How Do Ponds Get Populated With Fish?
Ponds are the perfect home for many species of fish. However, a puzzling issue is how a pond comes to be populated with fish in the first place, since ponds are, by definition, small landlocked bodies of water. The process of pond population really isn't a mystery. It is simply a matter of human interference, normal geographical and weather processes, species characteristics and natural fish behavior.
Other People Are Reading
-
Pond Formation Methods
-
Ponds may form naturally or people can create them. If a pond forms naturally, then fish typically come into the pond by natural means, as well. If people create the pond, then the population of fish usually comes into the pond with human assistance.
Flooding and Drought
-
When a region floods, streams, rivers and other bodies of water may overflow their banks and cover more land than usual. This gives the fish room to swim out of the original body of water and into a new location. When the water recedes, some of it settles like big puddles in new areas near the original body of water. Fish don't always make it back to the original body of water before the water recedes and subsequently get trapped in these new ponds.
-
Springs and Spawning
-
If a spring is strong enough, it can create a pathway of water sufficient enough for fish and that connects a new pond with other bodies of water already populated with fish. When it comes time to spawn, the fish may move on this water pathway to the new pond. If the spring dries up, the water pathway also dries up, leaving the fish or its eggs locked in a new home.
Species
-
Some species of fish like the walking catfish are able to travel over land to reach new water. The distance these fish can travel is usually short, and the ground over which they move usually still is waterlogged with plenty of water pockets. However, this adaptation can be just enough to move a fish over a small land ridge and into a pond during a period of flooding. This way of populating a pond with fish doesn't account for the species in a pond who don't have the ability to move over land, but it does explain some of the diversity in the number of fish species a pond has.
Human Interference
-
Sometimes people want to populate a pond with fish on purpose for commercial gain, aesthetics or ecological benefits. In these cases, fish breeders hatch fish eggs, let them grow to a size where they can survive outside of the fish hatchery and manually move the fish to the pond.
Population Factors
-
There are five primary factors that determine whether a pond will remain stocked with fish. These include having both male and female fish, adequate food, good oxygen level, good pH level, and proper environmental factors (e.g., rocks or plants) that encourage breeding.
-
References
- Photo Credit fish. fish called coy carp swimming in a pond image by L. Shat from Fotolia.com
