Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking CORRECTIVE STOCKING LMB; 1 ACRE POND.

#221639 - 9 minutes 43 seconds ago corrective stocking 1 acre pond. [Re: zfisher]
broncofan


Registered: December, 09 2004
Posts: 107
Loc: Taylor,texas This a QUESTION., I have a 1 acre pond 18 foot deep. pond is clear want to add liquid fertilizer, at what rate should i use? Also i stocked 50 6 to 8 inch blue cats 100 4-6 inch cnbg., 17 6- 8 inch lgm bass. AND it allready has a populatin of 5--7 inch cnbg and red ear, stocked 3 years ago., 80 of each. I recently just stocked the blue catfish, new cnbg, and new 6-8 inch lmb.AND 3 GRASS CARP. ----so my question is HOW MANY MORE LMB at 6-8 inch can i stock. In this pond not causing over stocking... for max lmb growth?? AND ALSO HOW MUCH LIQUID FERTILIZER IN A 1 ACRE POND,? 95 DEGREE TEMPS. POND IS LOCATED IN CENTRAL TEXAS. THANKS FOR ANY AND ALL INPUT.


Edited by broncofan (2 minutes 6 seconds ago)

Let me try and understand the question.

1) You want to know how much liquid fertilizer to add to the pond.

2) you want to know how many more LMB to stock in the pond, but not to overstock to maximize LMB growth.

If that's correct, then to answer #1 it would help to know how much clarity (in inches, normally measured with a Secchi disk) for a start. Clear water to one person might mean 12' visibility, and 3' visibility to another.

Also, what is the N-P-K of the fertilizer that you want to add?
You stocked grass carp in the pond, but make no mention of any submerged or emergent weed problem. Adding fertilizer to a pond that has existing weeds up near the surface might cause a rapid growth in the weeds, that the GC won't be able to to keep up with. Did you stock the GC because of an existing problem, or a potential problem?

#2 might be a bit more difficult. I take it the way that it's written you have stocked 80 each of CNBG and RES 3 years ago. It sounds like they should have spawned because they are now 5"-7" long. At first I'm reading that those were the only fish stocked in the pond and the pond is now 3 years old. BUT, you say "new 6-8 LMB" which leads me to assume that there are LMB in the pond now.

Then, just recently you stocked 50 6 to 8 inch blue cats 100 4-6 inch cnbg, 17 6- 8 inch lgm bass.

If that's the only fish that are in the pond, then I would put a maximum of 40 more LMB 6"-8" in the pond to reach a target of 50 LMB/acre. How many smaller CNBG are in the pond now? I'm talking about YOY to 2" fish. The usual stocking rate on those type of forage fish is 500 to 1,000 per acre, so if you don't have your forage base built up, your Blue Cats and Largemouths will quickly eat themselves out of house and home. If that is the case, then I wouldn't add any more LMB.

Both those 2 predators will target roughly the same size forage fish, with the LMB targeting larger fish than the BC for now. In a couple of years, the BC will be targeting the LMB for dinner.

Just what fish are in the pond now, what quantity of each, and what size are they?

Have you had a water test done? I'm betting that your Central Texas alkilinity is high enough but if the water is clear, I can't be sure why you don't have a planktonic bloom.

Like Esshup says, more info needed.

Note his caution about blue cats. You might regret that one.

The pond has about a six foot ring of vegetation from the shore on out, some type of hydrilla or grassy looking vegeation, .Since the pond gets deeper after that the vegetation ends as far as i can see.it is still submerged for now , not growing all the way to the top. there is no alege currently present. Now as far as gauging the clarity? all i can say is after the ring of vegetation by site the water seems dark blue and deep. If i was to throw a gauge out there i probably wouldn`t see it afterwards.

Now the forage base is as when i throw my cast net out , many times i catch half inch to 3 inch to 5-6 inch red ear or coppernose blue gill class sizes. I added more just to make sure i have plenty of forage for the blue cats as well as the large mouth bass to grow.

I had bass in the pond before but we had a huge drought and my relatives cleaned it out in fear it was going to dry up. Its almost full now so i`m doing the bass thing all over. Before i stocked it recently there were no bass in site to catch after many attempts so i stocked a small amount 17, 6-8 inch.


The 100 cnbg I recently stocked were all roughly 4 1/2 inches.

So i guess 40 - 50 lmg per acre would be my goal !