mosquito fish

[taherrmann4]

Does anyone else have mosquito fish in their pond and do they reproduce like crazy. Mine are out of control!

 

[addy1]

Mine balanced out, had them for 10 years in that pond they are still there same with the goldies they balanced out.

 

[taherrmann4]

You should be able to have them where you are at now. Not sure if you want them but I have had mine for about 4 years now with ice and snow covered pond.

 

[fishin4cars]

I'll never ever ever EVER add those back to a pond again! It got so bad I put a catfish and a oscar in the pond to help control them. Didn't work BTW! I have read several times Addy's balanced out. I still think you either had another species or something controlling them. Addy got lucky if nothing else because her pond in Arizona is an exception not the average. Addy, If you read this I will say this, I think they will live up there, I recommend you don't use them. Your goldies are doing good and look nice, You may get a accidental adding by birds and addition of plants anyway. I would stay with the nice balance you have now:lol: I have seen ponds that they got a foot hold in and have literally 1000's in a 400-500 gallon pond. I tried three times to get rid of them and when I rebuilt that last time I made every effort possible to eradicate them. I'll use fish from now on I have to take out and keep inside or buy new ones if they don't make the winters. I use Neon Rosy barbs, elders guppies, and dalmatian mollies right now in the small bodies of water. Also looking into trying Blue fin Killies and white clouds. So far I'm happy with the ones I'm presently using for skeeter control. NO MORE GAMBUSIA for me!

 

[DrDave]

I put 12 in a pond and 2 years later, 1800 to get rid of. They are like pirranah on koi eggs.
Never again...

 

[addy1]

Not adding any to this pond, no need too. Between water flow, fish, frogs, water spiders no mosquito issues at all.

 

[taherrmann4]

Do the koi eat them? For the last several years I get a large amount of fry in late spring or early summer but they never seem to maintain the population. By fall I usually only have 2-3 dozen of them left. Will the mosiquito fish eat the gold fish eggs as well?

Not exactly sure how they showed up in my pond, must have hitched a ride on a plant or they came from my brothers pond when I got some fish from him.

 

[j.w]

I understand that the skeeter fish will eat any fish eggs. The fish will also eat any fish eggs they can find and the tiny fry. Koi will prolly eat anything they can fit in their mouths that tastes good to them but even if they eat the skeeter fish some will prolly survive

 

[fishin4cars]

gambusia, may eat eggs, small fry for sure. Koi may eat a few Gambusi but they can produce young faster than koi can eat them. heck they can reproduce faster than a Oscar can eat them.

 

[KennethO]

I have albino flatheads in mine. Same thing just white. They balanced out for me. It might be that I don't feed flake food or anything small for fry to eat and they starve. Have about 8 total. Might have also gotten lucky and thier all the same sex. Altho there was a spawn right before fall last year.

If your using for mosquitos. You might just use dunks. They are a natural bacteria addative safe for fish.

 

[fishin4cars]

Flat heads don't reproduce like gambusia, In fact they only reproduce one or two babies at a time. I've never seen albino ones but I have kept the regular ones, they are spooky fish when first introduced into a pond, I would rarely see them but once they got used to everything they would dart out and grab their food then high tail it off to go eat. I had forgotten about those guys!

 

[KennethO]

During the spawn I had thousands of babies. But I didn't feed them any fry foods so they would have to fend for themselves. Without tons of mosquito larva or fish food they just found a balance on how many could survive.

 

[taherrmann4]

Are these in fact mosquito fish? There is an orange one about 2" long what is this?

 

[taherrmann4]

How about these fry? What do they look like to you? In the last pic I believe that fry is just a small one of whatever that orange one is but not sure.

Thanks

 

[addy1]

I would say gold fish, could be koi, hard to tell without seeing the whiskers.

The brown ones look like some of the brown ones I have in my pond. no mosquito fish in mine, figure throw back brown gf