Red Ear are good. I would look for a farm store with a company they work with. Those prices a triple or more of what I can get here localy. Look through your conservation office, The Farm Bureau and 4H are other places that may have a program.

The problem I see off the bat is you want to stock with predators and no prey.  Any one of your choices of bass/catfish/YP will wipe out the minnows in no time.  If you want a semi-healthy "fishery" you will need some prey fish and typically long-term that is going to be bluegills.  No matter how many minnows you stock they will disappear quickly in any smaller impoundment.  You certainly could use a mix of prey fix but I'm thinking some type of supplemental feeding will be needed.  It seems like it would require a bit more active management to run a "monoculture" but it could be done.

Yellow perch can act as both a prey and predator fish.  Because of their shape bass would handle them.  The problem is they are expensive to stock as prey vs minnow/bluegills.  They will most likely not survive very long in your shallow pond.  That pond will definitely get pretty hot during the summer and the perch will be kaput.

You are headed down the right path by stocking the minnows first.  Let them get a few spawns in before you move on to the next step.  Typically you would also add bluegills at this point.  The minnows keep the prey fish busy until the bluegills get a couple spawns going to then support the prey fish.  Your prey fish stocking should be held off as long as you can wait.  Even waiting until next year would be great!

Your fountain idea is not the best idea for aeration.  It will look nice but a bottom aerator ultimately is best to help keep you water healthy.

I understand your trepidation with regard to bluegills and swimming.  They can be nippers.  They don't draw blood but can be annoying when you dangle your toes in the pond.  It doesn't bother me but YMMV.  You have to decide what is most important for your pond and go from there.

I would suggest you head over to Pond Boss forum and ask your question(s) there.  You'll find many professionals willing to help who didn't stay at the Holiday Inn last night like I did.

P.S. Always be careful of stocking mixes/amounts given to you by those who are trying to sell you fish.

I've never heard of an aggressive bluegill. Maybe an IDGAF when bedding.

I know you don't want them, but they sure are a blast to catch and will be a food source for the larger fish.

How thick does the ice get where you're at?

Thought you were just speaking of a generic fountain.  Yes you should be good to go with one with the drop tube.  The one thing you would want to look into is how much water will this fountain move.  Does the gallons per minute(hour) rating match up with the size of your pond.  Like any aeration method to work best it should be properly sized.  Multiple fountains may be required.

Typically a pond is stocked first with minnows and bluegills.  After a period of time the bass would be stocked.  The bass will prey on the minnows first as they are slower swimmers i.e. less work for a meal.  The minnows will be wiped out in a small pond.  Bluegills will survive to be the long term food for the bass.  

Yes bluegills can overpopulate.  That's where proper pond management comes in.  You can go with hybrid bluegill which spawn less prolifically than native bluegill.  That is one management step.  The other would be to harvest bluegill.  Typically you would harvest midsized bluegills if necessary.  There is a whole science to it and Pond Boss is where you can learn the basics.

Another option is to put in Golden shiners as a supplemental prey fish.  I think I saw shiners on the link you posted.  That is what I stocked in our ponds.  They are much better swimmers and can survive much better.  I always have shiners in the pond to go with the bluegills as food for our bass and yellow perch.  Fish farms typically don't sell or recommend shiners because you won't be back to buy more.  They know you will be back to buy more minnows.  The problem then is once the bass are in the pond minnows becomes an expensive snack and will be gone in a couple days.

Did you have them seal the bowl of the pond with clay? If not it will probably leak into the water table. Mine might be like that I dunno, because it gets really low in the summer.

My pond is a little bit smaller than that, but close. It just has bluegills in it. I put 50 flatheads in it last summer, but I don't know if they survived the harsh winter. I'd like to get some bass, because I have way to many tadpoles, but I'm afraid they'd eat all the bluegills too. The bluegills may not be fun (for adults) to catch, but I think they eat a lot of Mosquitos, and they're pretty resilient.

The bottom line is that I did a ton of research last year, and never ended up stocking it. Basically all the fisheries require a rather large order and I don't know if a <1/4 acre pond can sustain that many fish (or whether I want to spend that much $$$). I might do something this summer.

There is a whole lot more to it than digging a hole, filling it with water and tossing some fish in, for sure!

The volume of water in your pond should be calculated Pond Sizing Calculator. Then the math can be done to determine the correct aerator to turn over the water a reasonable number of times per day.  What is reasonable should be left to the pros on Pond Boss.  Spend a little time yourself to make rough calculations so you can keep salespeople honest.

