The first ribbon in 2021 was in Ohio on March 15 so those in Ohio may chime in and tell us if you have ribbons?
I did have ribbons March 15 or 16 last year.
Certainly it can't be March 15 in MI this year as I have ice strong enough to hold a few people yet. I recall the typical date being around the 1st of April but usually is within a week of ice out.
It appears that water temps and possibly amount of daylight hours is the key? In this case we have the daylight but we don't have the water temps we need yet
Dr.Luke you posted first ever perch ribbons last year on March 20 (and this was even after your winter kill event) Keep a careful eye and let us know when they show again and what your water temp is.
Okay perch lovers - Thursday Mar 17 first egg ribbons in Northwest Ohio. Water temp yesterday was 50F in the evening. Today's air temp 72F and very likely more eggs tomorrow. Last year I had the first eggs Mar 15.
Last edited by Bill Cody; 03/17/2207:31 PM.
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
I'm hoping to find a few minutes to drop the thermometer into the cow pond tomorrow. It might happen if the mine boss releases me before the sun goes down.
Water temps here are 50/51, and no observed YP egg strands yet...
Excerpt from Robert Crais' "The Monkey's Raincoat:" "She took another microscopic bite of her sandwich, then pushed it away. Maybe she absorbed nutrients from her surroundings."
Looking out the window I can see gray, windy, cold and a floating ice pack that is showing pot holes of melting but still is one piece. I see more free water on the edges and glimmering fluorescent green algae in shallows. No eggs yet but water temps have to be cold if that ice isn't melting over night. Air temp currently 39.
You guys that actually get to see egg ribbons are lucky. I spent several years religiously putting small & medium tree branches into the edges of my YP/SMB/BGxRES pond, genuflecting and making the sign of the spinner bait as I did, without ever seeing a ribbon. Every year the Perch laid their egg ribbons on structure too far out form shore to be seen. (I guess they're shy.) Every year I get a Perch spawn, but I have to take it on faith.
"Live like you'll die tomorrow, but manage your grass like you'll live forever." -S. M. Stirling
Looking out the window I can see gray, windy, cold and a floating ice pack that is showing pot holes of melting but still is one piece. I see more free water on the edges and glimmering fluorescent green algae in shallows. No eggs yet but water temps have to be cold if that ice isn't melting over night. Air temp currently 39.
I didn't take a walk to my pond yesterday due to the weather (and probably today too) but Cecil sent me that information yesterday. Our ice left the pond 2 weeks ago. It came back for a day a week later, but quickly disappeared again.
Spotted ribbons Thursday night! March 24. Super cold, blowing, raining sideways, about 32 degrees today and tomorrow. More ribbons Friday after work, really a good batch of large strands about a dozen locations. 10 days later than last year but in other years we were closer to April 1st.
I had one 11" female perch with bloated belly dead at ice out but no other morts over the winter.
SFS came to feed rapidly on the 2nd day of feeding. Not sure if YP are feeding yet as water a bit green and murky this spring.
Will remove much of the ribbons but hoping to leave a few in the deeper water. Our original stockers if still alive would turn 7 years old this spring so not sure they have another season left or not.
I spotted several ribbons March 23 in Central illinois. My daughter has a small ribbon in an aquarium and we have been watching the progress. Currently you can see black eyes and movement in the eggs.
My concern now is what will heavy rain and muddy water do to the spawn? I'm guessing we are several days away from any fry hatching...
Any way to harvest zooplankton and put them in the aquarium?
Yes one can harvest phytoplankton and zooplankton but the collection materials are not easily obtained. For collecting use a very fine mesh plankton net of the correct mesh size for the size of plankton needed. Plankton nets come in a variety of mesh sizes. Most common plankton nets are in 80-180 micron mesh size. Newly 1st feeding fry are eating very small plankton in the size close around 20-40um, several sizes smaller than the common plankton nets. I have a small filter bucket with 35um mesh to collect rotifers. Smallest mesh netting can be 10um.
