Adding 5,000 Prawns to Our New Pond!

Folks at home welcome back to the

Crimson Oak Pond and today we're going

to be stocking 5,000 of these jumbo

shrimp known as freshwater prawns into

our pond we're also going to be

installing a volcano pump that'll

benefit all of the fish in the pond as

well as installing a new Squirrel House

in the Big Oak Tree so one of our most

successful projects last year was

building this prawn Pond and the reason

we decided to add prawns into the 5 acre

Pond is because we can't add crawfish

because they could burrow a hole through

our clay liner and as you can see these

jumbo prawns are a huge protein snack

for the bass and also another reason

that the bass went from 2 in to 5 lb in

about 18 months so what you see here is

the average size adult prawn that we

grew and it took about 5 months and we

would release some of them right here on

the Pond's Edge but a lot of them got

put in at night and were an easy meal

for the bass under the green lights so

it's time to restock the prawns this

year we have one slight problem the

prawn Pond got a big upgrade and now

looks like this so this year going to be

raising them in three different bodies

of water and our shipment just came in

of 5,000 post larva prongs and you can

see these are juveniles and when they're

first born they're about an eighth of an

inch long but we feed them a heavy

protein diet and they'll reach adult

size in only 4 months so the first thing

we're going to do is start out by

putting them in a holding tank so we can

control the temperature the only

difficulty with Raisin prawns is making

sure their water temperature doesn't get

too low because they can't survive in

anything below the mid-50s so we're

releasing the first bag pch in here and

just like last year they immediately go

to the side of the containers and start

feeding on any type of algae that's in

the tank and now let's talk about the

second body of water we're going to be

adding the prawns to if you guys recall

when we were building this Pond right at

the top of the waterfalls we dug out a

wetland filter all right beautiful

afternoon out here with the sun setting

now we're about to stock some prawns and

we're going to put some in the Wetland

filter and down there in the main Pond

but the prawns down there may get eaten

by the Blu gills or Bass But the perfect

thing about having this Wetland filter

is you got this nice little Sanctuary so

this entire area has no predators in it

plus it's a wetland filter so it's full

of nutrients you can see algae down

there on the bottom well I have to take

that last statement back I said there

wasn't any predators in there but if you

recall last week's video The Tiger Bass

spawned and I made an attempt to catch

some of those baby bass fry and I was

only successful in Catching one of them

but this little guy now lives in the

Wetland filter that's going to get

stocked full of prawns he may grow at a

record rate and by the way I asked you

all to help me name him and by far the

most popular name was Truman so

congratulations Richard you are the

winner so we're at that time a year

where we shouldn't have any more cold

nights so we're going to go ahead and

put some right here in the Wetland

filter and this top layer is only about

a foot and a half deep but the gravel

goes down 6 ft deep so while these

prawns are at the post larva stage they

could get down there in that gravel and

we couldn't see them for weeks or maybe

even up to a month until they get big

enough for their Force to come out and

there's the perch right there that the

Eagle's been landing on there's a cool

shot of them hanging out all right so

now these guys have acclimated to the

holding tank which we filled with pond

water out of Cedar Falls so we're going

to transport some of them into the

Wetland filter and the prawn should

Thrive here fresh water

algae and plenty of places to

hide all right there's two things the

prawns need in their holding tank one is

warm water so we got this thermometer

set to about 80° to offset any nighttime

temperatures out here the second thing

they need is a lot of oxygen so we're

going to drop some of these pucks down

to the bottom there now second

one so I've been feeding these guys a

heavy dose of protein pellets and it is

amazing to see how quickly they grow

each day I come out here they're

noticeably bigger now it's time to move

some to the 5 acre Pond all right we're

in the shallow corner pocket of Bonnie's

Bayou and we're going to release some

prawns right here in this area you can

see this is extremely shallow right here

and and there's a lot of algae for the

prawns to feed off of you can see it's a

perfect safe haven for all those fish

that just hatched and if there's any of

you out there that want to stock prawns

but don't have a good setup like a

holding tank or a prawn Pond the best

thing to do is just Overstock the

shallow areas of your pond especially

the areas that have the vegetation

because While most of them will get

eaten up by the bluegills and other

small fish still roughly 10% of them are

going to make it to that adult size and

if you stock enough numbers in the

beginning that 10% could be enough to

have an impact on your bass so now it's

time to install the volcano pump into

the pond and there's several benefits to

this that we're going to be talking

about here in just a moment but its

basic job is to act as a huge airation

pump it's 5 1/2 horsepower but the other

cool feature about this model is it has

these big canister LED lights so you can

pretty much put on a light show at night

and we're using some 5 gallon buckets

filled with cement as anchor points and

we've got 200 ft of power and lighting

cable that are going to connect back to

our control panel and it floats which is

a good

thing we got the control box mounted

some conduit leading down into the

water and I had the guys from

Southeastern Pond come out to help me

install this these guys are very

knowledgeable and made it look like an

easy job so we wanted to get it out in

at least that 6ft depth range so we

chose right out to the left of Alcatraz

Island out in the center of the pond and

