Finally caught the spawn!

[johnnymax]

A couple of years ago birds seeded my pond with black bullhead catfish. I was feading the bluegill, tilapia and turtles and noticed a black bullhead catfish with eggs. That was a few weeks ago. I was at the pond this morning and saw a black cloud in the shallows. It was over a thousand black bullhead catfish fry. Most get eaten, so I scooped up about 7 or 8 hundred of them. They are in several buckets until I set up the 275g tote again. Anyway they are cool monster fish. They only get 8 to 10 inches in a tank.

 

[Lepisosteus]

Used to do this all the time when I was young. It’s a lot of fun raising them!

 

[johnnymax]

Still many in the pond

 

[The Masked Shadow]

How big do they get in ponds?

 

[johnnymax]

I counted and I only have about 400, LOL
Honestly, I really do not want black Bullhead catfish in my pond.
I stocked 150 channel cats and 50 hybrid channel/blue cats 3 weeks ago.
I have 50 albino channel cats and 15 spotted brown bullhead cats coming in, in a few weeks.
I also released about 18 pretty good size tilapia into the pond to eat the the filament algae.
They have been in there about 4 weeks and the algae is about 1/4 gone already.
Birds stocked it with large mouth bass and in the past I caught two bowfin. I would love to catch another one.
Now that's a monster fish!

 

[johnnymax]

How big do they get in ponds?

12" long. They are one of the smaller species of bullhead catfish. The best for tank life. Very hardy too. The brown and spotted brown bullhead cats reach 18" and 2 lbs. or more.

 

[phreeflow]

How do birds stock your tank with bullhead, bass, and bowfin? Do they carry it in their mouths?

I had a small patio pond and it would suddenly get gammarus and duckweed and never understood how they got in there since I added no plants in there. Could it be birds?

 

[tonymofo]

Bird poop…. Birds eat eggs and seeds… bird sometimes does not digest everything in there stomach…. Bird poops in your pond….. fry/plants now occupy your pond.

I’m still waiting for the 1 bird that eats Asian arowanna eggs so it can poop in my pond

 

[anitstuk123]

I like catfish

 

[newworld]

That bird thing stocking ponds? Heard for years..doubt it…bird poop ok that’s a first haha