goldfish in water butts

sazzlebgood?

I've recently been reading about the advantages of putting goldfish in water butts (not covered) to keep midge larvae down. Has anybody tried this?

Jackmydad

I don't know about goldfish in a water butt, but back in the sixties I knew a very old lady who had sticklebacks in her wooden water butt. She said they had been there since her son had put them there before WWII.
They looked happy enough swimming around and had obviously bred in there.
I can't remember whether she said she fed them or not. I'd feed goldfish if I kept them that way.
Goldfish are pretty sensitive incidentally and don't like shocks through the water, or sudden changes in water temperature. You'd need to watch out for freezing as well.

Apodemus

sazzlebgood? wrote: »

I've recently been reading about the advantages of putting goldfish in water butts (not covered) to keep midge larvae down. Has anybody tried this?

In a water butt, you are more likely to have mosquito larvae (and pupae) than midge larvae.

teddysmum

As there is no filtration, the water could become stagnant and the advice given before modern aquarium technology would apply.


One example being 5 inches of fish (adding lengths together) to a surface 12 inches by 12 inches ,as excess fish will mean a shortage of oxygen, disease and death

no1catman

NO, no, no, get a lid!

GwylimT

Please don't leave water butt lids off, this puts wild life at risk of drowing, they can fall in very easily but find it hard to get out.

Farway

My granddad had a fish in his water butt, not sure of variety, he caught them from the canal, only small ones, Tench maybe?

They sort of worked but he still had mozzies breeding in it, us kids used to fish out the red wriggly larvae in the years before Playstations

Apodemus

Farway wrote: »

My granddad had a fish in his water butt, not sure of variety, he caught them from the canal, only small ones, Tench maybe?

They sort of worked but he still had mozzies breeding in it, us kids used to fish out the red wriggly larvae in the years before Playstations

Interesting! The red wriggly guys are larvae of non-biting Chironomid midges. Tench like to feed in the mud at the bottom of ponds, so less likely to come up to feed where the larvae are.

If the larvae that the OP is concerned about are the red guys, then just ignore them, they are doing nobody any harm. But if you have open butts you are likely to also have mosquito larvae and pupae. As mentioned above, a decent lid is by far the easiest answer.