KILLING YOUR FISH WITH KINDNESS

By Harrell Arms

What a scene...calm water on your pond, huge catfish lurking underneath, waiting for your beckoning. You bang on the dock three times, throw out a double handful of floating catfish food, and the water erupts with life. All of a sudden, many of your friends, Ol’ Bent Whiskers and the gang, show up for their nightly wrestling match for their share of pellets. Their mouths resemble vacuum cleaners, scooping side to side to grab every last tasty morsel. They quickly consume the food, so you pitch out more. That is quickly gulped, so you pitch out more and more, until the fish are gone.

Sound familiar? People can’t wait until spring, when the nature’s warmth charges the fish and they become active. They feed and feed, all through summer, into the cooling months of fall. The fish grow at amazing rates during this period, people fall in love with their creatures of the deep, and all is well with the world. The next season moves in, the fish revive from their winter hiatus, and the cycle starts over, except now there are many more pounds, if not mouths, to feed. The hot sultry days of August soon arrive and my phone starts to jingle from heartbroken catfish lovers whose precious fish line the pond bank doing the silent backstroke. These fish have been killed by kindness.

What happened? Lightning strike? No, your neighbor didn’t poison them either, you did. Too much food, too many pounds of fish, too much waste, not enough pond. How?/Why? Let’s analyze the problem. As 4-6 inch fingerlings, when you fist stocked them, 100 probably weighed 3 to 4 pounds. Every two pounds of feed created one pound of fish and one pound of waste, in the form of burned energy, liquid waste, and solid waste. Plus, we need to consider the feed that was wasted, never eaten by the fish in the first place. Your pond is slowly turning into a natural septic tank, processing the wastes with bacteria. Scientists call the process “Denitrification”. Big word for underwater composting. The wastes have a tendency to sink into the cooler, less active areas, simply because they are heavier than water. Anaerobic bacteria begin the job of breaking these wastes down, putting them into a form more acceptable to Mother Nature. Mother Nature responds by using these broken down nutrients to grow plankton, or even rooted aquatic plants.

The problem occurs when one or a combination of several things happens. One thing is that the fish can give off more waste than the pond can process, causing it to accumulate and actually poison the fish. Another is oxygen depletion, caused by a rapid die off of plankton or plant life. Oxygen depletions can also occur when a pond “turns over”, mixing the bacteria and rapidly decomposing organic matter throughout the water column. This commonly occurs during the hottest, most still, cloudy days of summer. Warm water cannot physically hold as much oxygen as cold water anyway, all other things being equal. Cloudy days block the sun, altering photosynthesis of plankton and plant life. The sun causes plants to use carbon dioxide and give off oxygen and Ol’ Bent Whiskers is the first to be affected since he is one of the largest consumers of oxygen.

How do we solve the problem and be a hero for Ol’ Bent Whiskers and his running buddies? Follow a few simple guidelines. First, don’t overfeed. 750 - 1,000 pounds of fish per surface acre starts to push the pond’s ability to deal with the waste problems. Fish fed 10 pounds of feed daily, over a 200 day growing season puts your pond into it’s twilight zone. The 2 to 1 gain ratio tells us that fact. So, don’t feed more than that. Secondly, harvest some fish keep those pounds per acres at a manageable level. If you don’t intend to harvest, stock fewer in the beginning. If you intend to harvest, stock more. You make that call. Thirdly, feed the right kind of feed, floating catfish food with 29% protein or more. Make sure that feed has fish meal in it -- Look at the tag. No fish meal, no good. Fish meal has the required amino acids that fish must have to convert carbohydrates to flesh. We often get reports of the guy who feeds dog food, soured grain, or bread. They always tell you that fish are gaining weight and it’s cheaper than high priced fish food. Wrong! The cost per unit of feed may be higher, but the cheaper food has too much waste. Look at it this way, how would you like to sit down to a heaping plate of donuts for every meal? You will gain weight, too. Start with a handful. Feed what the fish will eat in 10 minutes, no more. If they don’t come up, don’t feed. Lastly, be aware. Trust your instincts. If you think the water has changed colors to a dingy, drab tone, call someone. Now! If it smells musty, pay attention. If the fish suddenly stop feeding, find out why. Be especially aware during the summer months. Ol’ Bent Whiskers really wants to be your friend for a long, long time.

If you have further questions regarding fish feeding, please call Sweeney Customer Service at 1-800-443-4244.