Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Balance of plants in the environment Amur fish introduced and they grew really fast.

I dropped in 4 6" Amur's from a fish hatchery about 3 months ago and they are over 12" inches length and huge already? Is this normal? There is also no vegetation in the pond now, not even algea which is concerning me. I use no vegetation control and don't feed the fish.

It's a very small pond, maybe 25 yards by 40 yards, at least 10 feet deep. I built 8 years ago with a back hoe, by daming up a valley with a spring in it and then diverting another spring to it. I put 12 hybrid shell crackers, a rock bass, and 3 bass in it 8 years ago. They always did fine, the bass and hybrids got huge, bass created babies, and I assume they ate the weeds. We fish in it any time of the year with debarbed hooks for the kids and it's always like fish in a barrel. I'd catch crick chubs and goby's and feed them once in a long while but nothing consistent. This year I dropped in 52 baby crappies (which the bass tore up), 4 perch, 12 dozen normal baby bluegill (hoping for spawn to feed the bass, 500 minnows, and the 4 amurs from the fish hatchery.

I think I screwed up a good balance I had going for the last 8 years. There is NO vegetation now. Bunch of different sized smaller bass. I'm going to catch a bunch of the smaller bass and take to a neighbors pond in an effort to provide more food for the fish. I don't know what else to do, the pond looks dead from a vegetation standpoint. I could shoot a few of the Amurs I guess. I did buy some fish food but I'm not doing that crap, I want it self sustaining.

I also have a muskrat problem this year.

Do you know a trapper? We had a guy come over in the winter and trap out all our muskrats last year, no charge to us.

They are easily taken out by bow fishing... if they are growing fast then they must be eating well. Did you have a problem with plants that you put them in the first place?

Yes,the pond would weed up on the bottom not too bad but had a blanket of green stuff in the middle of summer covering about 3/4 of the surface.

I just wiki'd the amur. Apparently it's normal for them to double their size in a summer.