When in high school I raised tropical zebra fish from eggs. I fed the fry an egg emulsion and managed to get several of them to survive to adult size. Our PB forum member Azteca recently provided a link about feeding new fish fry using an egg emulsification method. This is a readily available fairly simple method to try as fry food. After the fry are growing 6-10 days I would blend in some fine powdered fish food. https://www.fao.org/3/x5738e/x5738e0p.htm
aka Pond Doctor & Dr. Perca Read Pond Boss Magazine - America's Journal of Pond Management
Do you have to actually harvest phytoplankton and zooplankton for feed when the fry are just transitioning off of their yolk sacs?
I thought two buckets of fertile pond water left outside in the semi-sun would be teeming with life if you threw in a little organic fertilizer. I contemplated pouring a cup of that water into the aquarium each day to initially supply enough "feed" for the fry.
[I confess to zero knowledge on this topic. I thought fertile pond water was teeming with life, so any amplifications on this topic would be appreciated.]
Is it easy (for non-experts) to differentiate between recently spent females and males in YP?
How does that compare to differentiating for LMB or for BG?
Part of that is handling fish frequently, Rod. Percids are much easier to correctly identify green, ripe, spent or male this time of year. Centrarchids (LMB, BG-sunfish) are not as easy. You can see a gravid female somewhat easily but males are somewhat harder to identify because their sizes remain similar-longer than Percids do. As you handle more and more fish it will become more obvious.
You can put a Spotlight above the water , you will attract Zooplankton and you just have to pick it up with a bucket just be careful that there are no predatory insects but in my pond with the fish I have never seen a predatory insects.
I put a picture as an axample, on the picture you can see small Daphnia attracted by light. Depending on the season you will attract different critters. There are so many that for my needs I put a small pump under the spot.
https://ibb.co/VwW7FMh But Daphnia is for the fry, for your larvae it takes very small Zooplankton like Mr Cody said.
Or you can make infusoria, take a one liter jar with pond water, for the bacteria you can use bread, hay or milk if not pasteurized, in Europe they use milk to raise different Zooplankton, because it is not pasteurized. In canada all the milk is pasteurized, I don't know in the U.S.A A+
April 4th 2022 and no yellow perch ribbons yet. Last year it was April 3rd. This year our ice was out almost 3 weeks later than last year. London Ontario Canada eh.
Found mass ribbons on last Thursday. laid on structures built from Tumbleweeds in 4' water. Filled a 5gal bucket with ribbons which are now in containment in hatch tank. Water temp early am Thurs was 48 degs. First 2 days and prior to placing in cage structure, eggs were treated with H2O2 at 1 rate, since cut in half per day until eye-up.
Were those tumbleweed structures deliberately placed in the pond by you, or placed in the pond courtesy of strong western Kansas winds?
Either way, do you leave them in the pond after the ribbon deposition period to shelter fry, or do you pull the tumbleweeds from the pond before they degrade?
Just back from a 10 day road trip. I see the egg ribbons are now floating, looking like they are decomposing somewhat. We had colder than usual temps and the neon algae has dropped to the bottom and the water has cleared quite a bit. Not much fungus on them but I'm seeing a big proportion of the eggs are brilliant white. It seems most of the top surface of the strands are all individual white eggs. I think Dr. Perca (Bill) told us once that these were not fertilized. I'm wondering where my male YP have gone to or why such a big proportion did not get fertilized this year.
The recruitment of YP has been very poor which I felt was related to predation of the fry by the large population of SFS and a few large GSH, but perhaps there is a male factor to blame here?
Were those tumbleweed structures deliberately placed in the pond by you, or placed in the pond courtesy of strong western Kansas winds?
Either way, do you leave them in the pond after the ribbon deposition period to shelter fry, or do you pull the tumbleweeds from the pond before they degrade?
Both.. The ones I choose are sunken by the trunk with a brick tied to it. Many blow in on their own, but I take everything out when perch are done. Just additional organic load to cause problems.
Were those tumbleweed structures deliberately placed in the pond by you, or placed in the pond courtesy of strong western Kansas winds?
Either way, do you leave them in the pond after the ribbon deposition period to shelter fry, or do you pull the tumbleweeds from the pond before they degrade?
Both.. The ones I choose are sunken by the trunk with a brick tied to it. Many blow in on their own, but I take everything out when perch are done. Just additional organic load to cause problems.
Thanks, Kenny.
