I am so thrilled by my little school of goldfish? I also have bullfrog tadpoles too. When can I buy and release more goldfish into the pond? Right now we are having daytime temps in the 50s and 60s and night time temps in the 30s and lower 40s. The pond is 40 feet in diameter so I think it can handle lots of goldfish. I am going to buy oxygenating plants to grow underwater too as soon as it is warm enough. I am a first year ponder.
When to release more goldfish into pond?
Give them a week or two to settle in, keep a watch on them to be sure none of them display any significant problems... Assuming they and their habitat are healthy, thats a good start...
If the temptation, nay craving, to make additions has to be satisfied, consider quaranting any new fish, or disinfecting plants for a few weeks, to make sure nothing upsets the applecart...
Regards, andy
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If you have bullfrog tadpoles/bullfrogs...you wont have fish very long. It's their main food. Other tadpoles and frogs don't seem to bother them, but the bullfrogs can wipe out a pond of small fish almost overnight. You may want to relocate the tadpoles.
I had heard that bullfrogs can also attack small birds. I can't imagine!!
Bullfrog tadpoles do stay tadpoles for up to several years. I remember as a kid jumping into the creek running behind our house and digging up "mud puppies" out of the muddy bottom. I didn't know what they were at the time but I'm pretty sure they were bullfrog tadpoles. They get really big! I can't believe the things I use to do as a kid... yuck!
I think I'll be looking for some nice smaller frog tadpoles.
It seems like even if you could slowly acclimate the new fish to the cold water, it might still shock them. I introduced a Plecostomus to an indoor tank of goldfish which was at about 55-60 degrees, doing it the proper way by floating his bag in the water for a long while. Anyway, he ended up dying pretty shortly after I'm sure from shock, even though I did it the right way and Plecs are supposed to be able to survive temps like that. He just didn't have a long enough time to adjust.
Goldfish may be different in their tolerance to temperature changes though. If you have an indoor fish tank that you could let them acclimate slowly to cooler temps (than the pet store) like maybe over a week or 2 and eventually get the temp of the tank equal to that of your pond with the daytime temperatures maybe by adding water from the pond slowly. I'd say that would be best- and it would satisfy that need to start nownownow, ya know. :)
I completely understand though...I have that "craving" to start adding and growing things in my pond baaaad right now! I still have a while yet though in Zone 5. Oh and I agree about the bullfrogs- once they settle in somewhere as adults, I am pretty sure it is hard to relocate them and they have massive appetites.
Do you mean the bull frogs would eat my baby goldfish and koi? I wasn't going to put them until the night time temps were in the 50s. Now I may not put them in at all.
Yes, the bullfrogs (and even larger bullfrog tadpoles) will eat everything they can get their hands on. Other tadpoles will just keep your water clean (tree frogs, leopard frogs, etc) but the Bull Frogs you may as well consider Bull"y" Frogs.
Then again, the goldfish are "feeder" goldfish destined to be eaten by some carnivorous fish. If I bought about 40 and released them, many (some) might survive. After all there is a school of them in the pond already. For them it's a Lady or the Tiger sort of thing, but at least there is a chance for a longer life.
Saw the post about bullfrogs eating anything they can get into their mouths. Have to pass along a (now) funny story. During my first year of ponding I was thrilled when my goldfish had babies. I figured out what the eggs were and decided to move them to a safe place to hatch in peace where I could protect them from their offspring eating parents. There were a LOT of babies in that nursery pool. I noticed that they seemed to be getting fewer as time wore on and could not figure out why as I did not see any little fishy bodies and they were all the same size so could not have been eating each other. I finally drained the small pool and found an enormous frog in the bottom. I bet that froggie thought he had found nirvana until I found him! After a little colorful language I transported the little porker some distance away to an old strip mine pond. I have decided to let the little guys fend for themselves now.
Bullfrogs will eat anything. I have seen them with small birds in their mouths, and the legs of other frogs hanging out of their mouths. Anything that moves attracts them.
While I don't disagree that a bullfrog will eat fish, I have never lost a fish to a bull frog. I actually wouldn't mind if the bullfrog would eat some of the baby fish as I really want to keep my population in check. I got 3 golden orfes for that purpose, but I still had plenty of babies last year that managed to escape the orfes and bull frog.