Pond Boss Forums POND CONSTRUCTION Creating habitat New build

If the Nashville's supplier has a home office in Ohio, then I'd be suspecting that the fish came from Ohio.....

Looks like i've found a fairly local source for Grass Shrimp at 79 cents a piece. So once this thing gets dug i'm going to dump some shrimp and FHM in it and let them procreate for a couple months before dumping in my BG and possibly YP if i can find them. The YP supplier i found is now out of stock.

Bob, who was your YP Supplier?

Before you dump the Grass Shrimp in there make sure you have the correct habitat for them to survive and procreate.

Jones out of Nashville is the only people i've found in TN to have the YP available. When it comes to the grass shrimp I will be making sure I have some vegetation going and lots of brush and junk for them to hang around.

I picked up some YP from my supplier on Friday and will pick up more in a few weeks.

Grass shrimp need more finely divided submerged habitat that brush and junk. Think large patches of small narrow leaf pond weeds; Small Pond Weed (Potamogeton) species is one good example. For a brand new pond for stocking grass shrimp, you might as well toss dollar bills into the pond. Same long term benefit. Unless you have actually collected grass shrimp in wild pond lake habitats one does not realize what type of cover they require to thrive.

Bill,
If I was to have some normal grass planted along the banks before the water comes up would that be sufficient? Or do I need to wait until I get any proper water weeds? Any way to speed up that process? I definitely think it'd be better to do it before any predators are added into the pond. At 70 cents a piece I don't want to throw away a few hundred bucks in wasted shrimp haha.

Submerged terrestrial grass along inundated shoreline will initially for month or two provide some shelter for the GS. However what cover will they have for continued dense refuge and survival as the grass quickly decomposes? Grass shrimp are a great addition however dense habitat needs to be present for the population to thrive year to year. IMO most pond owners really don't understand the full concept of proper sport fish habitat. Ideally grass shrimp should be raised in their own small forage pond with minnows and then moved to the main grow out pond.

Bill, I'm obviously very new to all this. However, we have several local lakes with lots of aquatic vegetation. It would be very easy to take the boat out and dig up some small pods of it to transfer to the pond to get it kicked off. Assuming that I take pictures of it and yall confirm that it would be a good candidate for the pond of course. Would that speed things up significantly? My concern is that if i have to wait a long time for aquatic vegetation to get going then by that time I will most likely already have BG in the pond and then when I dump in GS they will just be immediately gobbled up. Maybe I'm just underestimating how resilient they can be if they have the proper existing habitat though.

Bob,

When the water level drops in a pond or lake, it is frequently terrestrial (land based) weeds and vegetation that start growing on the newly exposed pond bottom. This does provide excellent cover for forage species when the water levels go back up and re-flood that vegetation. However, that is a short-term benefit - those terrestrial plants will die when flooded. (I think your edge grass plantings would be a poor investment.)

I do agree with your next to last sentence. You don't want your GS gobbled up immediately, you want a breeding population with places to hide and thrive and are only occasionally gobbled up!

I personally (non-expert) would agree with transplanting some beneficial water plants during this stage of your pond management. However, I suspect there may be some rules against taking plants from state lakes. (And they could have zebra mussels.) Try and look up the rules, or ask a park ranger.

Any buddies with ponds where they would let you harvest?

Small sample size anecdotal information follows:

I gave my pond a year to develop vegetation before I added grass shrimp. I bought 20 of them from the ebay guy.
A year later there were thousands of them swimming in the pond.

Patience is your friend when starting a new pond.

Augie that's really good to hear. Were they the first thing you added to the pond?

FHM, GSH in the spring, then RES and some accidental BG were stocked in June of that year.
I also added daphnia and scuds that first spring.
It was late August/early September time frame when the grass shrimp went in.
There was a ton of weed growth in the water, along with 100-ish eastern red cedars, by the time I added the shrimp.

Augie used the wisest method to get grass shrimp established.

Going back and reading your fishery goals: "I'm in the process of building a .4-.5 acre pond with a max depth of 10-12'. My goal is to raise eating sized bluegill, and some decent 2-3# large mouth bass."
Then IMO You really do not need grass shrimp to achieve growing high quality fish for your stated goals. Your primary 1st concern is to stock proven high quality fish from a reputable grower or supplier and not something bought off a traveling fish truck. Ask where the stocker fish came from and what is known about the genetic background of the fish.

2nd concern is seek and find pellet raised fish that you buy. The larger the stockers are the more habituated they are to eat pellets.

3rd is to buy the appropriate sized stocker fish for the time when you stock them. Do not by the smallest size of the species available as those are likely to be the runts and slower growers which is usually the small size available in spring. Also smallest fish have the least time trained to eat pellets which means they may not resume eating pellets very well - poorly habituated to pellets. Pellets grow fish better compared eating grass shrimp.

4th is feed the fish a high quality fish food such as Optimal Bluegill or Purina sport fish food. Best first year plan is to buy some (1/2 bag) high protein food from the supplier of the fish. For your small pond I would not buy a whole 40-50 lb bag because you will only need 12 to 20 lbs of food for the rest of the year of feeding for the 0.4ac new small fish pond. It is best to not store and use fish food for over a year old.

