Non-preditor pond so far

[Johnny-Max]

Non-preditor pond so far.

I put about 20 tilapia in my pond yesterday. I expect them to do well. The guy I bought them from said they may even over Winter since my pond is so deep, not to mention that I will be heating my pond to some degree, since I will be using it to cool my boiling wort. I doubt they will make it, unless I cover a corner with a greenhouse type structure and have the warm water returning under it and limit water flow out to some degree. One day maybe.

Anyway, my pond is pretty much a non-preditor pond so far.
It have the small mosquito fish minnows, glass shrimp, crawfish, golden shiners and now talipia. All are pretty much vegiterians except the crawfish eat anything. I am feeding them my spent grains from brewering. 600 lbs of grain and that is the dry weight per batch. I hope to get at least 1,000 lbs of tilipia in the Fall.

Catfish and Black Crappie will be stocked next. By the time I stock them, there should be enough food for then to grow like crazy.
I may have to harvest the fish in the Fall with a gill-net, I will have to wait and see.

[Johnny-Max]

According to calculations and using very conservative figures, in 2 months I should have
1,250,000,000
Tilapia in my pond. What would happen if they get to 1/2 lb each!
I doubt there will be enough air supply, so their reproduction should slow down before they reach that number.... I hope!
I am adding a pretty water fountain in the middle of the pond for the Queen to enjoy, I am adding it to aerate the water for me

[Johnny-Max]

Oh, and I am fertalizing the pond with chicken and rabbit manure.
According to the Texas Parks and Wildlife you can increase fish production up to 400%
They of course recommend chemical fertilizers.
It works the same as your garden, if you can build up the microbial life and algae, that supercharges the food chain.
I am so excited to finally be able to do all this.
Oh, I need to set up those big above ground tanks that I am going to make out of the siding from an above ground swimming pool I got free and line it with the old heavy liner from our 20'x40' in-ground pool.
Everything is coming together. I can run the water from out heat-exchanger at the brewery into the tanks first to heat them up, during the winter. Man, so many ideas... I am like a kid 

[longbskt]

So, no more barrels of tilapia in your living room?  I know the Queen will miss that!