Pond Boss Forums INTRO New Forum Member Introduction New Member that needs lots of advise

Hi Everyone,
I am so glad I found this forum. I have been reading for a couple weeks and you all are so helpful. My husband and I bought a house in the country that was a forclosure and there is a pond in back that is just slightly smaller than a 1/2 acre. We live in NW Ohio. The neighbors said the house has been empty for 2 years so nothing has been done with the pond for at least that length of time. We found it did have two aerators but the motor didn't work. We tried to fix it, nope, had to buy a new one and have had them running 24/7 for two months. There were a bunch of cattails and we have removed all but just a few of those. The pond has hundreds of frogs. They are everywhere. It is surrounded by trees so there has to be a very large build up of muck in the bottom. We have tried to rake some of it out but of course can only get the edges. I have been using copper sulfate, some cutrine plus and aqua shade. There is really tall stringy alge on one side where the cattails were and some duckweed. We measured approx. 10 feet at center and the rest of the pond is about 7 ft deep. Hard telling how many feet of muck in the bottom. We do not plan on swimming in it. Too disgusting for that but we would like to stock it with some fish. Our Soil and Water office is having a fish sale and we would like to put some in but don't know what to buy or how many to buy. They offer blue gill, channel cat, lg mouth bass, yellow perch,white amur and fathead minnows. I've heard both good and bad about the white amur....any thoughts? We aren't big fishermen but would like to throw a line in once in awhile. Maybe eat some of the large ones and probably throw back smaller ones. Should we try to stock fish this fall or should we wait and try to clean up some of the muck first? Should we start with just a few fish and see how it goes? Again, I don't have any idea of what to stock and how many. We would like to have some lg mouth bass but should we stock the bluegills and minnows first? Someone also suggested throwing a small pine tree in for the little fish to hide in. We just cut one down that we could do that with. We are so new at this and don't have any ideas of how to go about starting to stock it. There are no fish in there now, just tons of frogs. Thanks so much for the help.

Vicky welcome to the PB forum, I will give you a few comments but the resident experts will have alot more info for you.

If you get a fish trap you can really check on what's in your pond and it will be a usefull tool later on. You might want to start out this year with forage fish like fatheads, golden shiners and being in northern ohio Pumpkinseeds would be better in a shallow pond than bluegill. My personal opinion would be stay away from government fish but that's just me.
Putting in structure will help the forage and running the aerator will help water quality.
Also a water test kit and thermometer would be valuable to keep a record of your pond water for future reference.
I'll let the other guy's go into detail of fish species and water quality remedys.

Vicky, welcome to PB!

When you say that there are no fish in your pond, I assume that you've fished for them and not caught anything, but haven't run a seine thru the pond?

You are on the right track. I'd make sure that you keep the aerator running thru the winter, but move one of the diffusers to a shallower area; one that is about 4'-5' deep, and only run that shallow one during the winter.

How large are the fish that the State offers? Will they be offering the same fish again in the Spring? If it was my pond, I'd be tempted to put Fatheads, Bluegills and Bass in there, but at small numbers to make sure that they made it thru the winter without spending a lot of $$. Then next Spring after I'd done more research, add more or different fish. If they offer RedEar Sunfish, I'd throw some of them in as well (about 20% of the total sunfish population).

I'm sure that the experts will have some better suggestions for you, so hang on.

Again, welcome to PB!

I will try to give you some advice with the fish questions: You will need to decide what your goals are first. Since you like bass keep in mind that a pond under 1/2 acre will not produce many big bass, without some type of management.

However!, you could have a pond with many 10-15" bass that would be easy to catch and also will promote a population of large bluegill. You could also stock catfish and harvest them before they get too big. This is probably the most common thing to do with a pond that size since it offers a variety of fish for both adults and children.

There are many other types of fish you could stock also like coldwater fish from your area like: yellow perch, smallmouth bass, even pike.

Until you decide what you would like, I would stock some fathead minnows (1 lb or 1 gallon). You cant go wrong there and they might reproduce if you get them in the pond soon. Later when you decide the type of fish you want there will be a pond full of minnows for them!

also, welcome!

Wow, you guys respond fast! This is great....
The size ranges are: Blue gills 2" to 4", channel cat 4" to 6", lg mouth bass 2" to 4", perch 2" to 4" and the fathead minnow are 1/2" to 1" but they aren't sold by lbs or gallons, they are sold by the fish. Any idea how many are in a pound or gallon? :-)
I guess if I want to start out small which is fine, what ratio of bass to blue gill and minnows?
And, no I have not thrown a pole out there but we haven't seen any fish at all and with all the frogs we ASSUME there are no fish in there.
Thanks for all the help...I appreciate it...
Vicky

Uh Oh, there's that ASSUME again.

If you do go get those fish, I'd ask those guys how they count the fatheads if you are paying per fish. I'd even ask them to double count them just to be sure.

They usually are sold by the gallon or by the pound. I can't imagine counting them! FHM range in size from 1/8" (or smaller - I think I got some from Rex that size last year ) to 3". If you are getting 1/2"-1" fish, they are pretty small. I've seen figures anywhere from 250 to over 450 per pound for the FHM. Prices per pound run from $8-$11/lb.

I'm not kidding....they say 6 cents each...lol I wouldn't want to count them either...Wow, even 400 of them at 6 cents each is $24. Pricy little buggers....
Vicky

Price of government fish is the least of the problem, the less they know about your pond the better,--- of course that's just my opinion.

Vicky welcome to the forum... I realize sometime it is tough to be patient and wait on putting fish into a pond. However, I would focus on getting your pond quality back up before putting any fish in. If you have specific concerns about the issues you are facing(duckweed, cattails, etc) do a forum search as there is tons of info on here about that. If you can't find what you are looking for, feel free to ask. If you don't have any fish in your pond now and don't stock any, the methods you use to bring your pond up to what you want don't need to be molded around not killing fish. Once your pond is how you want it, then you can look into stocking fish.

When you look into stocking fish you want to consider a few things. One of them is are you willing to feed your fish? If you are, that opens up some options. Also, would you be willing to annually stock a species to keep it present in your pond or do you want to stock once and never worry about the fish again. If you are willing to stock annually or every other year, that too opens up some excellent options. In my opinion, in smaller ponds of the 1/2 acre or less, managing BG and LMB can be tough. There are some other options available that I think work very well if you are willing to feed and stock annually or every other year.

My preferred stocking combination for a pond under 1 acre where the owner is willing to feed and stock annually is the HBG/CC/HSB pond. What ever you do, enjoy your pond and don't let the work involved with it spoil your enjoyment of it.