Pond Boss Forums INTRO Questions & Observations Ok, how about a FH/RES pond?

Crazy theory #243:

A pond could be managed similar to a BG/LMB, but substitute FH/RES.

It was stated that Redears wouldn't be effective predators for FH, but angling experience seems to indicate that RES will readily take small fish. I routinely catch them on crank baits that imitate minnows.



I theorize that they would do well in a pond with a healthy population of Fathead minnows. As was suggested in another thread, RES would not be effective at preying on large FH due to their small mouth size. Given the heavy spawning of FH, it seems likely that some FH would survive to reach a large size with RES as the only predator. The large FH that survive to spawn each spring and fall would produce enough offspring to make their survival a likely thing. It may be possible that the RES would get so huge that they could take a large FH. I would like to have this problem.

The FH population could be controlled fairly easily. They can grow very quickly with an abundant supply of food such as pellets, and this would allow the pond manager to directly influence FH biomass by adjusting the quantity of feed. They can also be trapped easily and in large numbers if the population gets out of control. Free FH seem easy to find homes for.

RES numbers could be controlled by a few different influences. They would probably eat some of they're own fry, and a FH population that includes individuals approaching 4 inches in length might prey on RES fry with some success. I believe RES don't reproduce as quickly as BG or LMB, creating less of problem with overpopulation.

Just exactly how crazy is theory #243?

Only about 4.5 on the Weird-Stuff-O-Meter (1 to 10 scale).

It would be interesting to try (first) in a small pond. IF you can effectively control FHM number as needed, I think you'd have a grasp on the hardest control method required. RES are the only Lepomid NOT reported to overpopulate and stunt. There numbers should be easy to control in a small pond.

The biggest question is probably how well RES can feed on FHM; if you are adding some Redears to that FHM pondlet, you should be able to provide a big chunk of the answer after seeing how they do..

Thanks Theo, this pond is tiny at about 65 X 130 X 10 feet. Any suggestions about how many RES to stock?

With the good FH population already there I would like to stock fairly large fish. I'd also appreciate any recommendations about where to get the stockers. I'll drive 150 miles if I need to to pick them up.

Maybe 1/4 acre ...

If you can get adults (I would prefer too, if their FHM forage base is established), 30 mixed sex?

Just a WAG, GW, but freely given and worth every penny.

GW - If we assume your theory is correct that RES will be able to forage and adequately grow on a high percentage diet of small FHM then stocking 125 to 150 in 1/4 acre is not an unreasonable number.

I assume that you want to utilize the RES as some sort of harvest plan. If you only stock 30-32 juvenile, or young adults or adults then you will have to wait a few extra years until their first spawn has grown to harvestable size for you to get a decent return or crop of RES. This ASSUMES the spawn of the adults survives. Considering the reproductive capacity of the FHM and the food consumption rate of each adult RES, one should be able to stock a lot more RES or WM than 30. Stocking of 30-32 adult RES could result in an overpopulation of FHM from the begining. An early overpopulation of FHM could cause uncecessary early management problems of having to harvest FHM, unless that is a goal.

I suggest that you initially stock two or three year classes. This will set the pond up as a somewhat established population where three size groups will begin growing right away by foraging on the plethora of various sizes of minnows.

If you or someone does this, for me, it will be interesting to see, if the adult fatheads will have any significiant predatory pressure on the fry of the RES. If one sees very little recruitment of RES in the presence of high numbers of FHM, then one can assume that the FHM are feeding heavily on the RES fry as they leave the nest.

The literature indicates that FHM will NOT significantly impact RES survival due to predation of RES fry. Most of the literature indicates FHM will at times consume lots of small insect larvae including mosquito larva (up to 90% of diet). The literature that I have, does not indicate that FHM consume fish fry. But I think if FHM eat insect larvae, then when FHM numbers are high in a small pond, collectively as oppurtinustic feeders, they could eat large numbers of fish fry when fish fry are readily available. Thus, RES survival could be impacted by loss of some or high numbers of fry to FHM AND by high numbers of FHM overgrazing the rotifer and crustacean, nauplii, zooplankton thus limiting RES fry survival. Fish fry traditionally feed heavily on rotifers and nauplii as first foods.

I initially think that recruitment of FHM would outpace the ability of RES to eat FHM. This would be an interesting project. If I had an extra 0.1-0.2 ac pond it would be an interesting short term project.

My vote is for FH , RES and WM. My guess 12 RES and 20 WM adults. Just a guess FWIW. Manage by human removal/addition as needed.

