Fathead Minnows are low hanging fruit in a pond.  Almost everything wants to eat them, and your pond or lake will benefit from a healthy population. We recommend stocking 1,000 to 2,000 Minnows per acre if your budget allows, restocked each year.  You should see swarms of them around your pond edge when you walk it.

Baby Bass significantly benefit from Minnows as a food source.  They eat Minnows when their mouth size is smaller than available Bluegill sizes.  Shellcracker and Crappie do not train to feed, and so need a healthy Minnow population.

Fathead Minnows will try to reproduce if they can get away from Predators.  They need grass or shrubs to hide in, and will stick their eggs to wood and rocks trying to spawn.  You can sink raw wood pallets down 2′ to 3′ around the shallow end, and Minnows will stick their eggs to them underneath.  Some Folks have gone so far as to wrap pallets in chicken wire before sinking them, so that they become a Minnow Condo of sorts, offering protection from Predators.

Fathead Minnows like to eat pond insects and their larvae, including Mosquito larvae and pupae, and also algae and other protozoa/amebas.  They will also nibble at pelleted feed as it softens.  They tend to spawn from May through August based on water temperature.