Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Thread Fin shad smaller ponds

I have seen a small pond that was full of TFS , but it was a very fertile pond.

I have read about them not doing well in smaller ponds.

I have thought about trying some in my pond and its half acre and only about 8 ft deep.

I have taked to another member about his pond his is one acre but pretty deep, aprox 30ft.

The question what is it about small ponds that they are not recomended.

is it they just get wiped out during thee year by predators due to lack of large open water or are small ponds not fertile enough...

Bump

Only thing I can offer is that this spring a lake near me turned over after a heavy rain and the shores were lined with dead TFS; no other species. Perhaps they are very sensitive to DO changes that might occur more often in a small BOW?

Suprised they could even survive an Illinois winter....

At first glance, I thought they were dead crappie they were so large

If they were that large they were probably not TFS but GS

I think yer right. I think they were gizzard shad.

any insight as to why TSF not being recomended for smaller ponds?

I have seem small ponds in local parks full of Gizzard shad and have seen one smaller pond I know of full of TFS, however Im not sure it had any LMB in it.

1. Enough plankton to sustain an ongoing population.

2. Water temps in winter.

3. Water quality changes - they are a bit fragile with wide swings in water parameters.

1. water temps in FL should be a non issue except in extremely rare cases.

2. plankton I guess will have to a wait and see how it goes..

3. water quality should generally good, deep and aerated in the one pond I had questions about

looks like the main issue will be weather or not food/plankton can be maintained in a smaller body of water?

By smaller pond are you meaning 5 acres would not be large enough to sustain TFS?

5 acres?

no ,
really trying to help get insight on a little over

one acre, 30ft deep with aration and fertilized.

I do a lot of saltwater fishing and we use threadfins alot for tuna, are they the same thing as a freshwater threadfin? Or are we talking about two different species?

those are probably pogies/menhaden , differant

although I believe they can survive in fresh water but not reproduce

I actually think they are the same, definitely not the menhaden/pogie. I google image searched the threadfin and they look pretty much the same. And couldn't find anything otherwise saying they weren't the same.

Where are you getting the TFS you use for bait?

We catch them on a sabiki rig at the inlet near where we keep the boat in south florida

HMM, I doubt they are threadfin shad but probably a similar shad fish.
Do you have a picture?

I dont, next time I get them I will definitely take a picture. They look exactly the same a d I just read that they live in saltwater too but prefer brackish/murky. My guess is they are the same species but have different tolerances.

I had not looked at salinity tolerance of threadfin, Seems they go both way too.

Biology and Life History: As mentioned above, threadfin shad are a warm water species that will die if water temperatures go below 6 degrees Celsius. They can be found in open brackish waters, as well as large ponds, lakes, and reservoirs. They are dependent on light for foraging and will stay high in the water column. Very tolerant of salinity, threadfin shad can even live in salt water environments. They can be found in organized schools based on size. Threadfin shad feed exclusively on plankton but have two methods of obtaining it, leading to a diversity of diet. They can spawn as early as their first summer of life but often wait till their second summer to mate. Mating occurs between August and July. The lay sticky egg masses that clump to the substrate or floating objects. Few of these fish live to be older than 2 years or grow over 10cm long.

I reached out to shawn at shad stockers for more insight as to the issue with small ponds....

If seems the issues is enough open water as that is their "hiding place"

here is the reposnse he gave me...

North FL is a good region for TFS. Problem with smaller ponds is the open water isn't very far away from the bank and thus, predators. Threadfin use the open water as their safe place. Normal recommendations are 3 acres and 8 feet of depth. If you have a 30 ft deep 1 acre pond, that is unusual.