unheated greenhouse fish ideas

[fishorama]

Well, a nice big trough or big heavy duty tub, weather loaches could be in your future! If so, I will live vicariously through your tank. I believe Tractor Supply has a website if you want to see just what's available without a trip.

If you change your mind on larger fish, you might look at your local mosquito control board for free mosquito fish. Mozzie larva were a pita in my outdoor lily tub. I used "mosquito bits" to keep them from molting, just a few in a tub every 3 months? Something like that...

 

[Colin_T]

okay, yeah, I will just leave the ponds uncovered in order to have more humidity. I mostly built the greenhouse for my Nepenthes, who is suffering because it's way too dry here, and has outgrown all of the strange humidity contraptions that I have made for it.

You can get large plastic storage containers that go under beds, they are about 6 inches high x 2-3 feet long x 2 feet wide. You put a few inches of water in them and have the plants in pots sitting on bricks or something that keeps them out of the water (or partially in it depending on the species). The area under and around the plants will have a higher humidity due to the water and it might help them.

Make sure the greenhouse is covered with shade cloth during summer or the inside temperature can get to 60C+ and that will kill everything in it. Use a white shade cloth with a 60-80% shade factor.

 

[Sgooosh]

Well, a nice big trough or big heavy duty tub, weather loaches could be in your future! If so, I will live vicariously through your tank. I believe Tractor Supply has a website if you want to see just what's available without a trip.

If you change your mind on larger fish, you might look at your local mosquito control board for free mosquito fish. Mozzie larva were a pita in my outdoor lily tub. I used "mosquito bits" to keep them from molting, just a few in a tub every 3 months? Something like that...

Yes! Those horse troughs look too silver for me but I really like the shape of them. Maybe there is a stock tank that is black and not silver.
I'll also check home depot and lowes, since those are significantly closer.

I have kept those before and the district is wonderful! My current outdoor seasonal ponds get too hot in summer and too cold in winter so I just ask for guppies/mosquitofish and then move them in when it is winter. Guppies seem to like the heat better.

You can get large plastic storage containers that go under beds, they are about 6 inches high x 2-3 feet long x 2 feet wide. You put a few inches of water in them and have the plants in pots sitting on bricks or something that keeps them out of the water (or partially in it depending on the species). The area under and around the plants will have a higher humidity due to the water and it might help them.

Make sure the greenhouse is covered with shade cloth during summer or the inside temperature can get to 60C+ and that will kill everything in it. Use a white shade cloth with a 60-80% shade factor.

hmm, that sounds like a good idea! Will this system attract mosquitoes though? If so, is there enough water volume for some livebearers?
The greenhouse is in a shaded location currently for the day (light in the morning) and if the heat is a problem I'll definitely put shade cloth on it, I already have a lot for insulation on my veggies during winter

 

[Colin_T]

Any stagnant water will encourage mozzies to lay their eggs there so you have to lift the plant/s out and change the water regularly or scoop the mozzie larvae out with a fine mesh fish net. Mozzie larvae make great fish food

There's probably not enough room for fish in the under bed storage containers but you could use a normal storage container and it would be higher and container more water for the fish. You would then have to build a stand or fabricate something to hold the pitcher plant above the water. A plastic pot that is turned upside down and has a hole about (2 inches diameter) cut in the side for fish to go in and out and not get stuck in it, can make a cheap stand for the plant in a larger storage container and not displace much water.

You could make a frame that goes over the container and hang the plant above the water.

You could get a piece of polystyrene foam and cut a hole in it to fit the very bottom of the plant's pot. the pot would sit in the foam and it would float around the pond.

 

[Sgooosh]

I plan to experiment with Rainbowfish, but if they start slowing down when it gets cold, would it be okay to move the ones who don’t handle the cold that well into my 75g community tank? there are small guppies, female pearl gouramis, swordtail, and characodon in there

 

[Colin_T]

Yeah that's fine and what I did. I had rainbows outdoors in tubs and when the temperature dropped I scooped out any they slowed down or looked stressed and left the others there. The ones remaining outdoors that survived the first winter went on to produce a coldwater strain of fish that could live in water with temperatures ranging from 5-45C.

