Hello!

I wanted to stock my pond with bluegill and crappie, but I read that crappie can populate so much that the bluegill (and other pond roommates) won't be able to compete for food. Should I populate the pond with bluegill outnumbering the crappie 3 to one at first, or what? We also have western painted turtles that would probably like to eat both the crappie and bluegill. Minnows are also going to be in the pond, and algae (attracting mosquitoes and other bugs) is plentiful.

Some information about the pond:
It is not manmade, and is fed by the rain. In the rainy season, it can get to be fifteen feet deep. At its fullest, it can be easily over thirty feet in diameter, but usually stays around ten to fifteen feet. It is not surrounded by a fence, so the fish and other pond animals will be prey to predators from both land and air (we get a lot of eagles and hawks). The following picture was taken while in a drought, which is why it is almost dry. I'm waiting for the drought to end before I start putting any animals in there, for the rain has just been too unpredictable. The pond has been dried up for three months, and doesn't look like it's going to be filling anytime in the next month.

I don't know how things are handled in South Dakota (I doubt fish and water are anywhere near as regulated as in Washington State) but around here the department of Fish and Wildlife has a lot of info about stocking mixes, and the local offices offer advice. I suspect that unless you can find someone with specific experience, you're going to to have to do some experimentation. And with that level of predation, you might have have to plan to restock regularly unless you want to take measures to deepen or broaden it in the dry season. I don't know if it's big enough to really be self-sustaining for fish.

I'm sorry I can't provide any specific info on this one; perhaps others here have more relevant knowledge or experience.

Hey, Paul:
Thanks for your response. I figured experiments would be my number-one friend in this adventure with my pond, but just wanted to know if anyone had experience with my situation. I understand most people just build ponds themselves.

I've done a lot of research for the pond in the recent days, and it seems like you're correct: it's not fish-sustaining material at this point. Plus, with that much algae there'd probably be a lot of parasites being attracted. Looks like I'll be sticking to having the turtles in my pond for now, since I'm not yet ready to start "upgrading" the pond for fish.

Once again, and I'll (hopefully) keep this thread updated with experiments, if I do decide to try and make the pond fish-approving.

That berm on the right side of the picture certainly looks like a dam to make a manmade pond. There's thousands of those little dams that I've seen in the Dakotas and Montana. When the drought goes away, throw a bucket of fish in there. All it takes is an afternoon of fishing. When I was a kid I stocked a pond a little bigger than that. The next year the sunfish spawned and there were little ones everywhere! We've had two years of drought now, so adding fish isn't an option.

Maybe this group could give you some info:

https://www.solitudelakemanage...

https://habitat.sd.gov/landown...

https://forums.pondboss.com/ub...

Thanks Rj and Rubi. I figured that when the pond wasn't dry (i.e. when our drought is over and we get consistent water) it was a perfect pond for largemouth bass, crappie, and bluegill. I've seen numerous ponds in our area that are even smaller and still have some largemouth and bluegill. I haven't seen crappie so much…but I'd still like to give it a try.

Well, we just had a flash flood. The pond is now almost entirely full. We've never seen it like this. Unfortunately, the pond hasn't had water in it like this for 3+ years, so it'll probably drain pretty fast. But this will be good for the next time we get a good rain.

Question:
Would waterlilies and/or other water plants benefit my pond, or just drink up all the water? The pond is also big enough to grow cattails. After researching, I've seen that there are pros and cons to having cattails in your pond, but wanted to get thoughts from people on here. If you need an updated picture of the [now full] pond, let me know.

Thanks.

Water lilies will not drink up the water.

But what question you really need to ask is how healthy do you want the fish to be? This is a really small pond. How often does it go dry?
How deep does it freeze every year? If you have "x" number of fish in the winter and it freezes solid, or almost so, that will impact the fish.
I think it is a mistake to consider crappie and blue Gill and large mouth bass for such a small body of water. Say you pick blue gills. They will need cover to escape the predatory bass, the more cover the better they will do. The blue gills need a lot more space themselves to thrive. Otherwise, they can't hide from the bass.
As far as the bass goes, they will feed on the blue gills but they need a lot of space to flourish and thrive and they need dozens and dozens of blue gills to do well.
Without enough food the bass will only develop to a certain size. Their limited food source will keep them smaller in size. With no blue gills to eat, they will eat each other.
I would not even consider putting fish in any pond less it was an acre as a minimum and with a depth deep enough for the fish to survive easily.

Hey Bill, thanks for the detailed response. In the picture in my first post, the water was really low and the pond was almost completely dry. When filled, the pond is actually 13 feet with a circumference of approximately 1,000ft. Right now, it's about 10 feet deep and maybe 700ft of circumference. In the Black Hills, the ice gets at most 3ft thick. Assuming it's still deeper than 3ft by winter, the fish should be ok. The pond area looks much smaller in the picture than it is IRL. (For comparison, you can see those ponderosa trees in the back. Those are fully matured trees, and are about 40 feet tall. Laid vertically, you could put two of those trees across the pond, and still have about 20 feet left.)

