MidSummer Pond Fish Update

All of my pond fish are doing GREAT! Something about the fish being outside under the sun with all of the wind, rain, bugs and birds is really doing right by them!

I have added some plastic, floating plants to act as cover for the fish from large birds. I'm trying to get some pond plants established with no luck. My fish have big appetites and they quickly eat up any plants that I add into their pond.

I will be getting a few black moor goldfish before the end of July. Now that I have discovered a perfect way to heal sick goldfish from a pet store. I have decided to give my dream at having large, healthy pond fish another try. I'm referring to my method where I buy a group of fish and add them into a healthy, established and fishless pond. The pond should have sat empty for a few days with pond snails, ostracods and filter floss. The water will turn slightly green from algae and mosquito larvae will begin to show up.

At this point I will add my new group of store bought fish into the pond. It isn't a problem for me that these fish have been exposed to many parasites, fungus and bacteria when they were at the fish store. Before the day is done the fish have usually consumed all of the mosquito larvae and any bloodworms at the bottom of the pond. By the next day the fish are looking like a million bucks! Even though fish from a fishstore are usually always diseased and sickly this new method of mine has given me a 100% pond fish survival rate! It's awesome!

I sure do love my healthy pond fish. I visit them at least once a day. They are starting to get really friendly like little, golden puppy dogs (that live under water).

Until Next Time,


SunnyStars

Pond Fish Update

Temporary Fish Pond

I don't have a large pond for my goldfish just yet so I'm using 40 gallon plastic containers and also this kiddie pool (the one in the picture).

I intended to use all of my "buckets" for live fishfood but I don't have any way to cover them up so they quickly filled up with mosquito larvae.

I went to the store and bought some feeder goldfish and added them into the buckets. The goldfish ate all of the mosquito larvae in 1 day! The buckets have been free of mosquito larva ever since. The fish are no longer feeder goldfish since I brought them home. They are my pond fish and I already love them (I've never met a fish that I didn't instantly fall in love with).

I had also bought 2 koi from the pet store. They had their fair share of mosquito larvae too! The goldfish and koi are very healthy from eating all of the mosquito larvae. They are healthy, round and pudgy even though when I brought them home they were skinny and sickly.

Back to the Kiddie Pool Pond :

I had added about 4 guppies into the kiddie pool thinking that they might eat up all of the mosquito larvae that were in it. The guppies were doing a great job battling the mosquitoes but the surface area is so large that 4 guppies weren't able to eat all of the larvae and I had to think of a better mosquito control plan. I tried to catch the guppies out of the pond but I had no luck! They are too fast and the greenwater is too thick to see through. I decided that the guppies can stay in the pond (hehe, I couldn't catch them if I wanted to unless I drained the pond).

I went to my local fish store and bought 40 more feeder goldfish to add into the kiddie pool. If I couldn't get rid of the mosquito larvae using fish then I would have to drain the kiddie pool anyway (Nobody likes mosquitoes and I don't want to be the source of a million more of them!) I added the unhealthy feeder fish into my mosquito larvae covered pond and within an hour all of the larva were GONE!

I was worried that the guppies might get a disease from the feeder fish and die but I didn't find not one dead fish! Basically they are all healthy and happy and I have a bunch of eaten mosquito larvae to thank for that. The goldfish and koi have doubled in size. I can't believe how chubby they are, its great! I'm so happy to have some healthy pond fish!

At first all of the fish were very shy and now that they know that I'm there to feed them instead of hurt them, they will come up to the surface when they see me. The guppies are huge! They are as big as mollies!

The benefits of live fishfoods are extremely clear to me. Any mosquito larvae in any of my ponds gets quickly taken care of by my fish!   =)   I also know that they are eating other live things like copepods and bloodworms.

Other than that I feed them live daphnia, scuds, aquatic worms, earthworms, etc. in addition to fishfood flakes, algae wafers and shrimp pellets and floating fishfood pellets/sticks.

These are some pretty lucky feeder fish. I can't wait to add them into a large pond! I'll give you updates about my ponds regularly so Stay Tuned!

Thanks for visiting,


* SunnyStars *