i ordered some American flag fish to help with the algae in my pond. I was wondering if these fish would be ok to put into my water garden area as well where I house my pond plants for cultivation and growth. Will they eat my plants? Also will they be eaten by the other fish in my pond? I recently tried to put some Gourami in my pond and they were quickly devoured by my koi and catfish. I couldn’t believe my koi would do that but I watched it happen. The catfish didn’t surprise me but I was hoping for the best and very disappointed with the result. And the Gourami wouldn’t stay in the garden area :/ I definitely don’t want the same fate for my flag fish since I spent a good amount of money ordering them. Also any other info and personal experiences when it comes to pond keeping of the American flag fish would be greatly appreciated. My pond is around 4000 gallons. Attached is a pic of the plants I have that they would be around. Parrots feather, anacharis, mosaic, Ludwigia, creeping Jenny, aquatic mint, iris, four leaf clover, some others I can’t remember.
American Flag Fish??
- Thread starter Terra
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Where are you located? These are tropical fish I believe - not common to keep in an outdoor pond or water garden.
I’m located in Phoenix Arizona. I was told by the fish people they can handle temps as low as 50 degrees and do fine. The coldest my pond got this year was 55 for two days and now the water is already back up into the mid to high 60s.
gives me a lot more wiggle room with what I can keep we don’t even really have to over winter our plants here lol
Ah! Gotcha!
I keep seeing all the frozen pond pictures and I’m sooooo glad I don’t have to go through that! Although the heat here does make my pond quite warm! My fish didn’t seem to mind at all though. Hoping by the time it’s hot I can get my floating plants large enough to give more shade!
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from what I just read, with a max length of 2.5", unless your gf and koi are very small, most likely you're going to have problems. That said, if you feed your gf and koi regularly so they're not looking to chase their meal, the flagfish might survive long enough to get established. Also, I noted the temp range as 66 F, not 50s, so I'd be worried at any temps lower than 60.
These are killifish, and though native to florida, I bet they have lots of cover and stay shallow. Fish will eat plants if there's nothing better, but if you have lots of plants, this usually isn't a problem. That said, my gf wiped out much of my water lettuce this last spring before the other plants helped give them other interests, so it does happen. And from what I've heard, koi can be hardest on plants in a pond so they'd be the ones to worry about most.
Catfish will eat anything they can physically swallow and that's the diameter of their head. You'll surely lose anything small to them unless they reproduce faster than the catfish can eat. I'm betting you don't have issues with koi/gf over-population in your pond...
These are killifish, and though native to florida, I bet they have lots of cover and stay shallow. Fish will eat plants if there's nothing better, but if you have lots of plants, this usually isn't a problem. That said, my gf wiped out much of my water lettuce this last spring before the other plants helped give them other interests, so it does happen. And from what I've heard, koi can be hardest on plants in a pond so they'd be the ones to worry about most.
Catfish will eat anything they can physically swallow and that's the diameter of their head. You'll surely lose anything small to them unless they reproduce faster than the catfish can eat. I'm betting you don't have issues with koi/gf over-population in your pond...
I have a ton of gold fish from small to medium and very large sizes and rosy red minnows as well. My koi aren’t of breeding size yet but that could be a possibility for this spring for them. We will see. They are right about on the verge of being big enough for spawning. Ive never noticed my cat fish even eat another fish until I saw him hunt down the Gourami. We have many gold fish that are much smaller than the Gourami were and he leaves them alone. Same with the minnows from what I can tell. The minnows spawned last year and he never even ate the fry or baby minnows. They are still in there for sure since they are not quite as big as my original group of minnows and instead of being rosy they are Grey. I fully expected the catfish to eat all these smaller fish but so far the only issue was with the very shiny brightly colored blue Gourami. In the catfish’s defense they looked like fishing lures . Their ideal temp is above 66 but can tolerate as low as 50 from what other groups on Facebook are telling me about their ponds. Hopefully that is true! I was considering putting them in th water garden area and just a few in the large pond just in case the catfish decided to make a meal of them so I could test the waters so to speak before losing the whole lot of them like the Gourami.