Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Creating the food chain Will BG wipe out FHM?

Just had a quick question regarding stocking bluegill and fathead minnows. Will BG wipe out the FHM like the bass will? Is there any benefit to stocking FHM early with the BG? I do have two fish feeders and 50lbs of feed is a lot cheaper than 50lbs of FHM so I'm thinking there's no real point to stocking them simultaneously if the BG will just wipe them out before I introduce the bass. I'm assuming BG will likely feed on smaller baby FHM but might leave the larger ones alone?

I ran an experiment with adult BG in a 100 gallon trough. It took them 4 days to catch and eat 50 Gambusia, and less than half that time to catch and eat 50 adult FHM.

In a pond setting, a breeding population of FHM will, I believe, eventually be wiped out by BG - but it would take a lot longer than it would for LMB to take them all out.

IMO a pond setting is a lot larger with much more various complex bottom basin types of structural fish escape habitat compared to that of a 100 gal vertical side wall structure trough. Complexity of the pond habitat I think will allow more refugia and escape cover for the FHM than a 100 gal trough when BG are the predatory fish species. These two species have two different niche habitats. Thus I think the FHM will be able to maintain a long term breeding population when the pond has good breeding habitat even with at least a minimal amount of structural habitat. This assumes the BG population is at a 'normal' not overpopulated density and some GOOD spawn habitat is available for FHM. IMO and experience adult BG at a normal density are not able to catch and eat a 2.0" - 2.5" breeder size adult FHM and even most 1.5" FHM should be able to escape predation from adult BG. Thus a breeding FHM size structure should be maintained. However adult BG at a normal population density and without a normal natural invertebrate food base could 'possibly' significantly reduce the numbers of BG fry recuitment, but I very doubt doubt it would happen. A natural pond setting produces too much more alternative invertebrate foods for BG compared to a 100 gallon troiugh. Thus BG would be primarily eating inverts compared to eating even slow moving FHM 1.25" and larger. To my knowledge BG are more of a cherry picker type invertebrate consumer compared to being a fish chasing predator / consumer. IMO these two species can be co-habitants in a pond setting under 'normal' conditions..

CentexSaj - I think it would be safe and a success for you to try stocking some FHM in with BG into a forage type pond especially if the two species have some supplimental pellet feeding to boost their final numbers. Then after one or two seasons please report to us your results. We are always open to fishery experiments and maybe we can learn some new fishery information from this project. . MAYBE a PBForum member here has already done this FHM -BG stocking combination and can report their experiences??

This project would also be a very good educational project for an interested student or pond hobbist. I think the pond would not have to be overly large as in 0.05 to 0.1ac and could easily test the two forage fish species combination theories.

The pond in question here is probably going to have an average pool size of 1.75-1.9 acres and 2.5 acres when completely full (really big shallow wetland area for a variety of reasons). I have placed in a lot of natural structure as well, so there's a good number of hiding spots for both fish.

I guess the part about the bluegills eating other crustaceans resonated with me because one of the things I did see out there was a giant water bug about the size of my thumbnail. This pond just started filling up 3 days ago, so not sure where this guy came from. I also remember seeing the water bugs (much smaller) when we were trying to pump water out while the pond was under construction as well. So with in a few weeks it sounds like we will have a lot of alternative food sources available for the bluegill to eat.

Minnows are essential to maximize growth of LMB during their first year. BG grow so danged fast that they grow right past the ability of YOY LMB. IMHO, BG slow the growth of 0 year LMB. It is not until after reaching 12" in length that BG become very important to LMB. I've looked at this from many angles in terms of timing and have studied extensively optimizing consumption and maximizing forage production. I done this with literally thousands of theoretical ponds playing out in daily simulation. By far, the very best scenario is with GSH where the population is first established with fry and in very large numbers. Under this scenario, the GSH grow rapidly but would begin stalling at a length that depends on density and feed/capacity. An appropriate number of LMB of the appropriate size to optimally consume them at the LMB stocking date will place enough predation on the GSH (along with appropriate feed balance) such that GSH will grow proportionally the same as the LMB. What this does, is keep the GSH population entirely consumable by the LMB at optimum sizes. It depends on the LMB stocking rate, but the forage can supply them for just one season OR for multiple years from that initial start of GSH fry. In part, how long the initial stocking of fry can support the LMB population without reproducing, depends on mortality not consumed by LMB. But mostly, it depends on the number of LMB that are large enough to consume them and their limit of growth enforced by climate (temperature).

