Every year we have thousands of offspring which naturally recruit within our farm ponds. Often when working on other fisheries, fishery managers are interested to understand why silver fish reproduce so successfully but the carp don't.
Native’s vs Non-Natives
Pike, Rudd and Roach are all native species across Europe, but Carp were imported here as a food source, they're actually native to Eastern Europe an Asia. These origins of Carp generally have a slightly warmer climate, so they spawn slightly later than our native species here in the UK. This works out well for the Pike, Perch and silver species because their newly hatched fry have a perfectly timed food source once they've absorbed their yolk sacs... that being Carp eggs and tiny Carp fry!
Yolk Thieves
You can imagine, when carp fry hatch and they're relying on their egg sack to provide nutrients during their larval stages before they're developed enough for consuming food. That tiny carp fry and nutrient producing egg sac is the optimal nutrition for species that have not long finished absorbing their own yolk sac, they then benefit from the carp!
Monoculture vs Polyculture
Our fish reproduce effectively because they're reared in ponds which are drained dry annually for harvesting, so the only fish we keep in our ponds are carp - what we call a monoculture system. Therefore, they're not on the menu for any other populations like they would in a mixed fishery - polyculture system.
Clay For The Win!
Our ponds are also built from a clay substrate, clay shares its nutrients with the water far better than more coarse sediment like gravel or sand. More suspended nutrient create a far more fertile environment for fry to hatch into, a crystal clear gravel pit is quite the opposite!
Gravel and weed steals fry feed!
The sunlight penetration through the clear water of a gravel pit creates a growing environment for rooted weeds on the lakebed. These rooted weeds create habitat for predatory larvae like dragonfly larvae, damselfly, diving beetle etc. The weed not only steals nutrient from the water which are important for developing fry, but also hosts a whole new world of aquatic invertebrate life which have fish eggs and fry on the menu. However, these predatory larvae do present a food source for your mature fish, which explains why gravel pits generally produce big carp, but rarely support successful carp fry recruitment... unless sufficient water turbidity is maintained of coarse! 😁
great pellets, was looking for a faster breakdown than my usual pellet and these work great plus bind my Method better. Fish seem to be loving it, it's all being cleaned up
Hi
Got my pellets & natrepel all as described & pleased with everything :)
Courier though ,2 days later than said & done a runner when i told them to leave it in my garage as my safe place, my missus then struggled to put them in the garage as i was working away otherwise the would've been on the doorstep for 2 days! !
DPD rubbish.
So sorry to hear that Ian, shipping is the biggest headach of the business by a long way. We can control everything this end but it all comes down to the driver which can make or break the customer experience, which is the most frustrating thing! It doesn't seem to matter which courier we use either, they all have competent and less competent employees. On the whole, customer feedback on deliveries is good from DPD, sorry that it's not been the case for you on this occasion for. Ben
