Originally Posted by Bill Cody
Jones FH is in the business to sell fish and get profit and not necessarily the best way to achieve your goals. Most fish farms are pretty good at growing and selling small fish but not experts at growing those fish into trophies. Trust our growing big fish opinions (they are free) and then decide which ones fits best for your goals. You will not need to stock nearly as many FHM and GSH as suggested by Jones if you follow our advice below.

Bill, thank you so much for this detailed response!!! I was leery of Jones' stocking plan due to this factor. Also, thank you for the Brehm's suggestion. I have definitely read from you about pellet trained YP, so that was going to be next search is who actually has pellet trained YP, so thank you again!

The pond will be kidney shaped, I will definitely talk to him about trying to go a little deeper in the basin. It is currently stair-stepping down from he 3ft flat, to the 5 foot flat, to the deeper basin. This pond will be a balance of aesthetics for my wife and function for me. She wants a fountain, so I was hoping that would help keep shoreline growth down, we'll also line the brim with limestone. It is close to my house and barn, so upkeep will be convenient as well. Do you have any experience with these Japanese snails (I thought if these were as advertised it would add another forage for the RES as well), or should I just stick to 1 or 2 TGC?

As much as love SMB, I do like you're suggestion of WE-HSB-YP-RES. Do you think something like 6 WE, 2 HSB, 2 SMB would be a good start, or would you recommend just trying to stick with 6 WE and 4 HSB for now?

Thank you again for all of your input, I typically like to do enough research to make sure I get things right and this pond has moved fast so I'm trying to speed up my learning curve smile

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