Outside for the summer?

[AdamT]

I've read passing mention of people putting their fish outside in some container or another for the summer to hang out and feast on natural food.

Unfortunately, that statement about sums up what I've heard about it.

Can I get some details from people who have done this? Things like -

Weather? Water changes? Food? Tempurature? Sun/Shade? # Fish? Container? Animate and inanimate non-fish contents? Filtration? Amount of rain? Aeration?

 

[Apisto ranch]

I too m wanting to know about this,I'm thanking of moving a couple of tanks outside for the summer as well. If anyone has info on this are has done this please let us know. Thanks

 

[brad]

I hucked a bunch of krib fry in my pond for the summer simply because I couldn`t find anyone to take them.

I provided good surface cover with hyacinths and water lillies. Temps would get up to high 80`s even with that. I did water changes by running a cold water hose into the pond for a while and letting it run over. Large change in temp but they lived through it just fine. I didn`t feed them at all. There was plenty of algae, bugs.......you could see them plashing when they came to the surface to eat a fly or mosquito.

In the fall, I moved most of them back inside into a bunch of tanks, but they didn``t appreciate it much. Very skittish, and missed having the room to roam. They spent alot of the day swimming up and down the glass.

Wasn`t the most ideal situation, and wouldn`t do it again, but I think a good learning experience for me.

 

[AdamT]

Here's what I'm thinking of doing:

container- target has all sorts of rubbermade containers. I dunno the sizes, but at a guess I'd say from 10ga to 50 or 60. Also, I could maybe do a wading pool, the el cheapo variety. Menards has great big livestock watering containers, 150ga and more I think. I don't want to have such a small volume that water parameters are unstable, but I don't want to have such a large footprint that it kills a big section of my lawn over the summer.

Temp - I live in Minnesota. My guess is that I'll have to wait until fairly late for it to get warm enough to do this. What nighttime min temps do you think are safe? Perhaps if I set it up close enough to my house I can plug in a heater for it...

Food - I guess I figured I wouldn't feed 'em, that they'd get enough live food. Do you think I should leave the filled container outside for a bit sans fish to develop some fauna for the fish to eat?

Waterchanges - I figured I'd mostly let the rain take care of this. I'd top off if the level started to drop too much.

Sun/Shade - I understand that after it stops being too cold it will quickly become too hot. It's not like the air temp will stay around 78f. I figure I'll need to keep it in the shade. The north side of my house gets very little sun, I should be able to put it there. The south side is also frequently shaded from the building next door, so I might put it there for a bit more light. I don't know...

Stuff that isn't fish - I'd like to throw some plants in there. I don't know if I'd want to do aquarium tropical plants, or pond plants. The plants need light, but the temp needs shade - what is the correct balance? And I would put in sand and some rocks... Maybe I should hack up a 8ft length of PVC to be caves. how likely are my fish to pick up parasites by the time I'm ready to bring them back in? Would birds end up trying to catch the fish, or any other predators?

Filtration and aeration - I wasn't thinking about doing anything with either of these at this point.

Fish - I figured I'd throw a pair of apistos out there, and hope they'd breed up some juviniles by the end of the summer. Or Brad's comment about using a batch of fry sounds like a good one.

It occurred to me that the fish might be extra-hidey when I brought them back in, but that might be more of an issue than I originally thought.

Anything I got wrong, or haven't thought of?


-A

 

[mematrix]

re to post

That is pretty much how I am planning on doing it I live in Texas Dallas Ft Worth area good temps for 3-5 mths. I plan on using 4-5 4x4 1 1/2- 2 ft deep or 100-150 gal stock troughs. partially buryied. with screen tops to keep out birds/preditors small enough mesh to allow mosq and midg flys and such get to the water but not allow the @#$$% dragon flys access. Probly use water lillys and hornwort for plants. thinking on using pwr head for circulation airation during day pwred by solar cells. So any sugestions or tipps would be appreciated.

Curtis

 

[tjd]

I have been using 15 gal containers with mixed results. White clouds and Guppys have done great year round (Southern California) and even breed in the containers. The containers have no filtration, heat, or air, but are stocked with Water Hyacenith (does not survive well), Water Lettuce, Cannas, Annacaris, Hornswort, and Java moss.