Thanks. I like the idea of stocking different age classes. I'm going to do this. I'll start looking for the RES immediately.

GW - Please keep us informed about the progress of your RES-FHM experiment. Inquiring minds want to know.

An initial search for info indicated that WM tend to eat more fish than RES.

RES fry are 4.8-5.1 mm long and at least some mosquito larvae are 3-4mm long. Both are similar sized thus potential foods for adult FHM. Anyone know the mouth gape of a 3"-4" FHM?

COMMENT. As I think about the RES and WM, I question the ability of the RES to effecively feed on small fish even notably slow swimmers as the FHM. RES like BG are morphologicaly similar body shape and in shape of pectoral fins. Studies (Bluegills, Biolgy and Behavior by Spotte) have reported BG and RES are masters of maneuverability, partly due to the shape and position of the enhanced pectoral fins. Compared to trout or bass, these fish are better suited for excellent stability, rapid short axis turning, braking, and maneuvering in tight places which makes them very efficient at feeding on organisms located on or crawling on objects and not well adapted at short bursts of speed for chasing fleeing prey such as small fish. Thus, I question the ability of the RES to effectively feed on small (3/4"-1.2") FHM minnows. However, compared to the BG-RES, the WM has a more streamlined body, somewhat smaller (shorter) pectoral fins and a larger mouth which would allow for better suction-ram feeding. Thus, I think the WM would be slightly better adapted than the RES to catch small swimming minnows. This is confirmed in the literature where fish are often noted to be a larger portion of the diet for WM compared to RES.

I would be happy to keep you all informed. To date I've released 6 WM into the pond, 3 @ 3 - 4 inches and 3 @ 5 - 6 inches. I would like to keep adding WM as I collect them, but I might be convinced to stop if it will yield better information.

I've also recently stocked my new pond with about 300 FH collected from Mr H's pond. I haven't established how big my pond is yet, but Mr H, an 85 year old farmer, says it looks to be about a half acre. I'm willing to try this same test in my pond without WM for a few years. One thing to consider is that Mr H's pond is upstream from mine. Fish can't migrate upstream into his pond, but they can migrate from his into mine.

Bill I just noticed the additional comment in your last post. A few days ago I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with Bill Hartley from Hartley Fish Farm who was recommended by AaronM for large RES. Mr. Hartley routinely stocks FH, RES, and LMB together into ponds and I believe the goal is to raise larger fish for stocking. In Bill's opinion his RES are primarily eating FH. It's possible I could have been confused, but when I explained what I wanted to try with FH/RES he believed it would work. He did encourage me to add LMB to control the RES but I think his perspective is based on draining his ponds every few years so LMB spawning isn't an ongoing issue.

GW -- it will sure be fun to have you try and then report to us! Given the lower reproductive potential for redears, this might just work. If not, you can always introduce some adult LMB and correct the situation. I've yet to find a biologist who has ever seen a "stunted" redear sunfish population. You can give it a good test.

GW,
you're not crazy at all, in fact you might be brillant! Could someone please draw up a food pyramid with LMB on top and how many lbs of phytoplanton or whatever it takes for the lower tier of the foundation. Then let's create a new feed pyramid with RES as the top predator, no LMB. I bet the pond to plate harvest could quadruple!

Now, I have a dry hole, 110'x 60'x 8' just north of you across the line in 'Bama. The pond was dug 18 months ago, start of the drought, now it's raining; can't wait to see if it'll hold water come this April. (I live in Bakersfield, CA) GW, I gotta copy your plan, advise advise please.

To alvieate my frustration, got me a 150 gal fish tank, and stocked it with large Columbian snails, GAMs, FH rosies, ghost shrimp, crawdads, and a male RES. He's about 10.5 in. at 18 months. He also enjoys king size mealworms,(and their larva; not superworms)and crickets during the summertime. He hits birthing GAMs when they slow down from their stress, hard tearing a chunk out, then exams 'em before gulping. Strangely, he takes the biggest 3"+ bull (most dominant) rosies in the dark after I turn the light off. You can hear him breaching. He looks pretty glutanous with half a rosie sticking out for an hour or 2. If I clip a 1" rosy's tail back 1/16th", he'll pick it out and take it hole. He has interesting feeding habits and I can't figure much of it.

GW, I've heard that GAMs will feed on RES eggs and new larva. Also, if you have a wide 10'+ clay core and clay sub-layer in your pond, consider crawdads as a forage food. I may be right behind you if my pond holds water, cross your fingers!

