The "API Pond Master Test Kit" is a very good kit and will last a few years of regular testing should you wish to get into the water chemistry. Here is a thread that I started to "talk" chemistry...

https://forums.pondboss.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Main=39072&Number=508352#Post508352

The very fist post is the important one. It has several links and info pertaining to pond water testing and such. The remaining threads are just records my water testing journey...I still don't know much about my ponds water, believe it or not...chemistry is not my strong suit.

Get your FHM's to breeding this year with plenty of flat structure. By next spring, you should have gobs and gobs of them...then put in your bigger fish. These minnows will feed your stocked fish for the next couple years. I wouldn't worry too much about adding branches to the pond unless you end up stocking fish that you want to recruit, meaning breed AND survive to adulthood. With HSB, it would be a put and take pond (no reproduction)...probably so with CC too unless you added spawning structure for them.

First off, you have to decide what your stocked fish goals are and then add structure to suit. With this small pond...your only talking about stocking 10 larger predators and 100 plus smaller panfish max.

You could stock 20 CC or 20 HSB or 60 HBG and grow them, harvest them, and ladder stock most yearly. Little to no breeding/recruitment would happen especially with the CC and HSB. The HBG would spawn, but would be the more manageable than LMB. Going with one of these fish, I would not want any places for YOY to hide. They would need to be eaten to help keep the pond from overpopulating.

OR, on the other end of the scale, you could only stock a few HBG (like 20) and hope for some recruitment. Then you would want some places for the young to hide so that you could populate the pond more naturally. Should you go this route, I would use Osage Orange limbs and such. It will outlast even cedar in the water.

The options are endless. A small pond is best suited for CC, but could be used for other types depending on how much you want to manage the BOW. Check into how HSB do in your neck of Texas and consider them as a fast grower and an exciting catch on rod-n-reel (even though they can be difficult to get to bit...but when they do...hold on).

Fish on!,
Noel