Point is, the LMB really don't need the BG for quite some time. The GSH are sufficient for a minimum of 18 months in a well-balanced system. In truth, they would be better than BG if they would recruit consistently in the right numbers and if they would inhibit LMB reproduction as well as BG. But BG are essential and good LMB trophy water needs them, to help counteract the LMBs reproductive potential, and to recruit forage consistently for large LMB. So I often wonder about the timing of forage and predator introductions whether better recipes can be concocted. One I may eventually try is the stocking of GSH fry followed by a stocking of LMB advanced fingerlings that are appropriately sized so the current samples of GSH are optimally sized (even slightly smaller than optimum) for them. At the time of stocking the LMB, I would also stock brood sized BG. They would be large enough to never be on the menu of LMB but needn't be any larger than that. The stocking number should be high enough that they would not overproduce young but low enough that they would grow well and recruit lots of forage to replace the GSH as their population diminishes. In most new waters without good macrophyte coverage, the BG will eventually dominate and essentially replace the GSH.

I wouldn't recommend GSH to you because you have seemed (from prior posts) to have a focus on BG and their growth.

Also, I have doubts that pre-stocking minnow forage will be most conducive to your focus of growing large panfish. Mainly because the LMB are going to focus on any minnows (like FHM) until they are gone. That is fine for the LMB but really for the goal of growing large BG you would want to force your LMB to consume BG instead to inhibit recruitment. Also, I have doubts that delaying the stocking of LMB has any benefits for growing large BG.

The bottom line is that fatheads produce a jump start for newly stocked bluegills and other predators. Within a short time, they are gone. But they have done their job.

They are highly prolific. I put a pound of them in a very small water hole near the house for mosquito control. I seined it 3 times before Texas summer dried out the whole works.

Dave, I wouldn't disagree that they are prolific or that their job is done when they are gone. Totally agree. It just I am in no way convinced that they are necessary for trophy BG pond or even a benefit over other choices one can make. You'd probably agree after considering these points.

Sure, BG will eat them, and they are great forage, but is this optimum forage planning for a trophy BG pond? I would argue, absolutely not. The risk is that it will benefit the LMB far more than the BG and allow more recruitment of BG than would be ideal. It would be much better if the forage base provides more benefit to the BG than the LMB. A good example, just insects and the like that happen naturally. To be sure, LMB will compete for these prey items ... but only when they have to. They will never choose this forage over appropriately sized BG. A food chain absent the FHM will benefit the BG more and give the LMB greater incentive to consume BG YOY.

So one could argue, what about all the FHM the BG could have been eating before they were gone? Well, they would just be eating something else instead. To some degree, FHM are competitive with BG for some forage but especially they are competitive with the organisms that would be in greater abundance if the FHM were not there. Organisms the BG would eat instead of FHM. Heck, they wouldn't even have to eat any pond organisms. For example, 400 3.5" BG weigh around 11.28 lbs and they could be stocked today at that per acre rate and grown to average length of just shy of 8" by October first. It would just take 168 lbs of good quality feed (taking into account the feed's fertilizer effect which would boost the food chain). It would take 310 lbs of feed if there were no fertilizer effect. The feed estimates are based on a DFW climate. Anyways 168 lbs of feed is what they need and as an opportunity of cost ... feed is a compelling alternative to FHM. 100 lbs of FHM at $15 bucks a pound ... is $1500. At a buck twenty a pound, the required feed is less than $200. Meanwhile the LMB HAD to work for their living consuming BG YOY keeping recruitment down. Meanwhile, the remaining $1300 can go to feed next year.

