Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Additional forage fish

This is not exactly creating the food chain as the forum suggests, but amplifying our present chain.
That said, here's a bit of background.

1/4 acre 30 year old pond, 8 feet deep when full, 4 feet by the end of each winter. Irrigation water fed from
April through October. Cool water pond; surface water may reach 75 degrees in summer; significantly cooler down deep as river water source for irrigation supports wild trout population.

15 years ago there were only LMB, YP, and 2 TGC in the pond. We now have vibrant populations of
BG, GSF, naturally occuring HBG, some LMB, a dwindling population of YP, and several large TGC. I stock some trout every few years, both tigers and rainbows, which persist for 3 or 4 until they disappear.

We often have a significant FA problem which, buoyed by the cool water, can last until mid summer.

There are no minnows. I'm curious if I should add golden shiners as a bonus forage species. I'd like to see more YP; I realize the LMB and GSF are probably hammering the young perch. Might the shiners help to take some pressure off young perch? (Cody question). And, here in Colorado we're not permitted to put tilapia in outdoor water bodies. Silly huh? Not a lake, river, or puddle in the frigid winters here would allow tilapia to over winter. My pond has no outflow; the irrigation inflow cruises down a 1/3 mile plastic pipe and is 50 degrees or colder all summer. Tilapia are certainly not going anywhere, upstream or down. What should consistent water temps be when tilapia are introduced into outside water? Is 60 warm enough, 65?

Thanks for considering all this.

Interesting question for a small pond with a community fishery. I have had a similar problem twice with GSF in a yellow perch pond; my own. I tried to deal with maintaining YP with the GSF and after a couple years renovated the pond and started anew. Adding GSH to the pond could help relieve some of the predatory pressure on YP in the pond (see later). You will get more chance of success when using the shiners is if you make a concerted effort to put heavy harvest pressure on the existing GSF population. Concerted effort means having one or two fish traps in the pond almost all summer long so fewer GSF are present to eat the YOY perch when they hatch. With just YP in a 0.2 ac pond with GSF, I with traps removed in two summers 4000 and 3000 GSF each year respectively

Thus GSF in any pond can be prolific when the LMB are at a lower or no density in the pond. However higher density of LMB will also put high predatory pressure on the young perch when they grow longer than 2". A fish dilemma indeed.

IMO I would try this first for one year. Trap the pond for one full summer using fish traps of both a Gee Brand Minnow trap with an enlarged opening and maybe a Z-Trap - homemade or purchased. Most of the GSF that I caught in my pond were in unbaited traps. GSF seem to like the cavity refuge that a trap provides. Then in Fall add some (8-12) mixed sizes of larger YP to insure egg deposit for the following Spring. IN Spring continue trapping to remove more of the remaining GSF to give the YP hatchlings a change to grow. BE aware the LMB will also be a predator of the fingerling YP of 4"-6". Watch the results of YP survival at the end of 2026 to see it improved versus that of 2023 and 2024.

GSF could benefit YP survival, however adding GSH is a questionable benefit because when larger than 4"-5" GShiners with larger mouth gape size tend to be open water feeders and they IMO will eat and impact the YP fry survival when YP fry move into open water until they are about 1" long. Thus your pond will then have three fairly strong predators of the YP: 1. GSH eating YP fry during plankton stage, 2. GSF eating and sucking up very freshly hatched YP out of the egg cases and as weak swimming fry before they move planktonic and then again GSF eating small YP up to 1.5" when young YP move back toward or into shallow water habits where GSF call home, 3. LMB - when all YP are less than 5"-6" long.

Probably the simplest and quickest least labor way to get more YP in your current pond situation is to each year buy 8-10 larger YP (6"-8" long) and add them to the pond. Harvest all LMB larger than 12". Plus each year keep trapping out the GSF even if is is just on the weekends to mainly keep GSF predation to a lower level for eating the young hatchling YP.

Tilapia - Here in northern Ohio most of us wait to stock tilapia when the water temp is around 68F-70F and at a temp when TP can start spawning. TP are not very active and do not eat much when water drops below 55F and some TP species will begin dying at 50F.