Good to know that tumbleweeds can be substituted for cedars. They are certainly free and in abundant supply for the people that live in tumbleweed alley!
Tumbleweeds having provided some serious insight into my perch numbers. I'm trying to extract ribbons in a fashion they can be counted as "one".. Today I ran the structures again and several are about 3' diameter and 4' tall. 2 of those structures today looked like they had been completely wrapped with toilet paper. I have filled 3 4'X4' ribbon cages in hatch tank now. That's half of the area available. Tonight my wife was out looking around while I was doing some fertilizing in 2 of my growouts.. she comes out and says "better come look at this"... I went inside and looked into tank, Millions of perch larva. I have my H2O2 tank on a scale and I've put in the range of 30-32lbs of ribbons in hatch tank. Ribbons appear to be about 70-75% fertilized based on white mass left unfertilized. Obviously this is by far the most ribbons I have ever seen by the hundreds. I'm torn between leaving some or pulling them all.. On one side, they feed other species, on the other, not sure it's good to have that many mouths to feed later. Some of those ribbons are 6-8" wide and 5-6' long. If I use our WAE formula to estimate egg numbers, one of those ribbons is well over 350,000 eggs??? If my numbers are even close that's 28 million eggs I've removed so far...?!?!?
WOW! you are doing something right to encourage those YP to grow and reproduce!! Fantastic that you have conditions right for larva in the egg tanks. I would think keeping enough of the right kind of plankton and little critters around for the tiny fish to become fry might be tricky too.
The best part is that you can provide YP for other pond meisters or improve the fish variety in your local pond or in a HOA water body.
We have now found our first ribbons April 13th 2022. We had 5 ribbons in two days then another 4 ribbons in 2 days. Then we had a cold snap with snow today on Easter. Only one ribbon since the cold spell.
No spring peepers yet as the frost has just left the ground. We expect to see high temps mid next week in the 15C temp and expect to see more ribbons.
I've yet to observe a perch ribbon in my pond this spring. The first couple springs after stocking it made me nervous not seeing what I thought I should be seeing, but it has become obvious that they're using offshore cover to do their thing.
Snipe - are you feeding the newly hatched YP or moving them into a pond with zooplankton as food items?
I moved them into fertilized ponds Bill. Had a 3wk head start fertilizing so adding 10lbs per week alfalfa pellets. Hope to pull them in 30-35 days and move into feed tank. Will be about 3 weeks ahead of SMB, hope the timing works out.
I've yet to observe a perch ribbon in my pond this spring. The first couple springs after stocking it made me nervous not seeing what I thought I should be seeing, but it has become obvious that they're using offshore cover to do their thing.
Greg, not sure what all elements you have in your pond but you'd be surprised at where they will string out a ribbon.. I pulled a Z-trap today and not only was it covered in ribbons, many were inside the trap. I had about 40 males actually "IN" the trap. I noticed about 18-20 more ribbons today in other places too. something was right about last night for sure. What amazes me is how I went from not seeing any ribbons to having ribbons everywhere. I'm sure ribbons are there, you just need to find "where" that is.. I can come whisper to them if needed..
Wow! That is great! I for one will be interested in your progress.
I have mildly considered adding YP to one of my ponds once I found out they would live in our waters. Just wasn't sure if they would add to my enjoyment or to my list of pond problems to solve. Not sure if they would be a good addition or just additional management problems.
snrub, I delivered some YP to a guy east of Asbury about 2-1/2 yrs ago and stocked in a 1.5ac pond with LMB, BG and CC along with a few BCP. They sure haven't wrecked his pond. WR on LMB actually went up and he sure enjoys eating them.
I have mildly considered adding YP to one of my ponds once I found out they would live in our waters. Just wasn't sure if they would add to my enjoyment or to my list of pond problems to solve. Not sure if they would be a good addition or just additional management problems.
I think you could have excellent results with some pellet-trained YP in your small forage pond.
I don't think you guys are big fish eaters(?), but YP are VERY tasty.
If you get on his list, I think you can buy some feed-trained from Kenny. He could also probably tell you the exact number that would prosper in your forage pond.
After they reach the correct size, you can harvest as many as you like, and then move a few to your other ponds as a bonus fish.
