How To Build a Farm Pond
Introduction |
Planning |
Construction |
Stocking
Catfish Ponds
Channel catfish grow well alone, with few disease problems, stocked at 100 to 150 per acre. When stocked alone, fish grow faster with supplemental feeding. Natural foods include decaying organic matter, plant material, crawfish, small fish, and insects. The relatively low stocking rate (100 to 150 per acre) ensures good growth to a harvestable size in a reasonably short time. You do not want to encourage catfish spawning because of potential crowding and disease problems. To control the possibility of unwanted spawning, stock 25 largemouth bass per acre to the ponds to eliminate any fingerlings less than 6 inches. You can restock catfish after you remove more than half of the fish from the original stocking. Remember to stock larger (8- to 10-inch) catfish to avoid feeding catfish to your bass in established ponds.
One of the most common mistakes pond owners make is stocking too many catfish. Recreational catfish ponds are intended to be much less intensively managed than their commercial counterparts. In general, most farm ponds can support no more than 500 pounds of fish per acre without supplemental aeration. When you stock and grow catfish to catchable sizes (1 to 3 pounds), you exceed the limit when more than about 150 catfish are present. Attempts to exceed this natural limit in farm ponds without supplemental aeration and feeding usually cause stress and disease in the catfish, and oxygen can be depleted to low levels where total fish kills may occur.