I'm not qualified or comfortable making a recommendation.  I will agree the fountain system would evaporate more water.  I'm not familiar with the efficiency or durability of the fountains.  We use bottom diffusers in all 3 of our ponds because they are deep(25' maximum w/15' avg depth).  

As far as water quality difference being noticeable from one system to another, I don't know.  I would think a bottom diffuser would be better at moving more of the water in the pond.

Another thought is would the fountain have to be brought in for the winter?  We leave our bottom diffuser systems in place all year round.  We do run them in the winter to avoid winter fish kills.  The diffusers are moved to shallower water in the fall to avoid supercooling the whole pond.  You can also learn about winter aeration at Pond Boss.

Good deal.

The white Amur will not touch algea unless that is the only thing for them to eat.

Before you get your predators in, get a bunch of bull frog tadpoles...

I stocked my small yard pond(15x20ft) with 75 tadpoles a year for 3 years.   Finally got them, about 5 or 6 made it to adult hood, to maturity to where I think they may start reproducing on their own.   They were largely nocturnal for first 2 years and now they are out during the day as well.

Get some good rock and ground cover around the edges.

The surrounding mini ecosystem interests me more than having apex predators in the pond.   I like to use tropical aquarium fish during the summer.   Whatever I dont want to pull out to store in my house aquariums gets wiped out during winter around oct/nov when the water temps drop.    Things like mollies and jack dempsies which breed like crazy get the reset button in winter.

I don't have a pond but have done a lot of reading at Pond Boss.  I would recommend, as others have, getting feeder fish for
your predators.  I would put Bluegill and Golden Shiners.  I'd also put crayfish and frogs like you are.  

However, I would make it a catfish pond, specifically Channel catfish since that's what you can get locally and inexpensively,
relatively speaking.  I would also do some supplemental feeding of the catfish to get them to a good size.  You could make that
a killer catfish pond.  

My dream is to have a pond some day but I'm only doing aquaponics for now.  These are my 12 Channel catfish I overwintered
in my basement that are going back outside in about 3 weeks hopefully.

Bass/ bluegill (bream) / catfish  work good together in a pond.  Crappie (as much as I love them) don't fit in well to sustain a pond mixture until the pond gets to be 6 acres.

So says the extension folks.

Well, just don't swim 'nekkid'!

Seriously, it doesn't matter if you didn't stock with what we call 'bream', which include all the small sunfish--bluegill, green sunfish (bait stealers), redear, , etc.  A pond always ends up with them anyway.  I don't know how, maybe waterbirds.  But even if you never stocked it, in a couple years you could go out there and find bream in it.  Just the way it is.

Looks like a really nice place you got there.

I'm in Dayton. Let me know when you figure it out so I can come help you pull some bass out of there.

I've fished in a much smaller (2 acre) pond on a friends property, and the crappie are thriving among largies and some cats. Bluegills are the main food source, but rare to catch, as the bass population is constantly looking for food and will bite at almost anything.

To OP, I have to recommend stocking bluegill as food for the bass. I've not experienced them being aggressive (other than nibbles). When I think of something that could be a danger to me in a pond, I'm looking more towards snappers.

Probably toads.

I HATE TOADS.   Kill on sight in my yard.  My predatory stuff goes into the pond about 2 weeks after i see toad tadpoles.   Free food for the fish.

Here are some pics of my pond.  It was already stocked with Brook Trout when we bought the house.  This summer I am going to put 100 Rainbows in.  It drops off pretty quick, about 12' average in depth some places 15-18'.  It has a number of springs feeding it with a outlet pipe in the back.  I am the third owner of this house.  Original owners made the pond and stocked it.  Second owners just fished the crap out of it and didn't take care of the fish/pond.  So I am playing catch up with the weeds, algae and silk/muck on the inlet.  I am taking notes and looking into some of the ideas you guys have posted here.  

Here is a picture down by the campsite I took last summer


This was last week right as the ice was finishing melting...(About 2' worth)


There used to be a deck out over the water about 10 years ago.  The ice knocked it off the pillars and they tore it out.  So the previous owners let the grass and cattails over grow so this spring I cleaned that mess up.  I am thinking a new deck and small fireplace...


It was almost 80 here today so I took the canoe out for a few hours and caught a ton of brookies....

Birds will bring blue gill eggs

In Kentucky the state will stock your pond for a really small fee, check with your local fish and game people.

LOL Aggressive bluegills? Are you joking?

Be careful with the state bait.