once the guys got everything anchored

down there's only one thing left to do

and that's power it

on and I'll have to say guys this video

does not do it justice the volume of

water this thing moves is incredible

people install Pond airators or

fountains for the Aesthetics look but

the volcano style is completely opposite

it has one major job and that surface

Iration and a lot of L of people call

surface aerators an insurance policy for

your fish so anytime you have a lot of

vegetation or in our case Plank and

Bloom from the fertilizer and you get

these real hot summer days sometimes

either a thunderstorm can trigger it by

dumping a lot of cold rain water in the

pond or even those very hot temperatures

can cause that Plankton Bloom to die off

rapidly and when vegetation or Plankton

dies at a rapid rate it depletes all of

the dissolved oxygen which can lead to a

fish kill and you lose every fish in the

pond so for starters this pump's going

to prevent that and the second benefit

is that as we add more and more fish to

the pond each spring when we have new

spawns and introduce more Blu Gill small

bass and even tilapia the increase in

number of fish is going to require more

dissolved oxygen which this pump is

going to provide more than they could

ever need but this airator is going to

improve the water quality and will also

reduce algae growth because by producing

more oxygen in the water it converts

things like phosphorus which algae

typically uses for food and not to

mention by churning up the water a lot

of those algae spores get pushed down

deeper and die off because they don't

have access to the sunlight another

added benefit is a reduction in

mosquitoes because they require still

calm water for their eggs to develop and

it's also going to reduce the

accumulation of bottom sediment so the

organic matter in the pond decomposes

much slower under low oxygen conditions

so as you can see by adding more

dissolved oxygen there are numerous

benefits and this system works great in

conjunction

with our diffusers and we installed

three diffusers just after we built the

pond and the diffuser is really good at

last but not least we had to check out

the LED lights at night the really cool

thing about this is they have built-in

color patterns for holidays throughout

the year so like red white and blue

during fourth of July green and red

during Christmas so now our fish are

going to know what holiday it is they

should be

celebrating now today we're going to be

working with a product called Sunday to

help improve the lawn around our

backyard pond as well as out at the farm

and we started the first application of

the Sunday product about 6 weeks ago and

this is what our long looked like it was

in pretty good shape but you could see

there were a couple of bad spots and

this is a quick look at what the lawn

looks like 6 weeks after applying the

Sunday

product and just in case you didn't see

that video Sunday's products are

extremely easy to use you basically just

hook them up to a water hose there you

go it's got pretty good range on it

Sunday works as a subscription service

and you start out by using the tools

they give you to take a soul sample of

the backyard and you send that off to

their experts and based on your so and

climate they'll send you back the exact

mix of fertilizer you need to keep your

yard looking great throughout the year

so Sunday takes all the guest work out

of it and make it extremely easy to use

with these pouches that attach to your

water hose so if you're interested in

checking them out head over to gets

sunday.com

bamabass and for a limited time they're

offering 30% off your first long care

Box by using code bamabass 30 at

checkout so Nate makes has been building

a squirrel house for the fox squirrel we

call Foxy and we put out a few feeder

stations to see which area had the most

squirrel activity and that turned out to

be highly entertaining in itself because

as always you never know what you're

going to get with the wildlife we saw

Flying Squirrels George Jones The posum

and even clever raccoons figuring out

ways to open the feeding stations and

access the peanuts all right out of all

the squirrel feeder stations we put out

the nut bar did the best it's pretty

self-explanatory it's in this giant oak

tree lot of animals living and using

this tree each day so we're probably

going to mount the squirrel house right

here on this big Branch but the tough

part is figuring out how to get power

and ethernet down here to this location

because we're literally 1,500 ft away

from the closest power source but I'm

always up for a challenge so let me just

show you guys this cool little package

here by Dakota lithium called the power

box I call it the juice box there's a

lot of these type deals out on the

market but this one is by far the best

trust me I've tried a bunch of them so

to start off with it has a lithium

battery this one is the 135 amp hour

which will give you juice for quite a

while well the best part about this is

they've made a waterproof device that

has a multi-function inverter built into

it but not only that it has built-in

storage for things like this switch I

can mount it right there the 120 volt

plugs are right there everything get

stored away nicely so I like this

product so much I'm even going to put a

link down in the video description so

you can check it out now the second part

of this deal is getting the Wi-Fi signal

down here so we're going to mount this

up high in the tree and it's going to

send the video signal from the squirrel

box camera 1,500 ft away to the cabin

without any day loss we're even going to

be able to live stream it so time to get

everything set up and installed all

right Nate out here delivering the

Squirrel House what we got Nate we got

the beautiful mahogany front door set

wood floor

inside come around back you got

waterproof hinges up top way you can

open her up let's see the inside of the

Squirrel House got the full housing

Suite in there got the kitchen got the

living room with the TV over here got

the bedroom set down here got the

squirrel bed right there even built in a

camera so all you guys can

[Laughter]

