28 replies to this topic

[Sean Phillips]

Next Spring I'll be constructing my first pond. I already have the area picked out, it'll be in a retaining wall next to the entrance of my garage. The dimensions are roughly 7' Long by 8' Wide with an average depth of 3' but I'll probably dredge out a part to be 4' for the Winter and that calculates to roughly 1,500-1,600 gallons. I'll be sure to have enough filtration for the bioload of the fish I'm putting in it. I do also plan to have a decent amount of aquatic plants. I live in SouthWest PA so as far as seasons go we can have anything from pathetic to murderously violent winters and our summers are normally fairly warm. The nice thing about the location of the pond is my small front porch is above it and will shade about 2/3-3/4 of it to keep it cooler in the summer. When I told my friend and the owner of my favorite LFS (who is a pond expert) he was glad I was doing one and he'll even help me build it however due to the fact that he owns a fish store and you can't sell natives in pa I could tell right away he was going to discourage me doing natives since he can't sell them to me. He said I should do koi and while I do really like them I'd prefer natives . The thing is since it's a pond that I'd like to enjoy looking at and you can only see into it from above I need to do colorful natives in order to be able to see them without putting on a mask and snorkel. So what I'm looking for is a rough stocking idea of fish that will meet these conditions.

*Wont outgrow an 8'x7'x4' footprint and will be fine in roughly 1,500 gallons.
*Is hardy enough to tolerate the cold winters we have under ice and the warmer temps that summer brings.
*Is colorful enough for me to see.
*Will do fine on a diet of standard pond pellets.
*All fish must get along other than a few minor disputes every now and then.

So what are some good fish I could do?

[Michael Wolfe]

I had pumpkinseeds in my (much smaller) pond in the Cleveland area. They met pretty much all of your requirements. They are more than willing to come to the surface and eat pellets and are plenty bright enough to be seen in clear/clean water. I am not sure that they get along with others, but in a pond of your size, I would expect that you would get some natural reproduction (if you have sufficient plant cover in the shallow areas for them to hide).

[Sean Phillips]

Ok thanks! I'll definitely plan on Pumpkinseeds. I also was skimming through the three native vendors sites and saw that Jonah's Aquarium has "Golden" Redbreast Sunfish which I think would be great color for it. Are they Xanthic or Leucistic or just a weird color strain?

[Sean Phillips]

You can't believe how much I'd love to have longears if any strain but I live in pa so the only legal longears to keep are northerns.

So let's say I'll do 6 Pumpkinseeds and 6 Golden Redbreasts as the fish I'll build the pond around. Now here's another decision I want your guys opinion on: should I do a smaller species pond with the sunfish, some shiners, dace, chubs, darters, madtoms, etc or a larger species pond with the sunfish, bass, perch, larger catfish, etc? I think both would be doable but it's a hard choice for me

[Michael Wolfe]

Smaller fish are much more active and interesting. Think about a Fundulus species as well.

[Sean Phillips]

Awesome! I was just thinking that I might not be able to see smaller species but I guess if I hunt for the brighter ones. Would things such as darters, madtoms, Fundulus, dace, etc be able to survive in my pond since I doubt they'd eat pellets and I don't want to feed frozen to a pond? If anybody knows of a source I can get saffron shiners I'd love to get a school of them going, that is if they'd survive under ice in the winter.

[Sean Phillips]

Also, this might sound weird but I'm an avid snorkeler and diver so is there any way I could actually get on my pond without these fish freaking out and getting stressed to death? Kind of hard to see darters and madtoms from the surface. I'd love to watch them underwater, especially when the sunfish are spawning. Maybe i could put in a rock to sit on or something.

[Michael Wolfe]

I would stick with Fundulus. They will eat anything on the surface including flake if you want to feed that. Maybe also a Cyprinella. Some of them are tough and colorful.

And yes, if done carefully you could snorkel. Fish are surprisingly calm when you are lying in the water. Not at all like when you are standing on the shore looking at them like a heron.

[Sean Phillips]

Thanks! I'll do smaller fish then. Definitely will do some Fundulus of some kind, they're all great looking fish to me but Blackstripe Topminnows are one of my favorites. Any suggestions for species of darters or madtoms? Since it's not a fast moving riffle I assume I'd avoid species such as Greensides and Rainbows. Also I live in PA so as far as madtoms, can't posses: Brindleds, Mountains, Northerns, or Tadpoles. The only two in the state I can own are Stonecats or Margineds or any of the non endangered southern species that would do well under ice.

[Sean Phillips]

Ok, what other species in addition to rainbows? I'm thinking maybe Swamps and Fantails as well, would that work?

On another note, I don't want hybrids so would there be a problem with housing golden redbreasts and pseeds together come spring or since they look so different would they just spawn with their own species?

[Michael Wolfe]

why dont you want hybrids, what difference would it make? these are all captive fish now, correct?

[Sean Phillips]

why dont you want hybrids, what difference would it make? these are all captive fish now, correct?

I wouldn't mind hybrids at all but I just don't want unhealthy or fertile hybrids. If they're healthy infertile fish then I've got no problem with it, especially if I wind up with Golden Pumpkinseeds . I acutally considered doing all sunfish plus some topminnows for the pond but I'm not sure which species hybridizing can produce fertile hybrid offspring and which can't. Would an all sunfish pond be doable with species such as Pumpkinseeds, Redbreasts, Redspotteds, Orangespotteds, Redears, etc or would they fight to death over nesting space in Spring.

[Sean Phillips]

Would something like this work?

6 Pumpkinseeds
6 Golden Redbreast Sunfish
12 Margined Madtoms
12 Rainbow Darters
12 Swamp Darters
12 Fantail Darters
12 Spotfin Shiners
12 Emerald Shiners
12 either Saffron Shiners if I can find any or 12 Longnose Dace
12 Blackstripe Topminnows
12 Banded Topminnows

I'm not sure if that would be to many fish. It's a lot of fish but I think it'll be fine since they're all (except the sunfish) fairly small species. What do you guys think?

[Michael Wolfe]

I don't think you should stock a pond like an aquarium, you should go lighter and plan for re-production. The sunfish and the topminnows are going to re-produce. The madtoms will never be seen are are wasted biomass. Emerald shiners are not very robust and I think you would be more likely to get re-production from a Cyprinella shiner and the Notropis species that you selected. (but just my opinion).

[Sean Phillips]

I don't think you should stock a pond like an aquarium, you should go lighter and plan for re-production. The sunfish and the topminnows are going to re-produce. The madtoms will never be seen are are wasted biomass. Emerald shiners are not very robust and I think you would be more likely to get re-production from a Cyprinella shiner and the Notropis species that you selected. (but just my opinion).

Thanks for the quick feedback! Your opinions are going to be better than mine on this topic since I've never had a pond. Feel free to tweak the stock list to make it better. I wanted to do madtoms since I love native cats but I can understand the not seeing them part, are there any Noturus species that tend to be more active and more colorful?

[Sean Phillips]

Would it have a large impact on my pond if I added a few predatory fish? I'd still like to do mainly peaceful fish but I've got a Yellow Bullhead and three Yellow Perch inside now and once they outgrow my 75 it'd be much cheaper to put them in a pond instead of going and buying a 180 for them. Especially since my wallet will be hurting next summer after building a large pond and making a fishroom. I know they'll predate some minnows, darters, killis, but as long as they're not eating so much as do destroy the population I'm fine with that.