Fancy Goldfish
We have an inground pond approximately 260 gallons, maybe 2.5 foot deep. This pond is located in Toledo, Ohio. Right now it only has three feeder goldfish around 2 inches each from last summer along with some water hyacinths and some parrot’s feather. The temperature of the water is just now over 50 degrees so we are starting to feed the fish.
Can fancy goldfish (very young ones) survive over the winter in a pond (we do keep a floating stock tank heater on it after the water dips below 50 degrees)? We have a friend with a much larger pond that will take any fish that we see are getting too big for the pond (which will eventually happen, I am sure), but I don’t want to add something that will need to be taken out within a year or two. I am really surprised at how very little the feeder goldfish (dang, I hate calling them that!) grew in the year now that we have had them in the pond. Maybe 1 inch in a year. There is nothing else in the pond and it is protected from outside invaders except any birds of course (and I do think we lost some fish to the birds).
We added 30 mosquito fish to it last spring courtesy of the co-op extension, but none of them survived the winter, even with the stock pond heater.
Paula in Monroe, Michigan (who will be testing my tanks tonight so that I can answer Lenny’s questions about my wanting Kuhli Loaches)
Category: AquaticLife