 

[GaryE]

Look for duboulayi rainbows. They handle cool better than the Papua New Guinea ones . I'd be leery of the underbed containers, but that may be because I come from a colder climate. They would lose heat fast.

It's easy for us to end up talking at cross purposes with all of our different climates. For me, this summer ran at 22-24 degrees, while Colin got 45.

 

[Sgooosh]

Look for duboulayi rainbows. They handle cool better than the Papua New Guinea ones . I'd be leery of the underbed containers, but that may be because I come from a colder climate. They would lose heat fast.

It's easy for us to end up talking at cross purposes with all of our different climates. For me, this summer ran at 22-24 degrees, while Colin got 45.

woah, that's one of the most beautiful rainbowfish I've seen! Love the fins. I will try to look for them in the LFS, as I don't have enough time and effort for online buying for now

Yeah that's fine and what I did. I had rainbows outdoors in tubs and when the temperature dropped I scooped out any they slowed down or looked stressed and left the others there. The ones remaining outdoors that survived the first winter went on to produce a coldwater strain of fish that could live in water with temperatures ranging from 5-45C.

okay, that sounds like a good plan. do you think the rainbows will be fine with the other fish in my tank? I've never had rainbowfish before and there's conflicting info about their temperament.

 

[Colin_T]

I don't know what fish you have. What conflicting info are you concerned about?

Rainbowfish are normally peaceful but some big males (especially Glossolepis incisus) can get aggressive and bully smaller males and have been known to kill males and females. This normally occurs if you have 1 male and 1 female. If you keep rainbowfish in groups of 10 or more, you don't get this issue because the males spar with each other. you can mix different species of rainbowfish together to make a decent sized group but try to have fish that grow to the same size. And have even numbers of males (2, 4, 6).

Some big rainbowfish will hunt and eat small fish like neon tetras. Most don't and any fish that is half the size of the rainbowfish and not narrow like a neon tetra, should be fine.

Most rainbowfish do best in water with a pH above 7.0 and a GH between 150-300ppm. There's more info on different species of rainbowfish at the following link.

Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

A website dedicated to Rainbowfishes of Australia and New Guinea

rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au

 

[GaryE]

Given the prices of rainbows here, where good ones are quite expensive, getting a group is a stretch for most of us. We aren't surrounded by them as Colin is.
And while duboulayi are beauties, I have never seen that one in a store. Here, we see mutt rainbows, boesemani, lacustris and sometimes parkinsoni, praecox or incisus, , all from the warmer part of the rainbow range.

The rainbows Australians seem to talk about as normal in shops are extremely rare in stores here.

 

[Colin_T]

The rainbows Australians seem to talk about as normal in shops are extremely rare in stores here.

I tried to send rainbowfish and eggs over to the US years ago but the government wanted too much info and paperwork done. We can only send them out if they have been captive bred for at least 10 generations and there is no way to prove that. People do sometimes get eggs out of here and they used to mail eggs out all the time but it doesn't happen anymore.

There is the US Rainbowfish Group with Gary Lange and they should have most of the rainbowfish from Australia and New Guinea. However, I was watching a video on Gary Lange's fish room that was done recently and he appeared to have a fish with TB. The other option is to contact the German Rainbowfish Association or ANGFA and see if anyone will send you eggs. there's less chance of TB with eggs and they cost less to ship.

 

[GaryE]

15 years ago when I started my boesemani group, I paid $50 for a mop of eggs. It was a special price - the guy usually charged $100. Good rainbows, not hybridized, are very expensive fish.
You can get hybrids fairly cheaply, and turnip coloured boesemani are cheap. The praecox and lacustris I see in shops are usually ill, and I shy away.
Because of tb and the way rainbows seem to really be hit by it, I no longer suggest rainbows to fellow hobbyists. I love the fish, but I am defeated - tb wins.

 

[Sgooosh]

I don't know what fish you have. What conflicting info are you concerned about?

