I have heard you shouldn't mix the mosquito-eating fish with goldfish.
Can anyone confirm or deny that, please? Thanks
Mosquito fish and goldfish
Traditionally, you don't want to mix goldfish with anything else for a number of reasons. The goldfish outgrow/outeat other fish, produce more waste than most fish their size, will swallow smaller fish, can be picked on by more agressive smaller fish, and like a cooler water temperature than many other fish.
That said, go right ahead and do it. This is a far larger problem in aquariums than in ponds. Goldfish will happily eat mosquitos, you don't NEED any other fish, but if you want them it shouldn't really be a problem. Just don't over stock the pond, and bear in mind that the larger goldfish may eat the mosquito fish.
I have had my pond only for two years now. Have Koi and goldfish in it now. I am going to put some Mosquito fish in mine. Feeding them I guess spoils them as they will not eat any thing alive including there own fry.
Water bugs have a field day in mine and no help from the fish I have now. LOL
Now if I could find out what will eat all of them tadpoles. LOL
Have been netting the gold fish fry and putting them in my compost pile.
They don't eat anything living? That's weird. I'd try feeding them less. They are obviously healthy or they wouldn't be breeding.
When you say mosquito fish, are you speaking about Gambusia (or however that's spelled)? I was told by the local Fish and Wildlife people to avoid those like the plague because they were invasive and extremely fast reproducing. They also said that goldfish were better mosquito eaters. My experience is a bit different in that it's my experience that goldfish prefer the warmer water, going to the bottom of my ponds (8-10' deep) in the winter because it's warmer, and hugging the edges as it warms up (perfect for the heron to eat!). I plan on putting in trout, but will not put in fingerlings because I assume the larger goldfish would eat them. I don't know if trout are mosquito eaters or not.
Bill,
That's interesting about the gambusia. Do you know if they are a problem where the water freezes?
You are certainly right about the behavior of your goldfish. I should have clarified that the problem usually arises in an aquarium, where tropicals are often kept in the high 70's and goldfish really prefer the high 60's.
Are your ponds natural or man-made? I thought I read once that trout require a really big space, but if you have 8-10 ft depths you are probably fine. Are you planning to fish them or just keep them as pets?
I don't know about the freezing. You can see a picture of my ponds on page 3 of this forum under something like this afternoon in newer ponds - billr is the name on it. Anyway, my ponds are perhaps 125'x85'. I think I will just have the trout be there, although I have two grandsons who live close by who may have other ideas! ;) Now that I think about it, the heron who live in the area will most certainly have other ideas. However, I'm putting in Donaldson trout that originally were a hybrid with Steelhead, so get quite large (maybe up to 22"), a bit big for a heron. We'll see! The goldfish love the space, and the herons love eating them!
Bill
I have both, and yes the mosquito fish are VERY fast breeders! I don't know if the goldfish eat them or not though. When I get too many I usually give them away or feed them to my turtle that's in a separate pond. I didn't lose any during the winter, even ones in a 6 inch deep tub. They are wonderful at keeping the mosquitos down, if you don't mind having a bunch they're a great idea.
We have both. Started out with 6 Gambusia, then had hundreds. Actually, every time little kids come to visit, they get a kick out of us letting them "fish" with a net for fish, and they throw out what they catch. That keeps them down. The other goldfish and Koi seem to ignore them.
Also, our fish don't bother living things either... we feed them only during the summers and warmer times.
mel
I must have gotten my koi and goldfish out of the "agressive" tank! They eat anything that gets too close to the pond. Last year they ate a bird. All I found was the skull and wings! No mosquito larvae have a chance.
Excuse me sylvi, exactly HOW BIG are them fish.......eating a bird? Now that's one for the books.
Hap
What you are starving them poor little fish!!!!! Having to eat a bird. No wonder nothing can go near them ponds. LOL
The biggest one is only about 14 inches! I feed them fish food every day, honest. They tried to eat my dog too-he's a Newfoundland. The look on his face when the 'water' bit his tongue was hysterical! Teach him to drink out of my pond. I don't know if they grabbed the bird from the side of the pond or if it fell in and drowned, but they made short work of it.
sylvi, are you certain you didn't make a mistake and stock your pond with piranah? Sounds highly suspicious to me! LOL
Bill
Well, the guy at the pet store said they were good for ponds. . . Goldfish are kind of tall and flat and silvery with a red under side, right?
http://www.piranha-info.com/default.php?lang=en&id=pics_02_2005
But now that I think about it, they look kind of different from the fish in the bowls I had as a kid! LOL!