Dave, you bring up jumpstarting the food chain. Minnows do that, but it favors the LMB. Why not jumpstart the food chain with a different kind of organism? One specifically selected to favor the BG. A great example of an alternative to minnows in a trophy BG pond is the PK shrimp. IOWs, let it establish and flourish in high numbers before stocking BG and LMB. They shorten the food chain for BG and they will never be preferentially preyed upon by LMB when BG prey is available. They will benefit BG more than they will benefit LMB which is supportive of the goal for trophy BG. LMB will never have a better choice of prey than appropriately sized BG. So maybe spend $300 of the $1300 saved (choosing feed over FHM) on PK shrimp and allow them to establish the pond. Perhaps also add some macrophytes to the pond to establish cover and substrate for the PK shrimp with some of the savings. While the shrimp are establishing and before stocking BG and LMB, the shrimp could be fed much cheaper feed, for example, rice bran. For a trophy BG pond, I think FHM are a waste of money that will work against the goal of trophy BG. To be sure, I haven't always thought that. There was time when I firmly believed they were necessary, a perfunctory obligation, and that every new pond couldn't be without them. But for a trophy BG pond, I don't believe that to be so anymore.

One last thing, you mention stocking only 1 lb and getting many times that from a little pond before the puddle dried up. CentaxSaj, take note of this. 100 lbs of FHM is way more than you need and is total overkill. Not at all necessary in a 2 acre pond. 3 or 4 lbs/acre is all you would need if they are to be allowed to establish a population before stocking predators like BG and LMB. Also, it is getting to be too late to get reproduction from FHM. It's hot in Austin and once temps are in the 80F range they will not breed like they will below that temp. GAMs would go right to proliferating if you could find them. But that said, if you are truly focused on growing big BG like you have earlier said then consider not adding minnows at all.

Good dicussion and thoughtful insight so far. Keep i mind the main emphasis for this forum thread was for stocking and developing a forage production pond for then using the forage produced into a separate sport fish pond.

Tons of great information. I figure I might as well add in that the purpose of the pond is supposed to be a high catch rate LMB pond. I won't be angry at catching large BGs either and I have small kids so they get excited no matter what they catch. My pond is 6' full now and unfortunately the rain outlook isn't looking super great for filling up too much more (12' once full) but I'm hoping to add another couple of feet before our dryer season arrives. I also know that if we go into severe drought conditions, I can lose around 5-6' of water by the end of the summer. So, I could lose whatever I stock now, however it still seems like a good opportunity to potentially grow a good forage base and worth the risk. I just didn't want to spend money to put in FHM if the bluegill were going to eat them all before I even put a bass in the pond. Sounds like there is some mixed feelings on what will happen and I'm going to take the risk and do it. We tossed a few crawfish in the pond yesterday and you can already see a few small water bugs in there. I think I may pull back on what I was going to stock with my BG, this way there are tons of other creatures for them to eat and then hopefully they lay off the FHMs and let them reproduce. I'll also have a fish feeder or two going.

After reading everything though I do have two big questions, do the bass fingerlings not eat the BG fry? Just seems like they would chow down on those if they were in heavy abundance.

Second question is at what temperature do the FHMs stop reproducing and how deep will they go? Right now the surface temp of the water is already pretty darn hot.

Good points JPSDAD!

I generally have stocked fatheads prior to stocking anything else. Then, at some later point, I introduce small bluegills.
When the bluegills get to about 3 inches I stock the bass and cats.

One point - LMB stocked normally in a new pond (at 2-3 inches) will begin to eat small BG fry upon entry and LMB predation on BG will continue at varying sizes throughout their life. There is no time, under normal stocking situations, where LMB do not rely on BG. The reason for the FH early on is to take pressure off of first year BG not vice versa.

Sawning of FHM reportedly starts at 60F and will continue to 86F. Spawning sites preferred are flat surfaces in shallow water up to 3" deep and away from larger fish that will eat the spawner FHM. When eggs hatch the best habaitat for the hatchlings is the shallow water with large amounts of some dense type of good small fish habitat such a brushy tree tops where larger fish have a more difficult time catching the slow swimming small FHM; even the adult FHM are slow swimmers.

LMB certainly do eat BG fry. As you said when they are abundant ... but another qualifier must be added ... when abundant in consumable sizes. BG produce offspring in cohorts with definite peaks of swim up. It is cyclic. So there are periodic lulls in the abundance, even to the extent that there are periods where YOY LMB do not consume enough to grow at their potential.

