Does anyone provide any "toys" for their fish?

I mean... I give my dogs Kong toys and the cats get an assortment of little latex squeak toys as well as catnip thingies so they can roll around and make fools of themselves as if they consumed a few too many adult beverages but I have never really done anything for my pet fish?

I throw in a wooden duck, but they just look at it. They do like it -- they do! -- when I sing to them. I swear they're dancing.

A wooden duck huh? Do your fish jump out of the water and leap over it with glee? What about fishie jungle gyms or something? I've never seen fish toys for sale anywhere come to think of it.

Mine made a real good toy for themselves out of a bird. They grab the cord on the thermometer and dunk it too.

My fish like it when I am doing a water change. They line up in front of the hose and swim as fast as they can in the current. When I feed them they look for clumps and charge into the middle to break it up. Sometimes nuts about the size of a pea fall in the pond and after discovering it is too hard to swallow, they carry it to a particular corner and release it in the water flow. Then another fish will grab it and do the same thing. :) Jessamine

Wow, are our fish having fun or what! Ya know, my fish charge into the center and fin each other to eat too. I'm gonna have to have a talk with my fish for not playing nice.

And then there was that cinder block I had at the bottom of the pond. They swam in and out of that endlessly just frolicing and playing chase as if they hadn't a care in the world.

I don't think there is a fish out there that doesn't like a good water change! It's almost like one of those fancy current pools for people where they can build up endurance or resistance or whatever. Guess our fish are bulking too!

I can't help but think about all the fun our fish have "playing" in the pea gravel of my potted aquatics. Gosh, a week doesn't seem to go by that they don't knock one over or playfully shred a plant. Anyone else have fishies playing in their pea gravel or shredding plants?

I think we better come up with some toys or the next thing you know they're going to be picketing with signs demanding watermellon shots, floating fishie lounge chairs, and sun glasses.

Look what I found! A Koi Castle!

http://www.pondmart.com/pondmart-pond-supplies/koikastle.html

What a great toy! The fish can play hide and seek with Herons and Kingfishers!

I am embarrassed to admit it but, I bought a set of rubberduckies for my fish. Jessamine

We bought a set of floating fake lily pads with fake mini frogs attached. They were a little too cutsie but the kids liked them. The fish liked them too and they would sort of hang out underneath them. Your rubber ducks sound like fun. You have to at least try to add a little silliness to this hobby even though the fish don't exactly cooperate.

Ah hahaaaahaaaa! Rubber duckies! Oh I would never do anything that goofy!
My duckie is wood.

Dancing fish? Rock City, either cut the amount of joy juice in half or add lots more water to those evening cocktails, but keep singing!. LOL
"O"

Cut the joy juice...
Does that mean RockCity has to cut back to only a half a bottle of tequilla? This would be pure and unadulterated deprivation. However can one enjoy the dancing fishies if one cuts back.

Hey, those fish don't even dance if I don't have enough tequila on hand. One does what one must.

This post really made me laugh. My fish must be depraved, or is it deprived? They do play in the streams of water and the smaller fish love playing pea ball until a larger fish snags the pea, but that's it!

Mine are really having a field day playing dead at the bottom of the pond these days since the temps have dipped into the 30's and 40's. They're just really hootin up a storm down there floating with little x's in their eyes and zzzzz's bubbling out of their mouths.

And I am complaining about 70 high and a 50 low? Yikes, Equal!!

I swear I am still laughing about your fish playing "pea ball" whilst mine are auditioning for parts in the coming movie "The Fishie Dead Zone".

We've had quite a few frosts already and one was a hard frost at 26F.
You southern folk really need to stop flaunting your weather! I swear!
And... drum roll please... snow in the forecast this weekend although they say it won't stick. Ha! They are probably lieing again.

New song for Jessamine-
"Rubber Duuuckie, you're the one...
You make pond time lots of fun..."
can't remember the rest so I better quit while I'm ahead.

A little something for the "discriminating" pond owner-
http://www.geekgrrl.com/archives/2003/09/002694.php
scroll down please after you click on the hyper link

Fishie Dead Zone.....didn't I see that one? In the fifties? LOL!! Ours are definitely slowing down with the cooler temps. They line up at the bottom edge, looks like a parking lot.

We did have a frog in the pond once. I swore David (DH) was dreaming till I saw it, but he was eating the fry, I think, so I chased him off. David was so bummed I bought him another.

Ha Ha Ha! The eyes on that thing!

The eyes are bulging out at me!