4CP,

TP will not reproduce below 68 degrees. Hatch rates are low and survival of fry is low too even at 68F. It's been while since I last looked into this aspect of TP but I do remember thinking I would wait for 70-72F water to stock broodfish as the hatch rates and survival is good at that temp (though not as good as at >=75F).

I like Bill's idea of supplemental stocking of adult YP and culling the competing BG and GSF.

Bill Cody and jpsdad, thank you both for your valuable insight. I very much appreciate your wisdom.
For more perch I've concluded the supplemental stocking route is the one to take. We have no source for YP over here in this part of the state. I'll have to ring up snipe for an annual load of them.

Historically, with no sunfish in the pond and no BG available here, I found a couple dozen GSF to introduce. The very next year local BG became available so I got two dozen 7" to 8" fish before the spawning began. Presently there's a mix of 1 GSF for every 10 BG and another occasional HBG thrown in the blend. GSF and BG are diverse in sizes. The ones that come to be hand fed are as small as 3.5" up to 10", all varieties. The most common lie in between, i.e. 5" to 8". I'm happy with the population as a panfish pond. LMB are a bonus fish, remarkable when caught; they range from fingerlings to the few 1 to 3 pounders that grab sunfish while I'm feeding. When I do have trout in the water, they'll eat sunfish carcasses after I've filleted them, so they're probably eating live sunfish, too (and YP).

Although I have several brush piles throughout the pond, the only YP egg ribbon I've seen this year is on the old submerged christmas trees I have anchored under my dock. You guessed it; that's a favorite haunt for GSF and BG, so the hatchling YP stand little to no chance once they hatch. Grrrr.

4Corners, I always enjoy reading the updates on your puddle!

Have you tried introducing some gambusia (mosquito fish)? They might survive predation sufficiently in your FA and brush piles to create a sustainable breeding population.

With your available water have you considered a tiny brooder or grow-out pond? A pond as small as 1/10th or even 1/20th of an acre might be useful to you and fairly easy and inexpensive to construct.

You could raise golden shiners in the pond and then transfer large loads over to your main pond. Or you could introduce some YP and hand feed them. You should be able to get reproduction and then transfer some adults over to your main pond.



Just a comment on Mr. Cody's idea to trap GSF. I sometimes put minnow traps (baited with dog kibble) in my creek just to sample the species. Frequently in the summer, I pull traps containing ONLY GSF, even at times when there may be up to 10 fish species in the creek. IMO it is quite possible to selectively trap to perform some culling in your pond.

That's great growth on your panfish, 4CP. Catching 10" BG never gets old.

Seeing your thread also reminds me of Pat's situation with BCP, but in your case it is YP. I think factors are very similar but most important is the economy of the existing populations of lepomis. For real estate title, they say possession is 9/10 of the law and my grandfather used to say about land ... "They ain't making any more of it". Essentially, a pond community is an energy economy where the energy (the currency) is limited by sunlight and additional organic input (grown with sunlight somewhere else). Because food (energy) will be limited, it will have to divvied to the most enterprising fish in accordance with their competitiveness for available resources.

Lepomis, are pretty darn competitive and resourceful (due to reproduction) and are quite capable of squatting a big portion of the fixed amount of energy real estate. Just being in there in large numbers and biomass prevents other less competitive species from gaining a larger piece of the pie. Niches help some weaker species maintain a footprint in the mix but without a niche, weaker species can be extirpated. This is why I like Bill's advice so much. Removing the less desired species to open the living space allows the supplemented species to possess at least a portion of that space. Let's say the opposite were true, and most of the space were occupied by YP. In that case, they would release that real estate overtime time to the lepomis. Eventually, the reproduction by lepomis would squeeze the YP share and they would dominate then. These changes take time. But where you want to have more representation of a weaker species, just as you agreed above, overcoming the possession problem can only be accomplished by supplementing the weaker species at sizes large enough to survive predation combined with biomass removal of the less desired stronger competitor. I think from the management perspective, both actions will be required to achieve goals. The good news is that the pond is small enough that the actions are less burdensome than they would be in larger BOWs.

