Posted: Thu Mar 15, 2007 9:54 am
Acclimation to a new water source is key. If the temperature difference is greater than 2-3C, you're going to have some unhappy (and even some dead) fish.
1) Hook-and-line sampling, though fun, is a large stressor to fish. Fish go into their anaerobic metabolic system for energy during the "fight" and must reduce that oxygen debt as quickly as possible if they're not to go into lactic acid shock. Establishing as high a dissoved oxygen (DO) content in whatever container you are transferring them in (through the use of an aerator as mentioned earlier) will give them great success.
2) When stressed heavily, fish excrete a great deal of salts. Osmoregulation (the balance of blood salts in their blood and in the surrounding environment) can become a huge energy expenditure during transfer or other periods of high stress. Often times, creating a 4g/L salt solution will keep the fish from losing so much of their interior salts, providing them with less physiological stress.
3) Tempering their holding water with some of the new pond water is great advice, especially if you've added some salt. Ideally, you would gradually replace their transfer water with the new pond water slowly, say over a period of 1.5 hours. Dumping them directly into the new pond is NOT a good idea.
4) HABITAT. Before you move them into their new homes, make sure you're putting them into an area that has AMPLE aquatic vegetation. After you've stressed the fish that much, they're going to want to sit tight and do nothing for a LONG time and the best place for them to do that is in aquatic macrophyte beds. Weeds, and lots of them. They probably won't eat for at least a day or two so don't worry about getting food in the pond immediately.
Like someone mentioned earlier, nature has a way of working itself out. That could mean that your bass die off and the minnows (what will you be "stocking", by the way?) establish such a huge population that they eat EVERYTHING leaving nothing for any other species. It could also mean that your bass flourish, your minnows die, and you get a hundred bass that never get to be over 6in long. Pond management is literally a science.
All of the above said, it is never a wise move (and is sometimes against the law) to transfer species of fish across watersheds. Often times, if you call your state DNR, they'll stock your pond for free with a good ratio of predators:baitfish. Just make sure that your pond has ample habitat for whatever you plan to stock and you should be good.
Steve "getting his MS in Fisheries science, who just started his largemouth bass feeding trials after transferring 28 fish from a hatchery into a recirculating water system" Ranney
1) Hook-and-line sampling, though fun, is a large stressor to fish. Fish go into their anaerobic metabolic system for energy during the "fight" and must reduce that oxygen debt as quickly as possible if they're not to go into lactic acid shock. Establishing as high a dissoved oxygen (DO) content in whatever container you are transferring them in (through the use of an aerator as mentioned earlier) will give them great success.
2) When stressed heavily, fish excrete a great deal of salts. Osmoregulation (the balance of blood salts in their blood and in the surrounding environment) can become a huge energy expenditure during transfer or other periods of high stress. Often times, creating a 4g/L salt solution will keep the fish from losing so much of their interior salts, providing them with less physiological stress.
3) Tempering their holding water with some of the new pond water is great advice, especially if you've added some salt. Ideally, you would gradually replace their transfer water with the new pond water slowly, say over a period of 1.5 hours. Dumping them directly into the new pond is NOT a good idea.
4) HABITAT. Before you move them into their new homes, make sure you're putting them into an area that has AMPLE aquatic vegetation. After you've stressed the fish that much, they're going to want to sit tight and do nothing for a LONG time and the best place for them to do that is in aquatic macrophyte beds. Weeds, and lots of them. They probably won't eat for at least a day or two so don't worry about getting food in the pond immediately.
Like someone mentioned earlier, nature has a way of working itself out. That could mean that your bass die off and the minnows (what will you be "stocking", by the way?) establish such a huge population that they eat EVERYTHING leaving nothing for any other species. It could also mean that your bass flourish, your minnows die, and you get a hundred bass that never get to be over 6in long. Pond management is literally a science.
All of the above said, it is never a wise move (and is sometimes against the law) to transfer species of fish across watersheds. Often times, if you call your state DNR, they'll stock your pond for free with a good ratio of predators:baitfish. Just make sure that your pond has ample habitat for whatever you plan to stock and you should be good.
Steve "getting his MS in Fisheries science, who just started his largemouth bass feeding trials after transferring 28 fish from a hatchery into a recirculating water system" Ranney
), but salt water is an entirely different beast (obviously). I'm up to the challenge, but what would you suggest to start with? I'd like to start small, maybe a 10-20 gallon tank with 3-5 small fish. Any advice would be helpful.