We do have fun. I came home to his retailiation the next day.....

Actually, that was sort of sweet if you like roses. Here you were giving him a jab with the fiendish looking frog with the eyeballs bulging out of its head and he turns around and buys you a beautiful red rose for your garden and it is in bloom. Awwww!

He is a sweetie! It's such a grand rose, never fades, never wilts AND it never dies out!!

Oh Gaaawd!
It's fake!
Can we say Touché?

Yup. Fake. I followed up with pink flamingoes, small ones, which he abhores. Tee hee. Can't wait to see what he does next.

Look, I'm not saying I DID this, but wouldn't it be great if, after you and your significant other had a somewhat heated debate about the benefits/uselessness of Osmocote pellets in the tomato plant hole, and grudgingly agreed to drop the pellets into only half the holes, and planted eight tomato plants, and then he went to work the next day you snuck out to the Big Expensive Nursery and purchased four (4) waist-high, fruit-laden tomato plants and replaced the four skinny plants that you'd put Osmocote around, and then got yourself a tall cool drink and sat pondside nonchalantly waiting for him to come home?

Not that I would actually DO this. I mean, I HAVE a life. :)

Well RockCity,
I'm thinking I wish you would have been around about a month ago so that I could have expanded on your osmocote/tomato strategy. I wish I would have thought of doing something like that after my husband questioned me about buying even more ferns for around the ponds after so many of the last batch that I planted were uprooted by squirrels. Yup, I should have just gone out and bought new bigger plants and told him the latest and greatest squirrel deterrent was working just fine. He's still poking sport at me for the hootin motion activated owl with the glowing eyes that I bought that the squirrels didn't even bat an eyelash at. I feel like such an idiot. He stood in front of the kitchen sink this afternoon snorting as he pointed at the squirrels rooting around underneath the ever most watchful eye of my latest and greatest anti-squirrel device.

And ladyanne, we've been down the pink flamingo path over here. We had an entire flock compliments of one of our illustrious family members or friends. We still haven't figured out who repeatedly "gifted" us over a period of time spanning about 5 years.

Oh, Rock, thank you. I am laughing here. Needed terribly as I lost my seed collection (the ones I didn't have packaged for others, and all the precious but few seeds) ion an unexpected rain last night and I needed this laugh. My first reaction was to read this to my love, but then, I thought, no, nope. No way. Oh dear, you are bad. I love it. All I need to do is remember this one next spring. You are adorable.

The owl didn't work?? Bummer!! We had a walnut tree that had to come down, but it fed the huge population of local red tailed squirrels. We felt so bad we BOUGHT walnuts for them. Actually they have never caused problems, outside giving our cats reason to climb trees to try and catch them and a guarentee each and every deck pot has a walnut tree growing in them. I am praying this continues and they never do actual destruction.

Where would be be without amusement, joy and laughter?

Oh shoot! I just offered to work for you (ladyanne) for food in another thread and I see you are somewhere in California! Gosh darn it! Greyhound isn't my style and that's about all I can afford these days! And NOOOOOOOO, that darn mail order motion activated hoot owl did not work. I'm donating it to the school for their Halloween party for the kids. Think its time to resort to one tequilla, two tequilla, three tequilla, floor! I just saw that written somewhere recently and I about fell over laughing.

I have been reading this thread and laughing! I have also laughed at the fish trying to swim *upstream* in both my waterfall and hose.

I wanted to share with you a funny law that is on the books (for Ohio I think). It is one of those very old ones that makes no sense and has been in place for like 100 years or more. The law states that it is illegal to get fish drunk on Sundays! Once, when working on the pond, I kicked over a beer and a couple of ounces trickled into the pond. My kids warned me I may go to jail for that. LOL

As for toys in my pond, potted plants seem to be the most fun!

OMG, she got her fish drunk on beer. Uh, Badseed, that beer is SUPPOSED to be for the snails!! Was it a Sunday? Oh, laughing....how about things you have lost in the pond? I have never found a silver bracelet, it's still down there somewhere. A huge pot of catnip, oh, and three plecostamuses.

Hmmm, other than my mind, I haven't lost much in a pond. I do work outside a lot and toss my wedding ring on a regular basis but we have a handy dandy metal detector to aid in the retrieval process. My husband says one of these days I am going to lose it for good.

Bad bad bad Badseed. Booze be for you not for the leetle fishies! However will you be able to "see" your fish dance and sing and do all those other wonderfully playful things if you're wasting it by kicking your beer in the pond! I swear! People these days have no vision!