Gentlemen,
Not excluding Ladies I just have not noticed any from the names I have read. I guess I will have to say thank you first. I stumbled onto the site when designing my pond and I had so many questions and finally my first post. Everytime I was about to post a first question I found the answer in previous posts. A little about me and my pond:

I have wanted to have my own pond my entire life. Any body of water near my parents house had a fishing line in it (ditch, canal, swimming pool, tractor ruts...you name it) seriously I kept a bream alive in tractor rut for over a year. My pond is about 8 months old and 1/4 acre. It would have been a little bigger but my wife got the plans before the excavators did. I had questions about what and when to stock and I found my answer. I had questions about how did certain species get into my pond when I know I did not put them there and I got enough info on that. Which leads to the black balls of catfish that I noticed and I got an answer that I didn't want. Either kill the pond or knock the population down with bass. With wading birds I figured I would never get rid of the catfish or from what I have ID here as green ear sunfish, no offense if you are a green ear fan I am still on the fence. I didn't want to put bass in that early but I put in a couple. Low and behold the black balls disappeared. Also I stocked 1000 fatheads and a hundred redear and 150 coppernose. Before anyone asks...My goals for the pond are to grow double digit bass and catch them frequently...of course that is not my realistic goal but sounds nice. I just want something to wet a line pull out a couple fish and teach my girls what it is all about and maybe get a nice bass here and there.

I do have one pond problem I have noticed, but I am going to wait until the grass grows in to worry about the muddy water. If I have to I will use some sort of treatment, more than likely aluminum.

Feel free to give whatever input you may have it will most certainly be appreciated.
Thanks again,
CMD