Pond Boss Forums MANAGING AN EXISTING POND Corrective stocking Gambusia Minnow (mosquito fish)

fishwrangler, I have Gams in both my SMB/YP/RES pond and in my LMB/BG/RES pond. They went in the former as initial forage and were added to the latter after the pond was already full of fish. There are a lot of them in the LMB pond, but not nearly as many as in the SMB/YP/RES pond where they went in ahead of the other fish.

They have proven (in combo with FHM) to be very good startup forage for SMB. Large BG and RES also like eating them, and hit on small lures readily in their presence (which is something they rarely if ever did before).

You will see reports that Gams have horrible negative affects on fish spawning. They have not noticeably affected spawning in the BG/RES/LMB pond, where their numbers are relatively low. In the other pond, where there are (millions) of Gams, the RES have had no trouble spawning. The YP & SMB may be big enough to spawn in 2010; as of yet I have no data on how dense numbers of Gams will affect their spawning.

I would not stock them in a multi-species pond just for mosquito control, as almost every species of fish will eat mosquitos. My interest in them is in providing meals for large sunfish; they seem to do very well at this.