you feeding pellets or planning too? This info will help us guess whether your LMB (and CC) will have enough to eat for a while or if they are gonna be huring for food.

I would try to get some pure BG in the pond to help with the forage base soon if I were you.

The BG were 3-4", RES 2", LMB 4-6", CC 4-6". I am feeding pellets every morning since I put them in the pond, but they have not eaten it. I suppose the water is still too cold. I visit the pond twice daily (morning and evening) and I see bugs on the surface. I dont know if there are snails in the pond or not, how would you tell? I will be getting more BG March 17, the only size they have are 1-3" or 3-4" which would be best? I put the FH in thinking that would be food for the CC and LMB. Should I stock more FH? I have been crunching up the fish pellets thinking that maybe they were to big, but they still have not eaten. Should I wait before stocking any more LMB, thanks for your repley.

I would get the 3"-4" pure BG (bigger if they were available) to get a spawn for forage purposes ASAP. It is likely they will spawn later this year for you (I stocked 3"-4" BG and RES in May and got a late spawn of one or both species the same year, and I'm farther North than you are).

Keep tossing some pellets in to see when the fish start eating them - I bet the CC will start after the water gets above 60 degrees F. If the CC eat pellets, that may stretch your FH a little farther for the LMB. If your pure BG get on pellets after stocking, that should help your situation; if the HBG eat them it shouldn't hurt. If none of these eat pellets, chances are they've got enough food from natural sources. I'd keep testing with a small amount of pellets until they start eating them, then increase the amount, keeping within recommended limits.

More FH? Depends on how your first stocking holds up versus how your wallet would hold up stocking more FH. IF FH remain present in the pond, I don't believe you need to stock more. OTOH you can raise LMB on nothing but FH if you want to restock them continually. Search for post on fatheads and read up on how to encourage them to spawn (short story is, they spawn on the underside of objects in shallow water). If it were me, I'd do all I can to encourage FH spawning and survival this year, probably buy one more batch of FH when I added pure BG, and hold off on adding more LMB until next year when your forage base should be in good shape from BG spawning. Your 2006 stocking of LMB should not be so large next year to prevent you from finding 2007 LMB stockers large enough to (mostly) survive predation.

Hopefully someone else will chime in with confirmation, better ideas, or "Don't listen to that crazy Theo" advice.

P.S. If present, snails would likely be visible sunning themselves on mud flats or floating upside down on the surface. If they haven't showed up yet, your RES will eat most of the things BG do and should be fine.

Thanks for the information, I will stock more BG and FH on the 17th. I will also hold off on the LMB until next spring (2007). I will put spawning strutures around bank for the FH. Thanks againg for the information.

Donnie,
It kills me that people sell minnow by the 1000! Have you ever tried to count that many? The best way is to by them from a company that sells them by the pound. In a pond your size I would stock 10 pounds of fathead minnows and 5 pounds of golden shiners this spring and then again this fall. To give you an idea, there are approx. 250-300 minnows per pound. The more you can stock when you fish are small, the better your fish will grow and reach maturity. I won't bash Farley's but they could have certainly helped you out more..... I wouldn't sweat the HBG, if you ever have a problem with your sunfish of any kind, you can always stock H.striped bass. They do an excellent job of keeping you sunfish controlled.

Thnks BJ, for the info.

I stocked 2000 more FH on the 17th of March, so that should be around 3000 stocked since March 6th. You think I should restock more this fall?

I was hoping to add 12 more LMB at the end of summer/first of fall. I thought the BG would have spawned at least once by then, would that not be enough?

I now have 12LMB, 35HBG, 90RES, 50CC, 350BG, 1GC. Was wanting to add CNBG buf afraid I have about hit my limit, and I cant find a local supplier for them. From what I have read on them, they sound like a good bred.

All the fish that I have added are the typical fish truck size BG 3-4" CC 6-8" LMB 4-6"

Thanks

BJ, it kills me that people still buy minnows by the pound and not by the gallon. There are about 8.8 pounds per gallon. We used to get fathead minnows for $6 per gallon but because of rising gas prices, they now cost $10 per gallon.

Norm,
From dealing in the wholesale bait business, it is sure nice to watch the calibrated spring scale show poundage as opposed to looking at the height on a bucket full of moving fish. I am biased since I haven't dealt with the volume measurements before.