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

Good Afternoon everyone

I had a small retention pond put into my back yard. It is about 20 feet long 8 feet wide and 5 feet deep. I live in north east Ohio, so it does freeze over in the winter. It also does not have a pond liner. Last summer, it was always full and never low on water (my backyard is a bowl and the pond is at the lowest point). I don't know much about ponds or if something this small can even be stocked. I don't particularly want koi fish so I was thinking something more along the lines of blue gill, a few bass, maybe a few catfish. Would this be possible? How many would I be able to get? When should I start (winter is basically over here and all ice is melted).Ill attach some pictures for reference.

Thank you for any and all advice!!

rmabel,

Do you know how deep the pond is? There should be some water in it that would be out of reach for great blue heron. IMO you definitely need some type(s) of fish in it to keep mosquitos down. Casually relating size to the stones I estimate around 725 sq ft and from this I estimate that water could carry around 4 lbs of fish/acre. A base prey fish could be something like mosquito fish. I like one or two male BG to serve as predators. Or on male BG and one Male Longear Sunfish. In the summer, you could add say 5 or 6 small tilapia from Overton's. They have a hydroponics grade TP that are at maximum lengths for their age (young ones).

If you could put up some web fencing each fall to prevent leaves from being blown into the pond, I think that would be good.

If want a predator like LMB in there. One (and only one) could reach a size around 11.5", perhaps a little longer if you feed its prey. You could afford to supplement FHM if needed. I figure no more that 3 lbs per year would be required (they will reproduce before the adults are eaten). Under this scenario, you could stock a 2 or 3 TP in adult sizes. For max growth, restrict the TP to one sex.

Of the two scenarios, I definitely prefer the first. Just don't like restricting the growth of LMB to the extent that small body of water will. With the BG, their growth is slow enough to give you up to 4 years before carry would be reached. An LMB will get there in the first year and afterwards its RW will decline.

Oh. Just saw that you are in OH! Clicked on Canfield and thought you were in Texas. Dang, winterkill could be an issue for you. For OH. Maybe 1 one Brown BH and FHM.

Welcome to Pond Boss!!

With 5' of depth in Canfield OH, you should be able to avoid winter kill, but like JPS says, you will have to be mindful of the carrying capacity of the pond. If you do have a freeze over, keeping snow off the ice will help.

As the pond is in the basin of a valley, you may not have as much surface wind action to keep the water healthy. A small aerator would vastly increase the things you could do with the pond.

If you plan on feeding the fish, that will also expand the possibilities, but that may also increase the need to keep up water quality.

Fortunately, you have access to some quality fish suppliers in OH.

As far as what fish to stock, a major factor will be if you are going to feed or not.

Yes, and I was way off on the area. But for 1 BH or 1 BG, the size they could reach will be more limited than I earlier thought (due to the smaller size of the BOW). Just depends on how fertile the water is. It can't hurt to add FHM and I think a 6" BH will grow nicely initially. It will ultimately reach a balance with the annual production of foods.

If you feed, just be very aware of your feeding rate on a per acre basis. It's such a small BOW that it would not be difficult to overdo it.

Thank you everyone! I'll start by adding an aerator, some mosquitofish, and in the later spring add a predator such as a blue gill and a sunfish.

Gambusia/Mosquito fish may not be as tolerant of the northern climates as other similar fish.

A natural minnow to stock could be Fathead Minnows. Fatheads are readily available from bait stores, and you could quickly buy a few dozen and put them in your pond, and they will start breeding when the water gets warmer, close to 70 degrees, IIRC.

However, when stocking fish, like minnows, it's important to know what you are stocking and to check the fish to ensure they are indeed Fatheads and not something else. That's easy enough to do if you are only stocking a few dozen.

I agree with stocking/management concepts of jpsdad and sunil. There are a LOT of things to know for properly managing a pond of any size. Bigger usually means MORE of various things.
For the larger types of fish besides some of the minnow species, I agree, stock JUST single separate game fish individuals so they cannot or do not reproduce would be the best management technique for this tiny pond. A Reproducing type of fish will very quickly create overpopulation problems. If you are an angler you could go catch, and restock the limited number of fish to be stocked. Be aware - if you stock two different species of sunfish and one is male and one female they could reproduce to produce too many young of year hybrids. Know proper ways to identify all the various species of sunfishes before unknowingly making bad angler stocking decisions. On the POSITIVE side, your pond is tiny,,,, so if and when there is a unwanted problem it is relatively easy to drain it and start over next year.

Buying a 15ft nylon minnow seine could help remove some or most of the fish instead of draining the pond. For an 8ft wide pond the seine should be at least 1.5 times the width to allow adequate bag slack to help hold fish as the seine is pulled through the pond.
Explore Douglas Nets. Good quality, good prices, They will customize the net if desired.
https://douglasnets.net/product-category/minnow-seines/page/2/


In the pictures, I notice a lot of some sort of a filamentous type of scum algae (FA). Algae of some sort will almost always be a concern or problem for this pond. One good option IMO would be to initially stock just or only tilapia(TP) equals a pretty clean pond and something for an angler to catch and eat each Fall before they die. Stock TP when water gets 65F-70F. For getting TP explore local aquaponics small "farm" or single individual operations near you on Facebook or Craig's List. They should be able to sell you several 4"-6" TP.

Tilapia(TP ) thrive on eating algae, and clean it up to help a lot to keep the algae & many small weeds eaten instead of having to use a lot of algaecide and herbicide. However tilapia manure recycles pond nutrients to help grow plants as nutrients do build up in the pond. It is a big bathtub with no drain. You can then catch TP and or eat the TP each Fall (September). If the TP reproduce a lot, the pond could have ONE bass and or one catfish to reduce numbers of baby TP. Catfish do eat bugs and fish and DO NOT eat bottom sludge, leaves, etc. NOTE - the baby TP are an algae eating army consuming small young forms of algae so having lots of small TP from reproduction is a good thing to keep the pond more algae free. TP accumulate lots of nutrition as they grow so removing them removes lots of nutrients from the pond that help reduce the amount of algae that regrows or grows next year and thereafter.

Important note. BE AWARE: a big percentage of the TP will die when water temps drop to 50F-55F and most of them will sink, not float. Decomposing dead fish on the pond bottom will release a LARGE amount of nutrients from decomposition to grow BIG amounts of algae. Periodically every year or every 2, 3, or 4 years IMO, the pond will need to be drained and the organic sludge should be somehow removed. The pond could easily accumulate 1"- 3" of bottom sludge / muck each year. One idea is to drain down the pond and rent a small 2" trash pump to vacuum the dark, sloppy, muck out of the pond bottom. Pump it to your garden or compost pile. Then refill the pond.

Rooted plants in the pond do consume nutrients and compete heavily with the filamentous algae (FA) to have less biomass of algae. Algae lives primarily on the excess nutrients that are not being used by rooted plants in the pond. When a pond has lots of FA, that is a sign of too many nutrients and not enough rooted plants.

We will always welcome you back here periodically to let us know how your pond is progressing as it ages. We are here to help manage ponds using good sound, practical experience and knowledge. IMO a lot of the advice on the internet videos is not scientifically based with well experienced peer evaluated information.