Thanks guys, this should be fun.

Dave I agree that I can always add a larger predator later, but my choices will be Chain pickerel and Florida Gar.

SoSauty, I loved reading about your bad boy RES. Please send him and about 100 others just like him to my place...

I made several calls this weekend in search of large RES. I have one source but it requires overnight shipping and the price of 4-7 inch fish is about $150 for 30. I'll have to see if I can find some locally. Hopefully Dave Wallen in Brandford, FL can set me up. I think he said 2 pound RES might be available, but price is a problem again at $4/lb. I think the price is fair, but I'll have to limit myself to medium fish.

Since I haven't added WM to my pond I'll do my best to stock only RES. I really want to add several species, but maybe I can resist.

I just spoke with a fish farmer that's located along my route home from Daytona. He has small RES and WM for $.25 each. I was amazed that he raises WM fingerlings and asked him about it. He told me the WM aren't very popular but he has a small number of "old timers" who buy them. He said the WM customers are always over 70 years old.:)

How many WM/RES fingerlings should I get for the two ponds?


Mr H's pond: 1/5 acre with a heavy FH population and 6 (3-7") WM. I will still want to add adult RES and WM as I catch them or as they become available to purchase.


My pond: 1/3 acre with 400 newly stocked and spawning FH, with more available from Mr H's pond. It may be interesting to only stock RES with the FH in my pond for now, but I'm open to suggestions.

GW -- I'll "bite." Hopefully, you'll get other input as well, as I'm just guessing at some numbers to get us started.

Small fingerling BLG, we usually go at least 1000/acre. Redears always seem to go in lower. If we guessed at 500/acre, then your 1/3 acre pond would take about 170?? Probably could go up to 300 or so, given no other fishes?

I'm more concerned about the WM. I suspect a greater chance for them to overpopulate and stunt? Again, I don't really know. I've only caught a few in my life (southeast KS).

Other thoughts from the forum????

GW my guess depends on what you think the odds of catching or buying adult RES and WM this spring/summer. Assuming you will be able to add adults as noted , I would go slow on the 2in fish. 50 RES and 25 WM in Mr. H's - 75 and 30 in your pond. Reasoning - if you get adults in both sexes before Aug they (some %) will spawn given the under stocked population. If so you will have more than you want at the start. If not you can add more as needed. I would start slow so they will have room to grow. My guess is the WM need room in the pond to thrive.

GW - I have seen standard 8-1/2" BG eat 4"-5" red tailed shiners with their small mouth size.

If the fatheads do get wiped out good by the RES they are easy and fairly inexpensive to restock in large numbers. One could also siene small RES out to if they do get too numerous.

I did finally talk with our neighbor about his GSF only pond and he said he didn't think they ever had a stunting problem. It sounded as though they regularly harvested "hand sized" GSF. Keep in mind his rationale for GSF only was that his pond is very shallow and he wanted to have a place where kids could throw a bobber out and catch a fish in 30 seconds or less. His management goals have been to have a place where kids would not get bored while fishing, size was not a concern or goal with his pond. I did learn that they added a few BG two years ago after his grass carp died, so a hybrid BG pond is in his future.

I believe I'll only stock RES in my pond for now and wait to add WM. That way I can test the FH/RES idea.

ewest, if I put RES only in my pond would you recommend 100 fingerlings? I do hope to stock larger RES whenever possible also.

Shorty, I'll be happy if the RES dine on the largest FH.

GW - This is a difficult question to answer since you are exploring a new, untested, and unproven fish combination. The general rule for stocking fish is the larger the stockers the fewer that are stocked. So unless I know what size you are stocking the harder it becomes to give a specific number. As always there are a lot of, "it all depends" with just about every situation; yours is no exception.

So from your PM to me, I will assume you want to stock both RES & WM. Dr Dave is correct WM tend to be more prolific than RES.
Ave egg numbers of RES are 7.5" = 16K, 8.5" = 21K and 9"-9.5" = 26K.
Ave egg numbers of WM are 4.5" = 29K, 5.5" = 53.5 K.
Thus WM tend to be more productive than RES. Thus I would stock about 25%-33% fewer WM than RES.

If you want slightly faster growth then I would slightly decrease stocking numbers suggested by Dr. Dave (500/ac) to around 300-400/ac assuming you are stocking 3"-5" fish. If good to average growth then use his 500/ac.

