I am going to be moving houses soon and thankfully this also means I will now have a large enough yard to build pond. I have a yellow bellied slider turtle that will be going into the pond and I was wondering what sorts of north american native fish that will do well with him. He has started to get to the point where he is starting to stop craving meatier foods and is moving more towards eating up plants. I have some small "worker fish" in his tank right now to help clean up and he hasn't bothered them for weeks so I don't think I need to worry about whatever I put into the pond becoming lunch. I like the idea of maybe some longear sunfish or something similar but I was hoping there might be some sort of catfish or something that might work out as well. Thanks for the advice in advance (and if you think anything I have mentioned is a bad idea please do not hesitate to inform me of just how stupid you think I am before I do anything I will regret).
Pond fish ideas?
- Thread starter mattgreene
- Start date
How big of a pond are you thinking about? Personally I have blacknose dace breeding in a small pond, but as with everything size limits. Bullhead dont get too big, but they are too big for my set-up. sunnys are a good, hardy fish. On the other hand, there are some small, 1/2 acre ponds that have large sustained harvests of black crappie(~60 pounds) and smallmouth bass(~90 pounds). Im guessing you arnt going that large, but it gives you an idea that you can still house some large species in a smaller area
well, then you have the space for alot of fish. A few years back, we had a 1200 gallon tank that we stocked with quite a few, large, largemouth bass. Since it says your from texas, Ill assume it stays fairly warm? I dont really know how your winters go...nor am I familiar with the natives near you. You have the space for a lot and a temperature range that should allow you to keep a good variety of fish, anything too big for the turtle will be ignored. Studies show bass avoid turtles such as sliders, but it is a learned behavior lol. the sunfish should be fine, as well as smaller cats. I love bullhead and they stay pretty small, but there are a variety of other cats, such as channels and blue, but they get considerably bigger. yellow or white perch are a nice schooling option and I know yellows can do fine in a small area. Another idea would be golden shiners. I never gave these baitfish much thought until I caught some wild ones a few years ago. The wild ones were about 8" and a brilliant golden shine to their scales, impressive.
Ever heard of golden orfes or dojo loaches both good for ponds n grow pretty big.. Also of big enough maybe sturgeon?
Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Probably explains why I can never find them I always look at a bunch of Lfs. I'm from the USA
Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Sent from my iPhone using MonsterAquariaNetwork app
Yeah I never found an orfe or tench for sale and not too many hatcheries raising orfes and tenches. There is a hatchery that carrying Golden Orfe in Maryland. Beware; in some states, it is illegal to keep an orfe.