If in the forage pond and they spawned, they would end up in the main pond. The overflow directly dumps into the main pond. Kind of purposely designed that way so anything I stocked in the forage pond hopefully some of the fry will end up in the main pond.
The pond I would more likely try them in would be my SMB/RES/HSB pond across the creek.
One thing I am concerned about is that a high water event could cause the YP fry to end up in the main creek a quarter mile away. Not sure if they would be considered an invasive species or if they are native or at least accepted to be in Kansas waters.
I don't want to put something in my pond that would cause problems elsewhere. So far everything in my ponds, with the exception of HSB which don't reproduce, is native or common to the area.
snrub, I delivered some YP to a guy east of Asbury about 2-1/2 yrs ago and stocked in a 1.5ac pond with LMB, BG and CC along with a few BCP. They sure haven't wrecked his pond. WR on LMB actually went up and he sure enjoys eating them.
One thing I am concerned about is that a high water event could cause the YP fry to end up in the main creek a quarter mile away. Not sure if they would be considered an invasive species or if they are native or at least accepted to be in Kansas waters.
I don't want to put something in my pond that would cause problems elsewhere. So far everything in my ponds, with the exception of HSB which don't reproduce, is native or common to the area.
D'oh moment on my part. I thought your surface runoff went through the sediment pond and then split to the main pond and forage pond. If all the water goes through the forage pond, then you will eventually get YP into the main pond. And on your setup, anything in the main pond will eventually get into the creek.
Good thing I didn't suggest stocking piranhas - with zebra mussels as their food source!
Snrub - See this for a little more info about YP in Kansas
Kansas state rod and reel angler record. YELLOW PERCH 1.05 Lbs 14 inches Rod & Reel w/worm Coffey County Farm Pond 05/07/00 Walker Trimble, Burlington
With good habitat and plenty of FOOD you should be able to easily grow perch to 15" in Kansas. Standard weight for a 15" yellow perch is 1.96 lbs and when full of eggs she will weigh close to 2.25 lbs.
Snrub - See this for a little more info about YP in Kansas
Kansas state rod and reel angler record. YELLOW PERCH 1.05 Lbs 14 inches Rod & Reel w/worm Coffey County Farm Pond 05/07/00 Walker Trimble, Burlington
With good habitat and plenty of FOOD you should be able to easily grow perch to 15" in Kansas. Standard weight for a 15" yellow perch is 1.96 lbs and when full of eggs she will weigh close to 2.25 lbs.
My eggs are already in my small pond and I will put 2 spots to attract the larvae.
2 days ago I saw the eggs moving, but this morning there was 4 inches of snow.
With the cold here I find it difficult to make a nice Bloom, the eggs almost always hatch and there is no Zooplankton.
Thats why I was raising infusoria and Paramecia Caudatum in 5 gallon bucket.
This is why if the chicken egg work it will be less work.
The raft with the Paddy rice is for fun, I also have a pot with eggs and snails to have infusoria as soon as the eggs hach in the cleanest water possible.
Glad to hear that you are being such a good "momma" to your new babies.
I do enjoy reading about all of your creative ways to push back against nature when it sends you foul conditions that oppose your pond management goals!
Greg, not sure what all elements you have in your pond but you'd be surprised at where they will string out a ribbon.. I pulled a Z-trap today and not only was it covered in ribbons, many were inside the trap.
When I pulled my B-trap yesterday it contained a couple dozen bullfrog tadpoles, a male YP ~8", a female YP ~10", and an egg ribbon that looked impossibly huge to have come out of the female that was in the trap.
I have had YP choose to wriggle into the 4" circle opening on my chinese minnow traps and leave egg in there rather than anywhere else in the pond.
I'm wondering based on finding males and females going through some effort to get inside the traps if they might be more of a cavity spawner than the folklore has suggested? I wonder if their instinct is to get into some type of cover whether that be under a brush pile or any other suitable cavity. I know the small lake by my house has some self-sustaining perch in it but neighbors do not see perch ribbons. There is bulrush and lilypads in this quite eutrophic lake so maybe the females are leaving the eggs in the brushy areas or scrubby bulrush stalks and not by the more manicured lawn edges?
It is amazing to see massive egg ribbons and wonder how that fit in the belly cavity anyway?
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