Pond Boss Forums STOCKING A NEW POND Types of fish to choose I'm ordering this week...please review!!

Where we are at, we are at the dividing line between habitat that RES can survive in and PS habitat. I'm about 30 miles S of the Michigan border, but our winters at times are tempered by Lake Michigan.

Generalities:

You don't want the predators that you stock to eat your stocked fish, with the exception of some forage fish.

BG, depending on quality of food, quantity of food and if they are pellet trained, will grow anywhere from a coouple inches to 4+ inches per year. Don't feed too much, or too little. What they can consume in 15 minutes is about right.

50# of adult predators per acre (LMB) That number could be pushed if feeding and aerating, and the size of the adult fish can vary depending on your goals.

1 LMB will need 10# of fish to gain one pound in weight. Make sure that your predators don't overeat your forage base as the predators grow and spawn.

A pond can support between 300 to 700 pounds of fish per surface acre, depending on how it's managed. That's predators and forage. In a LMB pond, BG are considered forage.

Be there when the fish truck stocks the pond, and look at the fish. Watch what's stocked to make sure you are getting the correct size and quantity of fish that you ordered.

Ask the local biologist what he recommends to stock to take care of the hosts of black spot, white and yellow grubs. He's right, just stocking PS and not BG won't work. If he doesn't suggest stocking either PS or RES, ask him if any of the local BOW's have any parasite problems that have a snail or clam as a host.