We've only been here for going on two years, and when we arrived this area was in the middle of a drought, so I can't accurately tell you how often it dries up. According to the previous owners who had been here ten years, the pond never dried up. They weren't in a drought at any time in those ten years, though. And last year, it was dry for six months due to the drought.

Oh, and by the way, I've already ruled out having bass in the pond at this point, for many reasons, but the one you mentioned (the bass eating all the other fish) being the main one. I'd just be fine with some minnows bluegill and crappie.

I've already put some minnows in the pond (few days ago), in case the mosquitoes get wise and start laying eggs. I don't want an infestation of mosquitoes. The minnows should do fine with eating the larvae.

Another thing that you really need to consider is the slopped sides. Where the water is in the image above, using your 40' trees as reference, that water area has to be like 60' x 60' maximum. How deep was it at that time?
You lose a lot of good deep water with those sloped sides.

What are the Blue gills and Crappie going to eat? Besides eat other!
I would pick Blue Gills if it were me. They generally stay smaller.

Thanks again, Bill. You're right, the sloped sides really don't help with the depth. I was thinking of taking a tractor with a front-loader in there to straighten the sides out, but of course, I'd have to wait for the pond to dry before I do that.

About food:
The pond gets a lot of grasshoppers in there. When I walk to the edge, there are countless grasshoppers kicking around, because they jumped in. If I just walk the perimeter of the pond, the grasshoppers will freak out and jump into the pond. We get a lot of deer at the pond, and they do the job of making the grasshoppers jump in.

There's also a bunch (and I mean A BUNCH) of dragonfly larvae, as well as many lesser water boatman beetles. I'm also going to be regularly stocking it with minnows, until they reproduce. When I just recently stocked it with minnows, I put in about 200, and that was just from two hours of fishing with my minnow trap. I read each female minnow lays up to 2,000,000 eggs, and usually 5% of those survive. That means that if they live to reproduce, each female should get around 100,000 eggs to hatch. I also saw something about minnows giving birth to live young but I don't know if that's complete bunk or maybe some rare type of minnow. I thought all fish laid eggs.

You are talking about snacks, I am talking about life sustaining food.

A pond is an ecosystem, you need algae's, pond weeds, lilies, irises, pond plants, insects, worms, to the "nth" degree. I learned about this in college years ago, the food pyramid, for every pound of fish, you need 10 pounds of level 2, 100 pounds of level 3, and 1,000 pounds on the bottom most level of the lowest food level, usually algae. Pond algae gets eaten by a snail, the little snail gets eaten by a minnow, the minnow gets eaten by a Blue Gill. For one pound of Blue Gill you need 10 pounds of minnows, 100 pounds of snails, 1,000 pounds of algae! The numbers get mind boggling. It's a whole lot more then some grasshoppers jumping into a pond.
If grasshoppers jump into a pond like you think, what do the minnows do if the grasshoppers are bigger then they are?!

Hey Bill,

Thanks for the numbers. Wow, I did not know that. Last year, our pond was overrun by aquatic snails. I was hoping they wouldn't come back, but now I hope they do! We also get plenty of algae in there. It is still water (no streams), so you can imagine algae likes it. Actually, I think one of my biggest problems is going to be fighting the algae, because the algae can get so thick in there I have no doubt the fish would suffocate. But that only happens when it's low and the water is super warm. The weather is starting to get cooler, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about algae at this point.

what you have is man-made "stock tank" ... built primary as a water source for cattle, (live stock) but also for the benefit of wildlife .....
there is another purpose ...for wildfire suppression

have seen 1000's of stock tanks just like yours ....and actually used them on occasion to draft water for fighting forest / grass fire ...

I might start with a few plants at the waters edge ....maybe release a few crawfish ....if the plants and crawfish survive after a few years, then I might step up to minnows .... but...and I hate to say this .... that may be all the residents your pond could ever support year round

Maybe invest a ton of money ... and make it an acre sized pond (43,560 square feet) .....

Thanks, James. Yes, the previous owners did have some cattle, and that was their main water source. But I have some friends in Arkansas with one of these stock tanks and successfully keep both catfish and bluegill in it. It's not much bigger than my pond, except that its sides aren't sloped, so it retains water better. But in terms of depth and food, the fish do well, and largemouths and catfish are big fish. They also don't get the severe winters we get, but the pond is 6 feet deep I believe. I also think Arkansas is wetter than over here.

Anyway, I'll try out what you suggested, James. Next year, I'll put some crawfish in there with some plants, and see how it does.

ponds are a way of life in the south ....many homesteads, ranches and farms have them .... and if I had the $ I would get one built ...

check with your local USDA extension service -

https://www.usda.gov/topics/ru...

they may have resources you could use

Johannian …It just occurred to me after reading about the pond scum in the above discussions , that it also has its medicinal purposes and the new 'Green Gold' for the many possibilities for fuel. Kind of interesting…

https://www.motherjones.com/en...
https://www.nature.com/article...
https://www.webmd.com/food-rec...