Should I stock my pond?

[chickensducks&agoose]

Ive got a pond, we've got huge goldfish (2 or 3) living in there for years, so I know things can overwinter. I have ducks.... I might want to stock the pond with fish for eating purposes. What would be my best bet? I live in zone 3, so it gets real cold in winter.... the pond is about 40x20, and 8-10 feet deep in the middle.

 

[Wifezilla]

I have looked a little in to it, but haven't come up with a great answer yet...and my climate is a little more friendly.

Carp? I mean goldfish are a type of carp and if they are staying alive in your pond all winter, that might be a good idea.

 

[Wannabefree]

catfish generally overwinter as well as carp, so do bluegill as far as I know.

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

Are catfish and carp things I will want to eat? People eat these fish? How about being safe for my ducks?

 

[patandchickens]

If you are not sure you would eat something (e.g. carp or catfish) it'd be better to either try it first or not stock it for food purposes Both are perfectly well edible, the former quite frequently eaten, the latter considered a trash fish in North America but eaten plenty in other cultures (and by some people here too, although I'm not big on 'em myself)

The only fish that would be even marginally "not safe for your ducks" would be really big bass, which can in principle sometimes take small ducklings. You are not going to achieve bass of that size in your pond tho so I would not worry about it

If you are thinking about trout, I'd suggest investigating more... to my "aquatic biologist been around a lot of aquaculture ponds but not actually an aquaculture person myself" eye, your pond is kind of on the fence, and a lot depends on *how much* of its area is at the 8-10' depth (just a small central hole, or half the pond's area, or what?) Also depends on whether it's spring-fed or partly shaded for summer. Trout really need to be kept cool in summer and don't tolerate winter low oxygen as well as some fish. That said, I could certainly envision a circumstance where you might be able to do a small number of trout.

If you are thinking about bass/perch/sunfish, I'm sure you can grow and overwinter them ok but be aware that it can be tricky to try to manage a small-pond population of them for food. By tricky I mean sometimes not really possible. The ones that you put in will grow all right, but once they reach breeding size they will breed and you will get a jillion baby bass/perch/sunfish. The problem is you then have a jillion mouths to feed in the pond, all roughly equally competetive, and you typically end up with a population of tiny stunted fish that never reach eating size. In a really big pond (like, an acre in size) it is not too hard to ensure there's always enough big predaceous fish (big bass, etc) left to prune down the population of juveniles to a small enough number that they can attain reasonable size. But in a very small pond like yours, it doesn't always want to work that way. So IMO the best plan if you want actual food production from that size pond is to either pick something like carp or catfish that don't tend to breed as soon/successfully, or try to fish (or net) the pond pretty hard as soon as the fish approach breeding age and try to get most of them out and into the freezer before they breed. (In serious operations of course what you would do is drain or rotenone the pond to clean it out if it gets too juvenile-infested, and just start over; but that's not a good backyard solution)

Anyhow that should give you some sense of the playing field and what to do more research on, good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[chickensducks&agoose]

Wow pat, that was a lot of helpful information. As far as actually eating fish, I eat Salmon... but i figure they won't really work in my backyard pond I think the pond is mostly about 8' deep, shallower near the edges, probably deeper in the middle. at 6' from the edge it's waist deep... spring fed, always has a melty spot at the spring mouth... I don't want the pond to be grosser, somewhere I heard that fish can actually make the duckiness less gross...

 

[Wifezilla]

A good prey fish for perch could be Rosie minnows. I started with a few from the feeder fish tank at the pet store and now I have hundreds! As soon as they get a little bigger, they will be duck snacks

 

[Farmfresh]

If you are not really into EATING fish, (BTW catfish, bass, bluegill is the usually pond mix in our area and we love to eat them all! ) you could still put that pond to good use and raise some ornamentals! Water gardens are huge these days and you can get good money selling things like Koi and fancy goldfish for stocking those ponds.

We have a person in this area that sells bait minnows, pond ornamentals (koi & goldfish) plus, as a fry for others to stock, a type of tilipia (which need warm water) on Craigslist.