Bluegill are spawning

Markw84

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A couple of my largest male bluegill took ownership of two 10" square plant baskets that are full of gravel but no plants. They've enticed some of the females in and now are guarding their nests even thought the water is barely deep enough for them to swim upright. I dropped another basket in where it is 30" deep, and within 2 minutes one of the other larger/more dominant males claimed it as his own!

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wellington

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Hmmm, we catch and eat bluegill :D
What other kind do you have?
When I had my larger pond, my koi always came out of the winter with eggs laid and hatched.
 

mike taylor

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Hmmm, we catch and eat bluegill :D
What other kind do you have?
When I had my larger pond, my koi always came out of the winter with eggs laid and hatched.
We do to ! I just didn't want to say anything . lol I wish I could build a backyard pond that nice .
 

Markw84

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Thank you all for the nice comments. We do love our backyard oasis.

That's very neat. Have any of your fish reproduced for you before?

I get koi spawning every year. Most get eaten, but usually a few make it. I think I have 8 in there now from last year. The bluegill acted like they were spawning last year, but never saw babies. OR they got eaten right away! I also have Mosquito fish that reproduce in there every year as well as fat head minnows. I put the bluegill in there to keep those populations in check. My first year I did not have the bluegill and ended up with well over 10,000 minnows! It was like clouds of bugs around the pond lights at night. I could dip in a net and pull out over 200 minnows at a time! That's when I got the bluegill. Now I normally will have about 40-50 minnows in the pond at any time.

Hmmm, we catch and eat bluegill :D
What other kind do you have?
When I had my larger pond, my koi always came out of the winter with eggs laid and hatched.

I like to eat bluegill too! Just not these.
There are koi, bluegill, fat heat minnow, mosquito fish and high finned shark in the pond as far as fish. I love the native fish but most I cannot have as I do not want fish that will eat baby turtles. So no bass, crappie, etc. I really want sturgeon, but they are such poor feeders, with such poor eyesight, they cannot compete for food in the pond and do not make it.
When the koi spawn, it really makes a mess. They are large koi. A single female will easily lay over 500,000 eggs when she spawns. So when the koi spawn, there are eggs everywhere! Probably 3-4 million. Puts a tremendous load on the filter system and takes a few weeks to get back to normal.

How bout it. He's got a great vacation resort right in his back yard. Now if he would start taking reservations LOL

Let me know if you're ever in the area. A long-time forum member would always be welcome here.
 

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