balikiss

Currently have 5 guppy fry Soon getting another guppy pair (or so lol), a betta pair and some crystal red and/or black shrimp.

Thnx guys. I was thinking that a turkey baster would work pretty good if i had alot of jars to change. Since fishclugirl has been so generous and set me some duck weed i will have to see how it does compared to the moss. And the cycled tank water is a good idea, one that I will use for sure. Thnx again guys.

Hey guys. I found an interesting website on how to keep betta water much cleaner with a little bit of moss. Would love to know if any of you guys have ever do this? I'm looking into getting a couple betta and perhaps attempting to breed. Whats your take on this?? http://www.bettatalk.com/java_moss.htm

I'll have to let you know on the orfe as my budget really isn't allowing for much fish buying right now. Maybe by next summer i'll have a ton of baby goldfish in my pond then lol. I will definitely be getting some colorful ones though. Have to see if we have any troubles with herons and put up some decoys.

Thanx for all the awesome ideas! I'm going to assume that the feeder goldfish that they sell are probably only a few months old then? We do already have some cattails/reeds that grow, and we try and get rid of them cause they muddy the water real bad. floating plants would be my plant of choice. I really like the water lettuce it looks like it would be easy enough to collect in the fall for overwintering. We do already have a lot of crows around because unfortunately there's a small garbage dump a few miles away..but we can get rid of any that want to hang around :shifty: Did some research on those orfe and they look really interesting! Wonder if theres anywhere close by to get a few of those.

Lilly pads eh?? i thought those died during the harsh winter, but i will definitely be looking for some now.

Definitely won't be shooting any protected birds. There's really only farm land around where i live..and i haven't seen a heron or any other of those marshy type fish eating birds around here. Geese and ducks don't even land here..Planning on putting duckweed into the pond, and any other hardy plants i can find that will survive in Alberta temperatures. We're going to get the aerator set up better this year so it doesn't freeze off and will hopefully keep an open hole all year round (been thinking about experimenting with using a dome with a breather hole over top of the hole on the ice so the wind doesn't cool it off so bad). I figure i'll harvest some of the fish back out of the pond, and overwinter them in the house just in case it doesn't work out, i'll still have some year old fish to put back in the spring.

The native species is a good idea, but i don't really like the taste of fish and i would really like to be able to see the fish i stock the pond with. Hopefully i'm going to the lfs soon so i can get a bunch of goldies. Would love some fish from people who can't house them any more, but maybe i'll wait for better weather before posting it. I'll remember you're offer for the comets though. How old do common goldfish have to be before they'll spawn? Will i get babies the first year i have them in there?

I'm definitely going to look up getting a permit to bring native species in. I wonder if you can catch them your self and put them in, or if you have to get them from a hatchery/farm? Would be nice to have a variety of fish in there.

heres a picture of the pond, lol and my boyfriend and his friend who just tipped the canoe lol. you can see just about 3/4 of the pond.

Falher is about half an hour from peace river. And yup it does have a paper. It's called the smokey river express.

I'm not actually sure how the dugout is filled, some water comes from overflow from the ditch, but there must be a small spring under it because its pretty much always the same depth. No chance of them escaping, unless they hitchhike from the road lol. We had a muskrat last year but i think my boyfriend is pretty set on shooting him this year cuz he muddies up the water. No herons that i'v seen. Not even the occasional duck. Unfortunatly i don't really any friends with aquariums so i wouldn't be able to get them from some one else. I do want to quarentine them for a bit because after there in the water, there would be no way to treat them. Definatly going to have to get lots of them, but i don't mind if it takes them a couple years to populate themselves into a bigger community. My boyfriend was already thinking about a dock, this is the perfect excuse to encourage him into making one this year -roll-

A feeding ring sounds like just the thing you need. Stop the food from being blown around by any current there is, keep it outa the filter, and you fish will learn to go to the ring when it's feeding time.

Thanx for the reply. I do have a HOB filter that i would be putting on their container. I may have to cut back on the number of fish i want to get and keep until spring. I actaully just looked at a bunch of pictures that had feeder fish as pond fish and they were quite lovely! I'm really excited to try this. There does get a couple feet of ice on the pond during the winter tho..but we test the depth in the worst of winter and it's usually 8feet or better. There is a windmill driven aerator that goes year round and usually a lot of natural plants that ring the pond, not to mention a few small willow trees.

hey everyone. thought i'd run an idea by you all and see what you think. all comments are welcome. So i have a very large pond aka the dug out (some of you who live out of town know what i'm talking about). The pond is about 120feet long, 50 wide, and at least 10 deep all year around..It's approx 673000 gallons lol. The problem is that all this water breeds alot of mosquitos. I was thinking about getting a dozen cheap feeder goldfish and raising them up a little in a 20 gal rubbermaid container and then putting them in the pond in the late spring. Do you think they would survive the winter? The pond is aerated all year round and is usually a hole in the ice all the time. How about putting a dent in the mosquito population? Any thoughts would be very welcome!

Hey everyone, just thought i'd introduce myself. My name is shayna and i'm new to this forum. I joined because this forum is based in good ole alberta and i can get local advice and do some trading that doesn't come from the USA. More about my tanks. At the moment i own a 10 and 15 gal. The 10 gallon has my only guppy female who is curently suffering from internal parasites/dropsy and i expect she won't live much longer. The 15 gal holds her 5 fry that were born about 43 days ago. I have two home made ornaments with a java and xmas moss mixture on them that are just starting to grow (my apple snail ravaged them just as they were settling in). I live in a little town call falher in the peace country area. I'v also got a thoroughbred/warmblood gelding, a siberian husky and three cats lol. Thats about it for me.