first post, already questions!

[soccerclause]

hey guy's, this is my first post. i just found this forum the other day and i feel like i'm home. i belong to a couple of others, but most pond forums are koi heavy (nothing wrong with koi though).
currently i have a goldfish pond. 300 gal (give or take) with 6 commons. next year their moving to a bigger pond (1000 gal) and i'm turning the 300 gal into a summer fancy pond.
enough of that, onto the reason i'm here. i'm putting in a big pond next year, 3500 gal or so. the plan is to make it native but also native to my region. it is going to have 2 western painted turtles and i know i want a couple of channel cats. flatheads aren't native to my region but if i could get one i would sacrifice the theme! a couple of lmb's and some sort of sunfish or crappie. i was hoping you guys could help me with the stocking levels. it's going to be pretty heavily filtered as turtles are pretty messy by themselves!
i guess that's not really much of a question. 3500 gallons, 2 turles, 2 channels, 2 lmb's. does that leave any room left for a small school of sunfish or crappie? thanks for the help. also i'm working on designing it with google sketchup, i'll post it when i'm done so you can get an idea of what i'm shooting for. thanks

 

[Noto]

None of those fish are actually native to your region, but they'll probably have to do. The Pacific Coast states have strict regulations on their natives, many of which are imperiled because those same states allowed or engaged in stocking of the east/central US natives you mentioned...but that's a rant for another time.

I suggest that, if you want sunfish, you should stock them first and get a reproducing population going the first year the pond is up. You could go ahead and add the turtles, they won't bother the sunnies much. Then the next year, add bass and catfish. Otherwise you are likely to have all your sunfish eaten before they have a chance to establish themselves.

A small pond's natural productivity could support a school of sunnies and your turtles, but once you throw in big eaters like bass and channel cats you'll need to supplement. This may actually be a bonus, as feeding time is the only time you're likely to see the bass and cats unless you have some sort of viewing window. The sunnies are more likely to hang out at the margins where they are easily seen.

 

[soccerclause]

thanks for advice. i realize that most of the fish are not true natives in oregon, but i guess they have been there so long that oregon considers them so. it's right on the odfw website, and their what i fished for all growing up. i was planning on supplementing their food anyways with minnows, shrimp and crawdads. bullheads are actually the native cat in my area but i know they have a tendency to murk up the water quite a bit. plus i just want to grow some big old channel cats! even if i hardly ever see them. bass are kind of the wild cards in this. i was thinking about green sunfish or warmouth instead. i know their aggressive and i won't have to constantly be adding sunfish because they are being eaten'. i was also thinking that a sturgeon would be cool but the only one's i've seen here for sale are white's. and i can't imagine trying to house a fish that big for that long! does anyone know the main difference in black and white crappie? as far as aggressiveness goes.

 

[Cookie*]

Have you considered Rock Bass or Perch? I only know these fish from fishing them, not keeping them in a pond, so I hope I'm not spewing out something impossible for a pond.

 

[soccerclause]

i know we have yellow perch here but i'm not sure about rock bass. i'll have to look them up.

 

[Dark Jester]

Sturgeon might be restricted entirely in Oregon. I know they are in Idaho. Even a 3500 would be a bit small for most sturgeon long term as well. I thought Channel Cats were native? They've been in the Snake River for as long as anyone in my family can remember.

As Noto said, if you plan on mixing sunfish with Bass or Cats, you'll want to get them established for a year before you add the predators. Yellow Perch would be cool too. Bullhead aren't any more messy than a Channel Cat really, and you could have 6-10 of them in place of 2 Channels. Will be a cool setup to see, keep us posted with what you decide.

 

[soccerclause]

i think you used to be able to get white sturgeon in oregon. there's a guy in gresham i think that used to get them from the columbia. i guess there is a group in the columbia that aren't endangered/ protected. he still has them on his website but it says he can't get them anymore. i had emailed him a while back and he said that his supplier stopped stocking them i think. oh well, i wouldn't want a white sturgeon anyways.
you're probably right about channel cats. i'm no expert but i could have sworn that i read somewhere that they were introduced sometime in the 1800's. i know there much more common in eastern oregon. i think we have yellow bullheads in eugene. i'll think about bullheads though. at one point i was planning on them but for some reason i got it in my head that they tend to be messier. it would be cool to have more, but i really like the idea a huge channel. you've given me something to think about though.
i have been reading and i'm starting to lean towards green sunfish. they sound pretty aggressive. it might be cool to have a school of aggressive fish. i would rather have that then a couple of lmb's. and if i change my mind down the road i can add the bass then. anyone out there an expert on green sunfish? anything i should know about them? thanks

 

[Cookie*]

Fatherof5 keeps green sunfish if I remember correctly. And yes, green sunfish are the most aggressive sunfish. I know there's a few threads floating around on green sunfish, if you search the coldwater section of the forums, you will find them.

 

[Gearhead]

Green sunfish don't really school, they're more of a solitary hunter and are very territorial. I suggest some pumpkinseeds or some kind of longear and have a couple greens mixed in. If you have any big predators in a pond that size, the sunfish probably won't last that long anyway. I say a 25-30 pumpkinseeds, 10 green sunfish, 8 brown bullheads and some golden shiners. I'm going to build a large pond this spring, and I'm still debating whether to stock it with trout or some large predators. Good luck.

 

[Dark Jester]

you're probably right about channel cats. i'm no expert but i could have sworn that i read somewhere that they were introduced sometime in the 1800's. i know there much more common in eastern oregon. i think we have yellow bullheads in eugene. i'll think about bullheads though. at one point i was planning on them but for some reason i got it in my head that they tend to be messier. it would be cool to have more, but i really like the idea a huge channel. you've given me something to think about though.

I'm not 100% sure they they were always in the snake/colombia rivers. My great grandfather's family moved to Idaho in the early 1900's though and he used to talk about catching some massive channel cats out of there when he was a boy. My mom has a good story too of hooking a 4 footer in brownlee reservoir when she was a girl fishing in an inflatable raft and getting drug more than half a mile by the cat.

Even if they aren't technically 'native', they've been there long enough to be considered as such in my mind. To me a native tank is one that contains species you can catch locally. If the local Fish & Game or Department of Wildlife considers them to be a game fish they are native.