Those are the purdiest goldfish that I have ever seen, except mine. I thought I had the only ones like that. Where did you get yours?
Hap
The sign outside the pet store said "Cheap fish" and I thought that sounded good. The guy working there seemed really happy that I was buying them, and he had all these band-aids all over his hands. . .
LOL, I used to work in an aquarium pet store , the pirana tank was on the top shelf and guess who was in charge of keeping the tanks clean. LOL, it never failed that whenever I cleaned that tank with my arm inside it up to my shoulder that I would have a crowd watching me and waiting to see me come out with nothing but bones. LOL . It never failed to amuse me the looks on the faces that I would see and everyone standing back just in case.
Sorry I know that was a little off topic but you brought back some good memories.
Oh Draven, just ONCE I would have had to SCREAM and pull out my hand fast. I did that to my stepdaughter and my garbage disposal. Perverted I know.
Hap
Funny, but worth a beating!
LOL Happy, I did it to my manager, I scared her so bad I thought she was gonna beat me before she took me to the ER. LOL So dont worry your among fellow perverts. LOL
sylvi74:
Are you the one responsible for getting rid of a rather large tadpole by throwing it into Lake Placid?
No, I think she said Lock Ness........
So we still haven't figured out how gambusia ate a bird! What's up with that? And for those of you who have more than a couple of goldfish, how dirty are they in your ponds compared to other fish?
I know sylvi, I need a beating.....
Nah, I'm having too much fun to beat anybody. How about a slap with a wet fish? (It was the KOI that ate the bird, not the gambusia)
I've only ever kept goldfish and koi in my pond, but I have also kept them and tropical fish indoors. Without doubt, koi and goldfish are the dirtiest fish I have ever had. Part of it is the mass of the bigger fish. Obviously, the bigger the fish the more waste you get. Every part of the goldfish aquariums got dirtier than the tropical aquariums, filter, gravel, amount of spilled water, algae growth, nitrate levels, everything. I love those fish!
So back to some of the original info, how do you introduce smaller fish into your ponds without them being devoured immediately by the bigger ones? Are you doomed to only add larger fish?
Bill
The only way I can figure you can somewhat safefly add smaller fish is to make sure they have plenty of things to hide in from the bigger fish. Plants, rocks or decor. You have to give them a place where the bigger fish have a hard time finding them and a place to hide and rest that the big fish cant get into. When the little fish grow bigger then they can start coming out around the bigger fish. Or if they are a naturaly small fish they already have the instinct to hide and will keep doing so.
Yesterday I visited Our Nursery and Water Gardens in Livermore and the manager gave me some native California tadpoles for my pond (NOT bullfrogs, which he said he'd pay me to take away! LOL). They are very tiny and black and are probably the small frogs I used to see in the creeks and ponds near my home when I was growing up; I'm hoping they are treefrogs. I was warned by a neighbor not to introduce them to the pond until they are larger, because he said my mosquitofish will eat them! Has anyone else had this experience? He said my goldfish are not a real threat but the mosquitofish are. Here's an article I found about the threat of mosquito fish to amphibian populations... http://www.sciencedaily.com/print.php?url=/releases/1999/08/990803073233.htm. I'm probably going to go to the trouble of netting out the mosquito fish and put them in another water feature I have because, at this point, I really don't need them in the pond and don't want them eating fry and tadpoles. I was worried about the goldfish, not the mosquitofish!
You put the poor little gold fish on the compost pile? My G-- how would you like someone to cut off you oxygen?
TARogers -
How to get rid of tadpoles:
We put a new pond in at the neighborhood elementary school last summer. Before we could buy plants or fish, a teachers son drop two perch in about 1.5 inches long as a "gift". We found one dead in the skimmer a few days latter and never saw the other one again and presumed it was dead also. Later we put a dozen tadpoles in when we stocked with goldfish. We never saw them again, nor did we see any frogs. This spring a sharp-eyed student spotted a "black" fish (as opposed to gold). It was a five inch perch! The little bugger had been hiding for 8 months after eating all our tadpoles.... Needless to say, we removed him/her to the wild.
So that's one way to get rid of tadpoles.
Thanks makshi..............
Hap