Keeping Fish

[LeafBlade12345]

I never knew bettas could live with community fish, I thought they were too aggressive. My fish are all supposedly "community" but they are territorial and aggressive though they never inflict any damage other than the occasional nip of a tail when my ratios of males to females goes awry, usually during fungul infections when I lose many fish and do not immediately replace them. Sometimes fungul infections can last weeks, or ick can take over, so I wait at least a few days after I believe the infection or ick is gone before adding new fish. My Cory cats are beautiful, long lived fish, but I recently lost one of my small ones, so I will replace it soon. I have pre planned the planting of some mini cattails in my pond this Spring when I start the new plantings in my garden and hopefully harvest at least some of my potatoes, so maybe my Goldies will breed then. I keep mostly comets and other low cost species, as they more expensive ones are usually slower and are eaten by turtles, killed or harassed by my other fish, or die from temperature fluctuations or decreases. Anyway, I think the smaller, less expensive goldfish are actually much prettier than the massive ones with the bubble like heads. Some of my goldfish are almost two feet now, after starting out as tiny, fifteen cent feeder fish. Originally I bought a few for my turtles when I got my koi pond, but my turtles were too small to kill and eat the fish, but as they got bigger I noticed something curious. Whenever I bought goldfish, the turtles left them completely unharmed, let them share food, and swam happily with them, yet when I bought rosy minnows or mosquito fish, even mollies and platys, of the same size of the small goldfish, my turtles ate them crazily. I think when they were raised with goldfish they learned that they were not food, something I always marvel over. It always makes my day when I watch my massive, aggressive turtle that beat up my other spiny softshell, kills anything that moves and isn't my goldfish or his other turtle friend, sharing a koi pellet with a tiny hungry goldfish or swimming beside one. It is truly amazing.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Political center is right, the rising temperature in spring triggers spawning in goldfish, and you need places for the eggs to fall and the hatching to hide in order to have any survive.

What type of gardening are you asking about, we do everything around here, well not everything but everything that our zone 4 allows.

 

[LeafBlade12345]

Any type of gardening, raised bed, fields, etc.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

What you looking to know or talk about, I do no till, no thin, intensive vegetable gardening, all organic, tons of flower beds, berries, asparagus, and containers.

 

[politicalcenter]

Any type of gardening, raised bed, fields, etc.

We are blessed here because we can have something green in the garden year round. Cole crops (broccoli,kale collards, etc) can stay in the garden from august through late spring. The hottest part of the year is best for field peas, black eyed peas, eggplant, peppers, and other hot weather vegetables. But my gardening slows almost to a stop when the weather gets really hot.

Just about all my goldfish started with feeder fish because they were cheap and the selection could not be better. If you get to choose from several hundred to a thousand fish you can find some really good ones. I just pick the best from there. One pond is almost empty right now because I am taking out some fish especially for breeding. I just have to find a segregated place for them. I have too many fish. If I sell bog plants in the spring I may give some away to plant customers. The comets have real nice tails. They are almost as long as the rest of the fish.

I have problems with container gardening because it gets so hot here in the deep south. I have some chard in containers now because it is cool. But come spring the containers get too hot for the plant roots. I will have to shade the pots to keep them cool.

 

[LeafBlade12345]

We grow organically as well. We have berries, vegetables, an orchard with different fruit trees, asparagus, lemon and lime trees, artichoke, etc., we also grow pumpkins, corn, melons, tomatoes, potatoes, cucumbers, grapes, and much more. Oldhenlikesdogs, do you keep any fish other than goldies?

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

I have a 75 and a 29 with a few tropical fish, mostly angels and bettas, though at some point I will faze them out and just keep goldfish, I have a lot of arthritis and it can be hard to do all my hobbies, I like goldfish because they are quite easy and don't require heat.

We are heading into winter and most of my gardening is done, I do have to remember to get my carrots out before it freezes hard.

 

[oldhenlikesdogs]

Here's my vegetable garden, we reformed our raised beds, covered them in grass clippings and fall leaves topped with composted manure, come spring when I see my garlic coming up I peel back the top, plant my cool crops and recover and walk away, it's so easy. The raised beds warm up quickly and dry out, I'm always the first person planting around here.

 

[Mutt Farm]

I have five small ponds. Three of them are plastic pools and two are cinder block. I have goldfish, Koi, bluegill, red ear sunfish, channel catfish. and several different minnows.

Please don't expect me to give you a count on anything...but...I bought 350 channel catfish fingerlings, 100 red ear fingerlings, and 100 native bluegill fingerlings early this year and I have been putting in fish caught in the wild on top of that. I also have a few Koi and about a million goldfish that have been producing for several years now. I am in the process of sorting the goldfish out because I want to breed more Sarrassa Comets and a solid black Comet.

All my fish are outside year round. I also have native bog plants and a few water Lilly gathered from the local river.

Hi! How big are your ponds and do you use filtration? I have 600 gal koi pond with plants. Used a pool sand filter, thought I'd have nice clear water and easy cleaning with backflush. It clogs up several times a day. I can't get my water to clear, my plants are mad and I have brown algae.

 

[politicalcenter]

Hi! How big are your ponds and do you use filtration? I have 600 gal koi pond with plants. Used a pool sand filter, thought I'd have nice clear water and easy cleaning with backflush. It clogs up several times a day. I can't get my water to clear, my plants are mad and I have brown algae.

I have a 2,000 gallon, two 1,500 gallon and a1,000 gallon pond. I also have two small ponds just outside the house I forgot about.

I tried different filtration systems and none seemed to work. I seem to have some green water no matter what. But I did try something new that really seems to help. At the last fishing trip I netted up a bunch of river shad. They are filter feeders and the green water seems to be clearing up. The ones that survived the trip went into the ponds and the ones that didn't went into my pigs.

I move the water around during the hot months but right now I have no filters running at all. It (to me) is a waste of money.

I do have one pond in a shady spot with a lot of plants in it that stays clear until I pump it into the other ponds and put green water in. I guess that is my filter.

Shade would probably help but that's another iron in the fire. I keep pretty busy and it is hard to keep up.