Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose New Pond Minnows

New pond, build last year about 3/4 acre 6-12 feet deep. I know fat head minnows are recommended but what about Emerald Shiners for this first year? This would be early spring and wont introduce any other fish until either the fall or next year. I notice pros and cons to this but looking for some advice.

From what I've gathered, emerald shiners are smaller than golden shiners.

The concerns of early stocking of golden shiners was that they nest raiders for fish eggs thus having some impact on reproduction of species you may want to reproduce, and that golden shiners can get too large to be consumed by predator fish in a given pond in the early years of a pond life.

These two concerns may not be valid for emerald shiners as they maybe get 3-4" long and don't see to be listed as egg raiders.

Emerald shiners in a pond. Emeralds will not spawn in a pond so when their numbers become reduced you need to add more if you want more. Many bait shops and university fish guys have tried to spawn emeralds in normal pond conditions with no success. All emeralds sold in bait shops are either lake or stream caught species. Whatever minnow species you decide to stock do your homework to determine if they are a pond spawning species. Not a lot of native minnow/shiner species will spawn in pond habitats.