Stocking catfish in pond...good or bad idea??

[chicks4kids]

We had a pond dug last spring and had it stocked with what our local nursery said was standard for the size of our pond which is 12-15 feet deep and 1/4 acre. It consisted of:

50 catfish
50 large mouth bass
50 red ear
150 bluegill (not hybrid)
2 grass carp
10# flathead minnows

The fish are growing wonderfully and have nests made etc. but, we were told by a family member to get the catfish out of there. That they eat everything. He said that they are a menace and will devour everything. That they will just eat anything and everything in our pond. He has been trying to get rid of his for years and years and can't and the larger his catfish get, the larger the fish he eats get. We had the pond dug basically for the bluegill/bass fishing. But can a catfish really eat the baby fish, or do they swoop along the nests and eat the eggs??? Do they really eat the larger fish? I thought that they were just bottom feeders

What's your experiences/opinions on this? Should we fish the cats out or just leave them?? Thanks for any opinions on this--hubby wants to fish them out immediately! I just want to be sure about what we should do.

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

The flathead catfish eats live food, while the channel cat( pond stockers) eats mostly on the bottom, & can eat the eggs of other fish, but..... I've had channel cats, bluegill, bass, & crappie thriving together in the same pond for 14 years now.

 

[dainerra]

mmm who wants to eat bass when you can have catfish we need a drooling icon!

 

[Sir Birdaholic]

Got one! Yum! Catfish!

 

[chickened]

Feed the catfish and they will leave most other fish alone. They will muddy the water, make sure the carp are sterile.

 

[Imp]

Many years ago I built a garden pond. (Much smaller than your pond- about 800 gallons) Without knowing any better I stocked it with 4 blue channel cats & 4 black channel cats plus goldfish. The blue channels got eaten by a heron, but the black channels grew and got quite large. I wasn't expecting them to go from 1 inch fish to about 24 inches.
The neighborhood kids would go to the petstore with me and always wanted me to buy those weird, round, bugeyed goldfish. They never lasted more than a day before the catfish ate them, but they didn't seem to eat the comets and shubunkins. I think they were too fast for the cats to catch. Eventually ther raccoons had a few catfish meals and got the 5 big ones. Last spring I had to reline the pond and gave away the 5 that were left in the pond.

Imp

 

[cedar post]

Don't do the grass carp!!

 

[Ridgerunner]

I'm not familiar with the flathead minnow in ponds, but I would do anything reasonable to get rid of the carp. They can really be destructive in a pond and keep it muddied up. Sometimes they can get the water quality so bad that the bass especially cannot live. I sincerely hate those things. Hopefully if you only put two in, they were not a breeding pair.

The catfish should be fine in a pond that size and depth. They will hang out in the deeper parts and eat some garbage type things that the other fish won't eat. And by garbage I don't mean anything bad. I mean the kind of stuff that can go rotten and hurt your water quality. They'll even eat chunks of watermelon rind. In other words, they help keep your pond cleaner.

 

[Randy]

Most of the grass carp sold by fish hatcheies are sterile.





>>>When used for weed control, often the fish introduced to the pond or stream are sterile, triploid fish. The process for producing triploid fish involves shocking eggs with rapid change in temperature or pressure. This process is not usually 100% effective, therefore, in the United States, the young are usually tested for triploidy before being sold.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grass_carp

 

[maclady]

OK I just gotta say-catfish, major yuck.

I have lived down south (AL, GA, NC) for a lot of years now and still have not once had catfish that I enjoyed. It may be that I am spoiled since I hail from Michigan and grew up on prime fish, salmon, trout, perch, walleye ect... I have heard some people do regret stocking catfish in ponds unless they harvest them to eat regularly. Good luck with your pond and fish.