Rainbowfish are normally peaceful but some big males (especially Glossolepis incisus) can get aggressive and bully smaller males and have been known to kill males and females. This normally occurs if you have 1 male and 1 female. If you keep rainbowfish in groups of 10 or more, you don't get this issue because the males spar with each other. you can mix different species of rainbowfish together to make a decent sized group but try to have fish that grow to the same size. And have even numbers of males (2, 4, 6).

Some big rainbowfish will hunt and eat small fish like neon tetras. Most don't and any fish that is half the size of the rainbowfish and not narrow like a neon tetra, should be fine.

Most rainbowfish do best in water with a pH above 7.0 and a GH between 150-300ppm. There's more info on different species of rainbowfish at the following link.

Melanotaeniidae and Pseudomugilidae

A website dedicated to Rainbowfishes of Australia and New Guinea

rainbowfish.angfaqld.org.au

I have some guppies, xiphophorus, rasboras, pearl gouramis, and characodon. the tank is not super stocked, only a few of each except for my school of rasboras.
The conflicting info is that all sources online other than sellers say that they are peaceful, but for some reason the actual retailers say they are semi-aggressive...
(for example petsmart https://www.petsmart.com/fish/live-fish/goldfish-betta-and-more/australian-rainbowfish-15220.html)
The G. incisus are really beautiful, they look like spawning salmon!
Alright, I shouldn't worry that much about aggression then, since I do plan to have a large number of medium sized fish.

15 years ago when I started my boesemani group, I paid $50 for a mop of eggs. It was a special price - the guy usually charged $100. Good rainbows, not hybridized, are very expensive fish.
You can get hybrids fairly cheaply, and turnip coloured boesemani are cheap. The praecox and lacustris I see in shops are usually ill, and I shy away.
Because of tb and the way rainbows seem to really be hit by it, I no longer suggest rainbows to fellow hobbyists. I love the fish, but I am defeated - tb wins.

I found this cheap and readily available species of rainbowfish, "australian rainbowfish" from petsmart. they claim it is Melanotaenia fluviatilis, Do you think this would be a good start to experiment with? Since they are so much cheaper, i would loose much if the experiment fails and I have to move all of them indoors.

After a bit of digging, i've also found that the Murray River rainbowfish is actually very southern-australia and naturally lives in temperatures 10-15c, which is basically as cold as the water gets here

 

[Colin_T]

I have never seen rainbowfish kill other rainbowfish at home or at shops but I have always had them in groups of 10 or more per tank. However, I have had people come onto forums and they have had a male rainbowfish (normally Glossolepis incisus) kill other fish. It's not common and it's just about always a full grown male G. incisus causing the problems. And the fish are always kept in smaller numbers 2, 3 or 4. I think one person had a big male Melanotaenia boesemani go nuts and kill a female it was with. Again they were the only 2 rainbows in the tank. As long as you have a group of them and they grow to the same size, you shouldn't have any issues with them.

They do eat small fish when hungry and I have seen 2 inch long M. boesemani eat 1 inch long cardinal tetras. I have only seen it once and they were wild caught M. boesemani and it was fascinating to watch, but it can happen. They will eat your baby livebearers.

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There is another red rainbowfish (Glossolepis pseudoincisus), which grows a little smaller than G. incisus and is more peaceful but it's harder to get.

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Melanotaenia fluviatilis is a nice fish and if they are pure bred (not hybrids) they should be fine outdoors all year round.

 

[GaryE]

Almost all lower end rainbows are hybrids. When they first hit North America, they were sold as Australian rainbowfish and the farms bred them as such. It was a long time before they began dealing with the fact there's more than one species, and by then, they had a pile of mutts in the trade. They still do.
They can still be nice looking fish, and are very inexpensive.

When the farms realized that diversity sells, they started being more careful, but that was 20 years after they had become common in stores. There are still a lot of crosses out there. As long as people know that, and don't try to pass them off as biological species, all is good. But if you take out a species identification source and try to figure out what you have - good luck and I hope you have a good imagination.