In your PM to me you indicated you wanted to stock WM & RES. These double questions make answers more difficult.

Dr Dave mentions that - ""I've yet to find a biologist who has ever seen a "stunted" redear sunfish population."" There is a 1/3 ac pond near me with only RES, yellow perch (YP) and maybe still some fathead minnows remaining. No larger sport fish predators. The pond is around 10 yrs old. I think the YP have a diet as heavy or heavier towards fish than WM. There is basically no fish harvest on this pond. I have fished the pond several times to sample it with my angling method. I conclude the pond has too many fish (mostly YP) - most of them too small to be, IMO, a quality fishery, i.e. too much biomass tied up in small vs the number of larger quality or preferred sized individuals. IMO this pond needs fish removed or harvested by some method - predation, trapping or angling. I have spoken with the pondowner (against LMB) a couple times where I suggested he introduce a non-reproducing predator to his pond. To date and to my knowledge he has not done this.

Shorty mentions -" I have seen standard 8-1/2" BG eat 4"-5" red tailed shiners with their small mouth size." I do not doubt this. But I think it was the rare exception and does not happen very often. I assume the red tail shiner was for some reason an easy meal for that BG due to shiner injury, senility, special circumstances or "bad luck". From my experience - I doubt that a normal population of RES could ever by themselves eliminate a FHM population. RES (and BG) are not "designed" to eat fish, not even slow swimming fish such as FHM. It is not a preferred food even in an ideal setting such as lots of FHM present. Thus I doubt that a non-stunted, normal, harvested population of RES could eliminate all the adult FHM breeders from a viable, healthy FHM population. GW may be able to provide more info on this topic. What is more likely to occur than eliminating the FHM is the RES become too abundant in a smaller size class such as the 3"-5" size class.

Thanks Bill. I'm probably confusing the issue by talking about two different ponds in this thread. In my pond I'm willing to try RES without WM. I haven't seen the available RES fingerlings yet, but I've been told they're about 1.5 inches.

I've got to place my order in a few minutes so that I can pick it up on the way home. So far I'm thinking 100 RES fingerlings for my pond, and then I'll see what adult RES become available later.

I got the impression that the fish farmer likes to sell fish by the 100's so for Mr H's pond I'm thinking of getting 70RES/30WM.

Very good assumption Bill! We bought the red tailed shiners to catch LMB, the previous day we were bobber lobbing fathead minnows for LMB and catching mostly BG so the next day we bought larger bait to avoid catching BG again, we were suprised to catch mostly BG again even with the much larger red tail shiners.

GW like Bill I don't think the RES will eat all the FH. I still would go with fewer RES/and or WM as the generally recommended stocking #s are ,in my opinion ,not applicable. Those recommended #s are designed where the stocked fish are being stocked for forage. You are not using the RES/WM as intended by the recommendation thus I would treat them as somewhat akin to a predator and not as a forage stocking.

I think you need a predator in your pond other than RES but it may well work without one.

My thought process. If I wanted large BG as the dominate fish I would not stock them at the high forage recommended #s but at lower rates. Same thing for WM or RES just slightly different #s. I would try to have some adults in at the start to suppress their own offspring through cannibalism and dominance behavior suppression.

Bill -- so what was the size structure of the RES in the 1/3 acre pond with the overly abundant YEP?

I'm still a little lost about stocking numbers. I stopped by Shongaloo Fisheries in Hampton, FL and got some fish from Joel. I got 170 - 1.5 inch RES and 30 1.5 - 2.5 inch WM. I'm keeping them in a tub with aeration tonight and I'll stock them in the morning.

EDIT: The fish will be split between the two ponds and I don't need to use them all. Any extra fish will go into a third pond.

Mr. H added two 7 inch WM to his pond today bringing the total to 8 adults. Of course he has copious FH. We'll keep adding whatever adult RES/WM we can to his pond within reason.

I have roughly 400 adult FH transfered recently to my pond. (That's before the big white bird started visiting.) I can get large RES and I'm just waiting to find a decent price. I may be able to get them as large as a pound from Walen Aquafarming.

If anyone wants to throw out a specific strategy I won't complain if it fails. ewest, I think you're down for 50RES/25WM in Mr H's pond. I'm only doing RES in my pond if you want to throw a number out for that.

FWIW, GW, I'd go WM-free in the one pond as a control. I doubt it would be all that hard to bring a RES population under control (if it actually got out of control) introducing predators later.