Fish question

[Henry]

Anyone know what to do with babies (what's a baby fish called anyway?) I've spotted 8 of them so far in my own pond this week and don't know if I should just leave them or do I need to protect them in any way.

[TooLPrincessBlaze]

:angel:
What kinda pond? A little dinky fountain pond or a huge backyard one?
I've had a pond for like 12 years that we dug and then we went fishing at a local river or creek or something, and we've had tons of baby fish, and they seem to do pretty well on their own around here, we feed them frequently, but thats about it. I'd look out for water snakes, or any snakes for that matter, they tend to like fish dinners, and frogs and everything else that wants to live out there. :mad: But we for the most part just left them alone and they did fine, cause we started with like 30 fish and now we have like 3000 fish, or probally more. How many fish did you start out with anyway?

[Henry]

My pond is approx. 11x13 aquascape pond that had 5 fish. In the 4 years that I've had the pond we've never had babies and at last count I'm up to 10.

[lawnMaster5000]

All that i can say is Congrats.

On a pond that size it will certainly be able to support that many small fish. If you feed them then maybe even as they get bigger. If you do not feed them then depending on the type of fish but generaly you can have about 1 inch of fish per gallon of water.

[Fishwhiz]

If you decide you have too many fish, don't just dump the extras if they are not native to your area. Nature also has a way of eliminating the excess if left to its own devices.


























ponds (http://www.aquahabitat.com/ponds.html)

[greenman]

What kind of fish are they? I do not have a pond with fish but I do have a couple of aquariums(tropical fish not freshwater), and I always had to separate the babies until they were big enough because they would get eaten by the big fish.

[Darb]

Or you could give them some protection like dense grasses to hide in.

[Phishook]

Originally posted by Henry
Anyone know what to do with babies (what's a baby fish called anyway?) I've spotted 8 of them so far in my own pond this week and don't know if I should just leave them or do I need to protect them in any way.

FRY.

Plants should give them enough protection. But, a pond is outdoors, and there are preditors...

[Henry]

Well it's been a few months and all 10 fry are still with us.

A friend from a pet store told me to separate them from the others. Catching a fish that size isn't easy. I did manage to get 6 of them in an aquarium but after a month or so the ones in the pond were already twice the size of the ones inside so I put them back in.

[cclllc]

How long after a new pond install should a customer expect to see babies...Year,2 yrs?I hope this isn't a stupid question.

[SCL]

I'll ask the next silly question. How big do your Koi have to be before they will breed? Put some small ones in last year and they're already 5-6" . Will I see anything this spring?
Scott