Some words of warning:

1) Food was an issue for my dwarf cichlids that I put outside. In my case 15 gal is a little small even for a single pair of Agassizii's without supplemental feedings. The white clouds and guppys did much better but spend most of their time on the surface.

2) My buckets developed planaria which was inadvertedly transfered to my tanks inside when fish were moved. The planaria decimated several clutches of eggs before I figured out what was going on.

3) The Dwarf Cichlids did not make the transition back to inside very well. I would loose about 1/2 of them. I never figured out exactly why this was but suspect it was a combination of things including 1) above.

Occasionally I will still throw a brood outside if I need to remove them from the tank they are in and have no where else to put them. A few will survive and have made it to just under an inche in size.

If I wanted to seriously keep fish outside, I would use larger containers and get ones that were as "square" as possible to help minimize the temperature changes.

Tom

 

[AdamT]

so - significantly more than 15 ga is necessary for a pair of dwarf cichlids. thx! I think I'm leaning toward 40 - 50 ga. I'm gonna try to find something with a lid that I can put on when I'm mowing or when I otherwise need to protect the top of the container.

Can anyone suggest a good parasite removal regimen for when the fishies come back in?

Dragonflies - I have heard that dragonfly... larva? waterborn stage... are trouble. How much trouble? mematrix, what size screen do you intend to use? Can you fill me/us in on whatever experience you've had w/ this issue in the past?

-A

 

[mematrix]

re to post

Hi Adam. I had some live food buckets and tubs outside last yr. They were uncovered and dragonflys seeded them the dragonfly larve devastated my mosquito and blood worm populations(midge fly). I have not had a pond with fish yet but based on what I learnd in school and from experience they pose a signifigant threat to the fish especially young fish. I plan on useing at least 1/4" or smaller grid screen tops for my ponds set up to be at least 3-4" from the surface of the water hopefully this will be efective in preventing the dragonflys from seeding my ponds they do this by sticking their tails mostly while on the fly in the water depositing eggs. I plan on keeping a log of my experience from start to finish. Btw I got back at the larve by pureeing them and feeding them to my fish anyway the hunter became the hunted LOL

Curtis

 

[Apisto ranch]

Ok Now my two cents. LOL Curtis I've talked with a guy who has been raising Apisto's and Kribs outside for 3yrs now. He told me about the dragon flys as well. He also sayed if you want to keep them down to a safe amount { witch I wouldn't thank any level would be safe with them } You could add a coupe of tadpoles of river toads or even African water frogs.
They don't eat fry and help with the over population of misqutos and drangon flys. He said the only down fall to tad poles is you have to weed them out like once they get to big. I plan on adding the dwarf frog and some of my killi's to the mix. The killi's being top feders will help to fight off any of the unwanted insects that my find there way in.

Here's my stocking list and tank size=

Tank size 100g stock tank

Tank stocking=
1 to 2 pairs of triple red Cokatoo's
2 pairs of Kribs
3piars of killis { for unwanted bug guest }
7 african dwarf frogs
4 pairs of Bala sharks
{ maybe some toad frogs tad poles} yes I know they turn into frogs. LOL
{ maybe in the lower end a pair of wild Betta's } not forsure on those still reading on that.

I on the other hand plan on adding some kinda filtration maybe a air condistioner pump and afew misters { to semalate rain seeing as we are in a drout here }. Adding some sand for substructer and some large peices of dwarft wood from a local river { for shade } some of my low ligh plants I have in my tank and some top water plants.
Placing a 1/8'' screan over the tank. With a removable top for when I mow my yard. Ok now that there is enought of us going to try this over the summer. We all need to take before and after stocking pics. Then all of us keep a dariy of the what worked and didn't work.

So that next year we'll have a better understanding of how to make this work! I also plan on removing any of the fry if I get over stocked. The guy I talked to said another thing is that when you do this the fish fry will take on the wild trates of the spices and some even lose oloring.

 

[AdamT]

Apistoranch - Someone in the forum was asking about keeping killi fry with apisto fry. I don't know if there was a consensus about the safety of that, but I think that killi fry might be dangerous to apisto fry. I have read somewhere that killi fry can be cannibalistic, and my fundulopanchex gardineri (sp?), while entertaining, were always distinctly pushy. The killi fry grew quicker as well.

If you're looking to breed the killi's that's one thing, but otherwise you might consider keeping all males (or females) with your other fish if you want them to spawn.

Just a thought.