Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

HI found a small water hole down rock bank today it/s a dirty slimey hole there are thousands of tiny fish about 1 in long what are they

lol....am waiting for a punchline f& f lol

Sorry no punch line just want to know what the are Are they worth catching are they good for feed will they breed Will get photos next week

they would be gambusias, aka mosquito fish. Well im 99% sure at this current time, but more info might change my mind

good for feed providing they dont have disease, parasites, etc

We have found a couple of ponds around here with Japanese Rice Fish in them. Am going to catch some and use them as guinea pigs to see if my water/tanks are safe yet and also to feed my next batch of Silver's.

Nova

How the heck did Japanese Rice Fish end up in ponds around Adelaide??

Nova is in the South East

They breed like rabbits! They can tolerate poor water quality and eat everything in site - fish eggs, tadpoles, other small fish. That is why they are declared noxious and I have recently found out that you are supposed to have a permit to keep them (in NSW anyway - not sure about other states).

My niece unfortunately let some go in our pond a few years ago (30cm deep x 2.5m x 1.2m) and we don't have a mosquito problem but they would be near impossible to erradicate. I am going to harvest them to feed my perch when I get them and actually have 50 of them helping to get the system cycling (nice snack for the perch when they arrive).

We are no where near any natural waterways so there is no chance of them escaping into the natural environment (which is where she got them from in the first place!). Keep this in mind as they are devastating to the natural environment.

They are about an inch to two inches long and the females have a dark circle on their abdomen. The males are a little smaller and slimmer and follow the females around.

Who knows, although they could well be mosquito fish. Everyone around here I have spoken to about them calls them rice fish though. There is a pond being drained this week and my girlfriend is getting some for us. I'll check them out and find out what they are then.

Not sure how mosquito fish would get here anyway, there are no natural waterways around here, and very few ponds that are wet all year.

Nova

Just remember that they can survive in water quality that is extremely poor, so just because they are alive doesn't mean that the perch would be. In one of my not so bright moments I had 5 perch in a 100L aquarium and two mosquito fish left over that seemed to always escape predation. I put too many maggots in the water (about 3 table spoons) and within 24 hours the water had putrified, all perch were dead but the mosquito fish were happily swimming around and survived.

All it takes is one or two mosquito fish to cause a population explosion, and combined with their survivability that would explain why they exist in your dams that regularly dehydrate. I bet at some stage in the past someone has introduced them to control mosquitos.

i want to have a show down! convict VS mozzie fish. Best of three,

10C water

20C water

30C water.

LOL