Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose Parasite blowup

Background: Bought a dozer, built a 1 acre triangular shaped pond, 20'-0'in East Central Ia. in 1987. Watershed of 18 acres, grassland, now 15 years in 10 yr program. Home to beaver, muskrat, mink, turles, frogs, drowning deer and esp.200-300 migrating waterfowl, esp. ducks. They consequently brought everything ducks bring with them. esp snails. God only knows why, but I finally got around to stocking this pond 2 years ago-LMB,HB,Redears,Channels,Fatheads,Grass Carp,and on a pelletized feeding program. I aerate 24/7 with a 1/4 HP Gast pump in my openair barn, 800'away. I use 1/2" pipe,homemade diffuser, in 18' of water. Everything has gone very well except for-"question", finally-whew. Stocking those fish in a pond full of duck deposited snails was like puting a chicken in a penfull of dogs. My panfish are LOADED with yellow and black grub plus roundworm. I know, I know, cook em' good and eat em'. I aint, my wife aint, and my cat aint. (Have a friend who eats anything, maybe he will take em') DNR, who I trust as much as fish dealers, said they will "clear". Have I got a forever problem and just turn this pond into a swimming pool? Suggestions or comments, although not paid for, would be appreciated. Thanks-Postbeetle

I had the same problem but after I planted a sustantial amount of female only yellow perch (Perca flavesens) in the pond and put up strands of line around the pond to keep the herons from wading in I can not find a single snail. Whether it's just keeping the birds out, or the fish or both I'm really don't know. I don't see anymore grubs in some of my fish either. Anther possible factor is my water did clear up drastically (seechi dish all the way to the bottom at 9 to 11 feet) last fall which may have made it easier for the fish to find the snails.

Could have been any of the previous factors or all of them together.

I used to have so many they covered everything and even had lot of them floating around.

Black and yellow grubs both require snails and birds. I can't remeber which is which but one needs herons and the other needs kingfishers. Also the parasites prefer small fish because they can get eaten by birds (no one knows how the parasites select small fish but they seem to).

Introducing pumpkinseeds or red ears will put a dent in your snail population which is probably the easiest way to reduce the parasite load. Getting rid of the birds is also effective.

YW33,

I'm convinced yellow perch are big snail eaters as I've seen this in literature and my perch do eat them. That may be part of the reason my perch grow so well with the biggest so far at over 2 lbs.

One thing strikes me. Snails need vegetation. If you have obnoxious amounts of submersed aquatic plants, you should consider limiting it. Limit habitat, you limit the creature. Try the yellow perch. I think Cecil may be onto something. In the south, we use redear sunfish, also called "shellcrackers" because they feast off snails. However, I don't know how well they will live in Iowa. I know this...one of my clients in upstate NY bought some last summer from a supplier in Ohio. What I didn't learn though is, if those red ear were raised in Ohio. Some of the shellcrackers are still in small hatchery type ponds, under 10 inches of ice. Some were brought inside, to the warm surroundings of a 5,000 gallon tank. Will report back to everyone when the ice is gone.

Bob,

Going through some old material on redears and saw this post. Just curious to know if you have any info to add on the outcome of the redear surviving the NY winter.

Russ