Bill,
Not a chemist here either although there are times I wish I was! And not doubting the nitrogen is high as you stated. Just made a personal observation about ammonia with chicken manure and I do know it takes very little unionized ammonia to be toxic to fish. It varies from species to species on what is the toxic level, but let's just say it's in parts per million in the water.
As far as just the bluegills, from my experience they tend to be more sensitive to stress than bass -- especially the larger bluegills. I've raised bass in cages, and I'm presently growing out bluegills and yellow perch in cages until they are large enough to sex. The bluegills seem to be the easiest to stress by far.
Could it be the bluegills are shallower or spawning, hence they got hit first by runoff? Perhaps the bass are deeper and done spawning and by the time the effluent made it to them it's been diluted?
I'm just conjecturing here so don't take it as gospel.
Last edited by Cecil Baird1; 06/02/09 06:41 PM.