Feel free to reach out anytime with your thoughts. There is a lot I could share that might help and also much that I could learn from you.

Benefits are your current pond of 0.25 ac is it is small and very manageable. As wisely noted by jpsdad, Management of the current small pond should focus on fewer fish present that will allow their average size to be larger.


If your budget and land space is adequate, and for your Colorado situation, I very much like FishinRods suggestion of - ""a tiny brooder or grow-out pond? A pond as small as 1/10th or even 1/20th of an acre might be useful to you and fairly easy and inexpensive to construct"".

A mini-pond would eliminate your problem or sourcing YP since that seems to be one of your main goals. Pond could be as small as 60'X60' and 5-8ft deep. It would be easily filled and dewatered with a 2" semi-trash or trash pump. In it for your YP goal you could raise FHM and YP. YP could be stocked using a section of a YP ribbon or some mature adults (5"-7") to produce egg ribbons. A egg ribbon from a 8"-9" YP has around 20,000 eggs. One ribbon or 1/4 ribbon would produce more than all the YP you would need or want each year in this mini-pond. Pond could be lowered or dewatered and fish removed every 1-3 years and then restocked in Spring pre-YP spawn and some FHM. Annual Crop of YP the mini-pond could produce when YP are reasonably balanced density would be 4"-8" sizes for moving into the larger 0.25 ac pond.

A 60x60 pond is 0.08ac at 6ft deep has around 78,000 gal. and relatively quickly and easily filled and drained using a 2" trash pump rented or purchased. Stock pile all the dirt from the mini-pond in case someone later wants to fill it back in with dirt. 80x80 mini-pond is 0.14 ac. 6 ft deep -= ~143,000 gal.

For a colorado multi-species fish supplier are you aware of Beaver Fish Farm Longmont CO north of Denver? He raises big perch, SMB. trout plus numerous others.

4CP,

Do you have scuds in your BOW? Would think some would have invaded with irrigation water from the river but if not, that is certainly something I would add. Assellus would be a good addition too. Both do well in cool waters and don't tolerate warm water all that well. Each should do well with the mix of weeds you have.

Beaver's SMB are fish I produced for him. For whatever reason, we have beeen unable to get those fish to reproduce, so his SMB come from me. My YP genetics are from Him.

Snipe,

Are your SMB not reproducing in his ponds due to local conditions, or in all ponds?

Sterile (or non-reproducing) SMB would be interesting, but they would be a different "tool" than reproducing SMB.

So far, This is the first time this has happened, but he's tried other sources of SMB with the same affect, so I say it's the environment they are in.

Thanks for the clarification.

I had NOT heard that before about your genetic line of SMB, and was quite surprised.

It also shows why there cannot be a universal fish management template for all ponds. EVERY pond is different!

On only 1 occasion have I seen scuds in our pond. That was more than 10 years ago. Way back then I tried introducing grass shrimp without success. The pond back then was no nearly so full of elodea as it is these days. I drag out weeds several times each year and do not see scuds nor shrimp. Mayfly larvae, dragonfly larvae, damselfly larvae yes.

I have read Beaver Fish Farms website. I was not aware until snipe's post of his connection/collaboration with Beaver.As the drive to snipe's place is only slightly longer than the drive to Longtucky, I believe I'd go pay Kenny a visit for fish. He is only a short drive from the pheasant country of ne Colorado, so I could kill birds and maybe fish with one trip. Maybe not kill the fish, right?

I think Kenny at Aquatic Specialties is definitely your best source location for high quality fish.

I recommend doing the pheasant hunting on the way TO Kenny's place!

I 2nd gong to see Kenny. If he takes you for a walk around his ponds stay on the mowed areas or wear snake boots.......... The rattlers like his place. I had one of my dogs in the truck when I was there and I had to keep her on a leash just to be safe.

Just talk to him before hand to find out what you have to do to be legal going from Ks to Co with live fish.

I WOULD do it in that order. The distraction of anticipating Kenny's beautiful perch might affect my shooting in a negative way though.