Puting Feeder Fish In A Pond

[anvil63]

I'll side step the environmental issue, but tell you what happened in a family members 3000gal pond in Dayton (probably similar climate/ fauna). They started their pond with a bunch of feeders, there were no other fish in pond, and they bred like crazy, but over the course aof a few years almost all of the goldfish are black. We believe that the gold offspring were selected against by the predation from turtles and especially heron.

Carl

 

[pica_nuttalli]

do you live in a mountainous region? are large craters common in your area? was this pond man-made in the distant past and has since been colonized by natural species?

if none of these things are true, then your "pond" probably DOES connect to a natural waterway via underground channels. anybody who's tried to create a pond just by digging out a few feet of dry dirt can tell you that it doesn't take long for the water to seep right out of it.

an even better test is to ask "does this pond have fish in it that nobody ever set loose?" the only way for a body of water that is completely isolated from the external ecosystem to have fish or other creatures that cannot travel outside of water is if someone put them there. if your pond has fish in it that no human hand ever introduced, then they must have SWAM INTO THE POND SOMEHOW--thus the pond must be connected to your local ecosystem.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

I'll side step the environmental issue, but tell you what happened in a family members 3000gal pond in Dayton (probably similar climate/ fauna). They started their pond with a bunch of feeders, there were no other fish in pond, and they bred like crazy, but over the course aof a few years almost all of the goldfish are black. We believe that the gold offspring were selected against by the predation from turtles and especially heron.

Carl

neato, natural selection

 

[Synirr]

Just get some trisomic grass carp for ******'s sake, geez. They look enough like goldfish to fool a kid, are relatively cheap, and cannot reproduce and thus potentially destroy the ecosystem. As a bonus you will actually get to spot them as adults, since they grow HUGE and you can sometimes see them munching plant matter in the shallows. My uncle used to have some in his pond and they were neato to watch. Hell, just do that and everyone's happy.

The reason no one was directly answering your question is because what you are planning to do is not safe for the environment and you shouldn't be doing it in the first place. It's less of a problem if the pond is as isolated as you think, but chances are it's not. My grandmother has a man-made pond behind her house that now has a natural inlet and outlet, both of which are hard to find as they are connected to very tiny shallow streams, but it was enough to introduce catfish into the pond when only perch were initially stocked.

What you have to think about is that even if the pond is isolated now, that may not always be the case... and when a pond stocked with goldfish develops a connection with other natural bodies of water, well... you get the picture.


Please watch your language!

 

[black angel]

Adding so many little fish into that pond and in a short while you are going to have large fish breeding, and the number is quadrupled in a couple of years. Where is the food going to come from for all those fish and then theres oxygen starvation as well. You would be better adding 20 or 30 carp as mentioned and watching those grow healthily.

 

[TheeMon]

If its a pond that isn't connected to anything (like a lake for instance) then what would be the problem?

see my point exactly (fyi its natural and its really to small to be called a lake)



ok after reading the helpful posts, what exactly do you guys mean by bioload? (im assuming its along the lines of adding too many fish at once)

One problem with the goldfish is that they are bright orange and will stand out to predators. by spAcE mOnkEy

actually thats why i figured on the number 300, i WANT them to stand out but at the same time i relized thatd be bad for them and theyd be eatting so i figured 300 would last atleast 4-5 years and after that my little buddy will be grown enough and itll be ok.

but tell you what happened in a family members 3000gal pond in Dayton (probably similar climate/ fauna). They started their pond with a bunch of feeders, there were no other fish in pond, and they bred like crazy, but over the course aof a few years almost all of the goldfish are black. We believe that the gold offspring were selected against by the predation from turtles and especially heron. by anvil63

im assuming dayton ohio(if so then yeah same climate) yeah it never occured to me that the black traits in them would dominate, but it does make perfect sence AND you answered my important questions, that its been done/they will produce offspring. a question for you anvil63 how many years till 90% of them turned black?


and what kinda breeding cycle goldfish got? also that bioload thingy, would 100 fish per month be too many to introduce in a pond roughly 10x30ft?

 

[yvez9]

To show how this can cause a problem...

my dad has a share at a private fishing club. the lake is about a mile long by maybe 50-100 meters wide

they stock it with trout. this lake is natural but has was basically empty of fish

anyway, they stocked trout and ther is now a population of large northern pikes and bass as well. how they got in the lake is probably with people using thm as bait and then they got free and reproduced. the larger pikes eat the trout and while they breed, this attracted loons and ducks to the lake which eat the trout.

 

[black angel]

Breeding cycle is mainly in the late spring to early summer when the water heats up and the days get longer which is when they start to breed and each female is capable of producing hundreds of eggs every few weeks throughout the summer.Though the mortality will probably be high a lot will survive through the winter to start breeding again the following year.

 

[anvil63]

Yeah Dayton, OH. It probably took about five years before the vast majority of the newborn fish were black. I'm guessing that this would have happened faster except that two of the original oranges survived that first summer and winter and by the time the birds came back in the spring the were very large, and seemingly no longer bothered by the birds.

Since then the family has added one of those motion detectors that hooks up to a sprinkler to scare away birds. This has seemingly improved the survival of the orange fish quite a bit.

Its now become a regular summer activity that when I am down there I net out as many black ones as I can. To give you an idea of how prodigous the number of offspring can be, last summer I netted out nearly an hundred black/gray fish and 300 gallons is really not a big pond for that number of fish.

Carl

 

[Boxcar Muzzdogg]

QUOTE(MegTheFish @ Dec 18 2005, 03:33 AM)

If its a pond that isn't connected to anything (like a lake for instance) then what would be the problem?



see my point exactly

Your point was noted and countered, with ample explanation from knowledgable members of the forum, you may have missed them, it would be a good idea to go beck and check them out

Heres just one more way you will be negatively affecting the habitat, and the rest of the world; Species have evolved and survived through genetic diversity, introducing non-native species into a habitat will decrease genetic diversity

 

[TheeMon]

anvil63 5 years is great!


now i think im pretty much good, execpt i need info on this bioload yall mentioned.... and igotta wait till spring

 

[Boxcar Muzzdogg]

You have over 300 posts on this forum and you somehow managed to never read anything about this "bioload thingy?" You seem like you might be 16 or 17, at which point you should be intelligent enough to understand what the people on the forum have been telling you, but since you've just ignored them, I guess your not that smart

 

[TheeMon]

boxcar, stop posting in my threads

 

[Boxcar Muzzdogg]

For your own bennefit, and those who have to share the planet with you, review the posts made by members in response to your "what could be the problem" question in regards to your stocking the pond with goldfish. If you are confused by some of the information you read, feel free to look up deffinitions, and possibly do some research on the topic, until then, just know that putting goldfish in your friends pond is wrong.

WARNING: smoking blunts while attempting to understand why you can not introduce non-native species into a habitat may lead to confusion

 

[TheeMon]

boxcar, stop posting in my threads

also i refuse to respond to you