watch Candle on the

table so the first thing we had to do

was set the table with some almonds and

a variety of nuts to hopefully lure the

squirrels into their new home we also

put some bonus items in in the

refrigerator it's going to be

interesting to see if they can figure

out how to open it and Nate was even

thoughtful enough to build them their

own front lawn he's got little hidden

gems everywhere you can see they even

have a

fireplace I like the front lawn dude

nice good

cut yeah I wonder who's going to get up

here and cut the

grass so big shout out to Nate makes an

incredible job the animals are always

happy when you show

up and we may have had to do one or two

sketchy things that wouldn't be approved

by OSHA but hey if we're ever going to

live stream all these cameras these

things are necessary so one last look at

the inside of the house unfortunately we

installed this so late in the week

you're going to have to wait until the

next episode to see the squirrels enter

their new home so now let's go check in

on our little buddies and Cedar Falls

and I'll have to say I'm starting to

love the bass we call Johnny and June

and the Blu gills there's something

special about having fish that aren't

scared of people and now every time I

come up to the pond they swim over and

greet me and a lot of this began when we

started feeding the bluegills the

protein pellets but the bass Started

enjoying us coming by for a different

reason so this Pond was built with

shallow shelves so that the bait fish

like the golden shiners we stock in here

have a way to hide and get away from the

bass well every time we walk up we scare

those shiners out of the shallow pockets

and that's when Johnny and June get

aggressive so pretty much every time we

come up to the pond the fish get a full

belly so now they look forward to us

stopping

by and it's that time of year where all

the lies are blooming which also means

that it's toad time so if you're around

any body of water this time of year

there's a very good chance you're going

to hear that mating call from the frogs

and toads and this is nothing new to us

we've been seeing it the past few years

in the backyard pond so when you hear

these little guys around the edge of the

pond if you look closely you'll start

seeing these strings of eggs and then

when you come back a couple days later

those eggs become tadpoles and you may

see thousands of them but they're very

beneficial because those Tad poles eat

the algae off the rocks and basically

help give your pond a good cleaning and

once they fatten up they also become an

easy meal for the blue gills but there's

one guy out there that's not too happy

with the invasion of the toads and

that's

Moby he said not in my house so next

week I promise we're going to give you a

full update on the backyard pond and

Moby they're all doing great and have

gained a lot of weight over the winter

so now let's check in on the two bald

eagles they are official residents we

see them out here every day usually

stopping down to snag a fish early in

the

morning or as you can see here scooping

up the tiny fish on the edge of the

banks but there's one thing you're for

sure to see every day when the Eagles

are around and that's the angry

crows they are sworn enemies and the

crows make sure to let the Eagles know

it

but I did see something interesting I

was watching a group of crows run the

eagle off but I'm pretty sure one of

those wasn't a crow maybe a small Hulk

or something that swooped down and

tapped him we also had a special guest

appearance from one of their babies the

juven Eyal Eagle we hadn't seen him in

about a month so it's always nice when

he stops by but check this out guys look

what I saw floating on the side of the

pond I believe this is that mystery fish

that we started seeing right after I

stocked the pond with bass he was

floating because he choked on another

fish but that's interesting to see I

wonder how many of these guys are in

here all righty Fish Feeding time we got

some live golden shiners I got about a

dozen or so pet bass that hang out right

out here in front of the dock so I've

been working on hand feeding the bass

and I'm starting to get very very close

there's a couple of them that'll come

right up to my hand and I just know the

first one that explodes on it like Moby

used to I'm probably going to drop the

camera in the water but so far I can get

to within just a couple inches of them

but I can't make them commit but I'm

determined to make it happen so while we

watch a feeding clip I want to talk to

you about the antennas if you look on

the right you can partially see one of

the antennas that we're using to track

the fish so one of the big reasons for

installing the antennas is to gather a

bunch of data and hopefully learn

something about bass that we didn't

already know so asked you all to give me

some ideas on what type of things we

should track with the data and there

were several comments but one of the

comments I lik the most was about

tracking the data to see which time of

day the fish were most active and that

type of data could really help out

fishermen knowing what time of day the

fish are actively feeding throughout the

seasons of the year because one thing I

noticed last year was that the bass

would feed pretty heavily at night time

in the summer you could hear them out

there on the dock feeding at night

around the pond so we don't have a ton

of data yet but if you just look back

over the past 2 weeks we have some

pretty interesting data so let's start

with a green light antenna on the left

so this graph makes perfect sense a lot