Because you are somewhere in TN and if your really care about getting your pond started off very good, I would at least contact this TN pond company for an opinion and an estimate for getting your fish; even if you have to drive 3 hrs to pick them up. I agree with his stocking strategy and pond start-up philosophy. He is reputable for quality fish and concerned about his reputation for growing quality fish.
https://www.trophypond.com/pond-stocking-tennessee-fish-stocking

See his referenced article near the page bottom about grass shrimp – note in the article they are usually associated with abundant vegetation. Vegetation is a key item for grass shrimp success.
https://www.trophypond.com/resources
Article Quotes -
"They reproduce and survive best in the weedy habitat found in many ponds. They do not become abundant when stocked in larger lakes and reservoirs-or in ponds containing sport fish and few aquatic weeds. adults can be caught in May and June by seining or dip-netting in weedy areas of ponds, ditches and streams. They are not common, however….. In August 1973 we collected 81 bluegill from a pond filled with aquatic vegetation. Most were less than 5 inches long, but some were as long as 8 inches. Shrimp were present in the stomachs of 64% of the fish,"

IMO you are best spending your money on better quality fish and high quality fish food to produce quality fish compared to trying to establish grass shrimp in a new bare bottom pond.

Keep us updated as to the progress of your pond.

So I'm getting ready to start putting my habitat together. I've got an almost unlimited amount of pallets I can get for free from work. I am planning on having a bunch of 3 sided pyramids/triangles made and then some "bridges" that'll consist of 2 stacks of 3 pallets with a pallet on top connecting the two stacks. Any other suggestions on ways to use pallets? Also, is there such thing as too many pallets? I'm also going to do some busted up concrete and rocks. Along with at least one pea gravel bed for bluegills.

Sounds good

I am going to read back on your project Bob. Sounds fun!

As with most things, you can have too much of a good thing. Including pallets. First, pallets are usually treated. Not usually enough to do any damage, but the potential is there. They will gradually degrade, but not for years. Second, pallets catch hooks. Snags. A lot of folks like PVC structures instead. An array of pallets in different shapes and sizes will be fun to put together and place. Try to mark them so they're easy to find when the pond fills up. Concrete and rocks are great! I don't know if you can have too much rocky substrate. But it's definitely labor intensive. I encourage you to check out the structure thread that Bill Cody posted earlier. Great ideas there.

Edit - With regard to the concrete and rocks. As the pond silts in, as they all do (Lusk says every pond wants to be dry land), a large majority of your rocky intentions will be covered in mud/silt. So on the bottom of the pond, unless it's a pile, kind of defeats the purpose. But on the shoreline, like the first 4-6 feet deep or so, is wonderful habitat for an array of species. Bouncing jigs off rocks is serious fun too. All depends on how much work you want to put into it.

Bob, be sure to check the alkalinity. Grass shrimp need lots of calcium to thrive.

Since I won't have vegetation right away I will hold off on the Grass Shrimp. Trying to get my initial stocking plan put together. I'm thinking (100) 2-3" pure BG, (100) SBS and then 10# of FHM. Then later in the fall when available I may dump in a few YP just to see how they do. I'll pellet feed, but when I think i have enough vegetation i will also add some Shrimp. Bass will go in next spring.

Thoughts? Pond still isn't dug, but should be .4-.6 acres.

I looked back on your Feb 20 post and you said they were moving dirt as you typed?

If you plan on feeding the fish pellets and if your YP are supposed to be pellet trained then I think you can add the YP with the BG. Buy your YP as 4"-6" size when you stock BG. It it were me I would mix the YP 4"-6" in with several of the 6"-8" sizes. The bigger size YP from Jones are quite a bit more expensive however you would not need very many. Thus I would reduce the number of BG to compensate for the added cost of YP. This will insure a good YP spawn Spring 2024. Pellet eating YP will not eat hardly any minnows if good quality pellet food is available. I just looked at Jones website and they are sold out of all their YP. One has to get them ordered March - early April.

Please be sure to return to this thread with pond updates to share with us how well the SBS grow compared to BG. Your fishery plan will be a good learning experience for all of us. Thanks.

Bill, They were ripping out the trees and getting the site prepped back in Feb. Then they had to take off to go finish another job. Me and the guy are trading some services around so we have never had a super defined time line. Just that we would both be done before summer. I'm almost finished with his job and he supposed to be dropping his equipment off any day to get started. Since Jones is out of YP do you think it'd be ok to dump them in this fall when they're available? They said they will have more in stock after this summer. Then maybe wait until next summer/fall to dump in the bass? That way they can get a spawn off in the spring.

YP can be added in fall; you will just lose the 2" to 4" of growth that would have occurred this summer. This fall buy most of the stockers at 4"-6" and also several of those 6"-8" to insure a good 2024 spawn of YP. The 2"-3" YP this fall will be mostly the smaller males of the 2023 year class. The majority of the 2023 well fed year class SHOULD be 4"-7" by fall - October. YP will very little if any during winter and if eating good amounts of winter cold water food the YP will maintain good plump body weight for the early spring spawn. YP do actively feed in cold water under ice cover.

Good to know. I'm assuming I don't have to worry about the BG, FHM, or YP really running rampant and causing crowding issues? If anything there will just be an abundance of bait for when I dump bass in next spring I'd assume.

Correct, the bass will help control the numbers once they get big enough to eat them.

Well, digging has finally begun. They've had dump trucks taking off dirt all day Saturday and again today. My builder told me when he showed up that he had enough places to send the dirt that we was going to go to 15' in the deeper 1/4 of the pond. He's got the deepest section roughed out and is starting on the rest today. It's great to see progress happening. Since the pond is so deep i'm assuming it'd really benefit from aeration? I've got a buddy with a trencher, so i was thinking i would look into what it would take to get it setup in my shop and then just run the lines to the pond. Anyone got a good pump recommendation? Do i just use PEX tubing to move the air to the pond?