Minnows are different, they spawn and spawn and spawn. They are easier for 0 year LMB to consume and their energy density is greater too. YOY LMB will consume them over BG because they are more optimum forage.

What I meant by growing past a YOY ability to consume them is this. They grow so fast, there is a window of time where they are short enough and skinny enough to be one the menu. Once they grow past a 0 year LMB's ability to subdue it, they are off the menu. Consider for example, a BG that swims up on May 1 in DFW. If it grows at its full potential, it will be 6.5" by Oct 1st. A LMB swimming up on April 15 ... if it grows at its full potential ... will be 12.6 inches on the same date. The LMB is older than the BG and will never be able to consume the younger one. There was a couple of weeks in May where the BG was very vulnerable to the 0 year LMB. After that, it was safe because it was growing too fast for the LMB to keep up.

With minnows its different. They grow slower than BG and the window of time is really until they are gone. Plus they spawn and spawn and spawn. Years ago ... and I mean many years ago ... different combinations were tested. For the first year, BG couldn't hold a candle to minnows either in terms of LMB growth or LMB standing weight. BG prove their worth over time. LMB cannot extirpate them like they can minnows. Once an LMB gets to be larger than 20" ... it will take between 2 and 4 months for a BG to grow through the optimum consumption window of that LMB (here talking about warm weather when growth is good). So the cyclic spawning nature of BG doesn't affect prey availability for Large LMB like it does for YOY LMB.

Ok, so the fish stocking is complete. I stocked 275ish copper nose bluegills and 5lbs of fathead minnows. I put all the bluegills on one side of the pond with 2.5lbs of fathead minnows and then the other 2.5lbs of fathead minnows on the other side by themselves. The tank is a long rectangle with peninsulas, so it creates a winding lake with considerable distance between each end of the pond. Hopefully the fatheads on one side of the lake will be able to get established a little better before the bluegills make their way over to that side of the tank. Now because this was also an experiment to see what happens I did want to see what will become of the fatheads that were mixed in with the bluegills. Hopefully I can report something meaningful back, I have slightly stained water with around 24"-30" of visibility (I haven't ordered my Secchi disc yet but getting on it). All of the fat head minnows went down to about that 20-24" depth and became essentially invisible. Is there an area they like to congregate or specific areas that I should look for them?

I have two fish feeders, one for each side of the lake, however for the time being I was only intending on using one on the side that I released the bluegills. Once again, thinking I would try and keep them to that side of the lake so that the fatheads on the other side have a chance to populate. 100 of the bluegills were the larger 4-5" and obviously the hope is that they start to spawn. Ideally my entire lake is full of baby bluegill by the fall. So I would likely only run the single feeder until I saw bluegill around the structure on the other side and then would kick the second feeder up. Dumb idea or does this have some merit?

I went from seeing no flathead minnows in my pond to my pond having a small weed issue to have a bunch of FH minnows. I think without the weeds my 6month old bass would have wiped out the fhm population. Like they told me here when i joined, structure is the key. My pond has a good population of green sunfish.

You mentioned - "" All of the fat head minnows went down to about that 20-24" depth and became essentially invisible. Is there an area they like to congregate or specific areas that I should look for them? So I would likely only run the single feeder until I saw bluegill around the structure on the other side and then would kick the second feeder up. Dumb idea or does this have some merit?""

FHM will tend to be where the most spawning structures are located such as rock piles and underwater flat surfaces where eggs are laid. Once eggs hatch the FHM fry will populate the entire pond. FHM when stocked alone or in with BG, all those two types of fish will tend to stay deeper as deep water is the most secure location for them . When predators are present the small fish will then trend toward most dense cover and shallowest water away from predators who frequent deeper water. If you are easily edible why hang out with predators?

IMO One feeder in for 2+ ac is more than ample for a couple very short feeding sessions per day until the first hatch / spawn of BG grow big enough to eat the size of pellets that you are feeding. Then natural pond foods become in short supply due to heavy competition for natural foods. Always Be watchful that the new fish are eating the feeder tossed pellets which may not be the case. Feeder tossed food that is not eaten soon grows string algae. With just minnows & BG in the pond it should be teeming with invertebrate foods to get those two stocker fish growing okay without supplimental food.