of the bass congregate around the green

light at night because that's where I

feed them and you can see that most of

the bass activity was between 4 and 700

p.m. but that data could be a little bit

biased because I'm out there feeding

them so the oak Throne is probably a lot

more like what you would see out in

other ponds and lakes and I found a

couple things very interesting so most

of the fish appearances occurred between

18 and 20 which again is right there at

dark and is pretty common so I wasn't

very surprised but what I was surprised

about was there being almost zero was

there being almost zero activity early

in the morning right at daylight so

typically that could be one of your best

fishing times but as you can see for

this twoe period the fish were not

active at all in this particular area

and we also did one more graph just to

see which fish were the most active in

each area so Jaws Odin and Excalibur

hang out around the green light and

Xavier Dixie and unit probably live near

the oak throne but we're going to keep

analyzing the data leave a comment below

if you'd like to see any particular

graph and check that out got the green

volcano matching the underwater green

lights

perfectly and you know here in the South

it is officially crawfish season and

this is our 10th Annual crawfish cooking

and I'll typically cook for around 70 to

100 people so it's going to get hectic

with five burners going at the same time

we got the Crawfish tables laid out over

here and you know if Nate makes is

around the tables are going to have to

have that engraved secon logo so we

start out by purging them and just

running a bunch of water through them

but the key to a successful crawfish

bowl is you have to Pardon one of the

Crawfish and release them back into the

wild and by far the best crawfish

seasoning you'll ever taste is a

combination between these two which are

swamp fire and the Louisiana seasoning

the swamp fire adds the spice the

Louisiana is the salt and we got the

Cajun butter for the potatoes and

sausage but trust me folks you cannot go

wrong with this recipe if you try it one

time you'll probably never try anything

else and if you're interested in our

exact recipe and how long to cook the

Crawfish potatoes sausage corn you can

go check out some of our old videos

where we have everything detailed and

listed out so pretty much everywhere in

the country's been experiencing some

crazy weather but thankfully all of ours

has been flooding and not tornadoes but

as you can see the Eagles are doing

their best to weather the storm up in

the eagle Tower but eventually it's just

too much and here's one thing you never

like to see because every time we get

those flood-like rains Cedar Falls goes

from Crystal Clear to muddy water but if

you look closely at all that water

that's flowing back there behind the

Wetland filter down into the drain

that'll give you an idea of exactly how

much water flow we had because at one

point the entire drain filled up and

started overflowing and that's got a 36

in pipe that HTS it down into the 5 acre

pond so that was a massive amount of

water flowing through that ditch and

it's also a major reason we put that

drain in there because had we not that

volume of water could have done a lot of

damage to Cedar

Falls and we got a visit from one of our

favorite farm animals the owl that we

call Hooter and Hooter's been doing a

little hunting tonight and I tried and

tried to see what type of animal this

was that he captured and brought up to

the eagle Tower at first I thought it

was a baby rabbit but the feet didn't

really match up so I'm not 100% sure

what this is but that's another reason

we built the squirrel house to give foxy

a little bit higher chances of survival

so this is a first for me a rainbow

trout jumped in the shallow part of the

pond and spooked The Blue Heron doesn't

look like he's having much luck today

and look at this little friendly guy I

found in the driveway this little guy is

making his

rounds and we also had a new duck show

up and I was a little surprised because

once the Eagles pretty much much moved

in all the Ducks left but you can see

this guy's relaxed and not a worry in

the world taking him a nice nap out here

in the pond so one of my subscribers

reached out last week and said did you

know you had an invasive grass out there

at the farm and this particular grass is

known as Coan grass or grass and is

extremely invasive down here in the

South and you can see these little

cotton-like tops are how they spread the

seeds and I did some research it is

extremely hard to kill and usually

requires several applications of Roundup

but I'm worried about doing that near

the pond so if any of you guys have

experience of getting rid of this grass

or if you know of a safe chemical to

spray around ponds let me know all right

time to go catch some fish see how big

they've gotten there's a little bit of

algae in the pond so we're going to try

out the Frog

today got him nice one

put up a good

F it's tough to beat

that it's one healthy

fish chunky all right this fish has been

caught before 56

9587 and it weighs 2.27 lb and this fish

is named Lily and Lily got the award for

the most aggressive fish last spring

because I caught her released her and

then caught her again 15 minutes later

oh

no get out of

there he got me in the Treet top I put

out not a

giant good fight

though there we go all right this fish

has not been caught his tag is going to

be 22

32598 he weighs

1.78

lb got

him where are you running

to we go all right this fish has been

caught 5 six

9705 anyways

1.65 and this fish is named turbo