Would it be wrong to stock my pond? Not sure what to do...

[Fawkes]

I have a huge pond, its something like 200 ft long, 70-80 ft wide and at least 15 ft deep in the deepest part. I'd love to put some fish it in, like koi, goldfish, channel catfish, as well as some native fish like american flag fish. Obviously not many at a time and at the appropriate sizes.

But I don't want to mess up its natural balance

We've got native populations of blue gilled sunfish, plus turtles, frogs and toads which have tadpoles in the pond, and a few other fish too, not sure what they are.

I don't want the fish I put in to mess up the native populations and cause the sunfish to die out

I'd feed them but I'm still afraid they'd be competing for space (if they REALLY overbred, since the pond is giant) or they'd eat lots of sunfish babies or something. I suppose I could put in fish that are unlikely to overbred, like channel cats? The "lake doctors" have been meaning to put in some grass carp

And they didn't seem to have a problem with us putting some fish in ourselves.

When we moved here there were 2 channel cats, some small goldfish, and 1 giant black moor goldfish already in the pond but they all later got eaten.

What would you guys do? Anyone have any advice or experience of stocking ponds? I dunno if I'm just worrying...

 

[addy1]

I have heard that blue gill will snarf up any fish eggs that are laid, I gave some goldfish fry to a friend, he had one blue gill, it ate two before he could catch it. Now the bluegill is free again lol, i.e. back in a lake it came from.

 

[Fawkes]

Yeah, I imagine a lot of the goldfish eggs will be eaten, which is a good thing of course. I'm sure some will survive though if they hide in plants.

But then the fish I put in will also try to eat sunfish fry... although, the sunfish pretty vigorously protect their fry. They have these 'nests' they make in the shallows as their breeding ground, its really cool. They chase off any fish that come near.

 

[fishin4cars]

not a good mix at all, carp Both goldfish and koi will compete very much so for a balance, the bluegills and and catfish will eat all the young colored fish and leave nothing but the drab natural colored phased fish. The koi and goldfish will eat the eggs of the other fish and compete heavily on the food cycle. my advise on a large pond like that, stay with native fish, they too can taught to come up and feed, are already adapted to the temp zone in which you live and the predators are far less likely to get natural colored fish over brightly colored carp.

 

[Fawkes]

Ok, thanks for your advise. They actually do all come when we sit at the pond. They follow us around like puppies, lol.

 

[addy1]

Ok, thanks for your advise. They actually do all come when we sit at the pond. They follow us around like puppies, lol.

They see you as food gods! lol See ya and magically good stuff drops out of the sky that tastes good.