Hawks Will Eat Your Fish In Out Door Pond Or Tubs

A couple of years ago, a red-shouldered hawk cleaned out all of my red gold guppy breeders and a few hundred golden mystery snails before I figured out what was happening.

 

Just by happenstance, I met a falconer who was also an aquarist and told him about the guppies and mystery snails disappearing, and he told me I had a red-shouldered hawk eating my fish and snails. We started watching for them, and sure enough, my wife saw the hawk two days later.

 

Now I like having the hawks here. I have a vegetable garden and have lots of varmint issues. The hawks eat rabbits and squirrels. If it were not for the hawks, the tree rats would destroy everything. I just wish the hawks didn't eat my fish.

 

 

Hunting For Frogs In the Hornwort

 

Note the frog in the net.

A bunch of bullfrogs got into my outdoor 50-gallon stock tank and devastated my mollies. They ate all but three of the mollies. I removed the plats (hornwort) and drained the tank, and caught four of them. I refilled the stock tank, added a few fry were added, and the plants were replaced. The very next day, I spotted a frog I had not caught.

Since I was convinced that the frog had been in the plants I had removed the previous day, I carefully laid out the hornwort and searched for frogs.

I did not find any frogs in the plants, but I did find two more in the tank for a total of six.

#aquarium #pond #stocktank #summertubbing #mollies #fish #frogs

Frogs Will Eat You Fish

 

One of Six Frogs I Caught In My Outdoor 50 Gallon Stock Tank

 

Six of these got into my molly tank somehow and ate almost all of my mollies. This is the smallest one. Since there is no water within a mile of here and the tanks are covered with wire screens, I think they came in on some plants. To catch them I pulled out all the plants and drain the tank. The tank was refilled and the plants (hornwort) returned. The next day there were two more frogs in the tank. MY guess is that they were hiding in the plats I pulled out.

They had a party eating more than 200 mollies. Lots of fry and all the adults. Only three were left. 

Densely Planted 50 Gallon Stock Tank With Hundreds Of Molly Fry And A Few Adults

 

Aquarium 110 Gallon Stock Tank Amazon Frog Bit

For a while, I thought the Amazon Frogbit was all going to die. As the weather cooled off some, it has started to grow again.

I purchased this batch from eBay. It was in rough shape when I received it. I scattered the bits and pieces among all my tanks. It grew, but the leaves would yellow and die faster than the new ones could grow. Eventually it all died except for two of my stock tanks.

I had frogbit previously and it grew like mad until the armyworms found it.

300 Gallon Rubber Maid Stock Tank With Bluefin Killifish, Bronze Corydoras, and shrimp

300 Gallon Rubber Maid Stock Tank With Bluefin Killifish, Bronze Corydoras, and shrimp.

Much of the test is from answering questions on a Facebook group.

My 300-gallon stock tank is greening up again. Green water isn't a bad thing. Green water can be an excellent food source for tiny fry and makes fry more difficult for the adults to find and eat them. It does make it hard for me to see the fish.

I added a 12 Bronze Corys a few days ago. Two were adult females that were laying a large number of eggs without a male. I wanted to use some albinos I have that seem to want to spawn every morning, but I was afraid that they would be to easy for a predator to see when they come up for air. In the green water, the Bronze Corys are almost invisible.

I don't use filters, no moving water, no water changes except when it rains. I do add water to keep the tank full. 

If you have fish in the tank, you are not going to have mosquito larvae. Not for long anyway. Mosquito larvae will get eaten as well as just about any insect that gets into the water. If you have surface feeders, they will attack insects on top of the water.

It takes a while for the tank to become established. Once it does and the plants are growing well, the water is clear.

I would add that if you are going to do this, stock tanks are the way to go. The sun will burn up wading pools and plastic tubs. It would be best if you had as much shade as possible. Full shade all day, if possible. Full sun will cook your fish.

They design stock tanks for watering large animals on a farm. They make them form plastics that will sit in the sun for years without falling apart and withstand abuse from horses, cows, goats, and other farm animals. They have a drain built into them. I have one running now that has been in constant use since 2004.

A tub or tote you get from Walmart is made from cheap thin plastic that will not hold up to the sun. These tubs are not designed to hold water, and the sides will bulge. If the rim should split under pressure and sometimes do, you could come home to find your fish dumped out on the ground.  A large animal, dog or raccoon, could easily tip one over or break it.

Wading or kiddie pools are a little better. They will hold water well, but they will not last long. The edges will split eventually, and once that happens, the pool is toast. The shallow ones heat up very fast if they get any sun at all.

White Cloud Mountain Minnow Colony In A 100-gallon Rubbermaid Stock Tank

My hundred-gallon rubber made stock-tank,  Home for my Whitecloud colony. They have been outdoors in this tank for around three years. There are several sizes of fry in there now and an unknown number of adults.

The plants are mostly dwarf sagitarius. There is a large clump of java moss and a few amazon frogbit plants I reciently added. The top is covered with birdnetting to keep my resident red sholdered hawk out,

Stocking Suggestions For a 100 Gallon Stock Tank

100 Gallon Tuff Stuff Stock Tank

White clouds if you want the to survive the winter.

Comet goldfish (feeders) work and they are very cheap.

Guppies are good while the temperature is above 60 degrees. Guppies are pretty easy to catch. This is especially true if you have been feeding them.

Platies can't take the heat or the cold well. They can work, but you need to keep them in a shaded area.

You don't want direct sun if you can avoid it.

I have kept Peppered Corydoras paleatus. and albino bristle nose outside in the summer.

Light colored fish are easy to see. Goldfish or the golden white clouds for example.  Regular white clouds just about disappear in the black stock tank. Peppered Corys will vanish and not be found again until you drain the tank.

All of the zebra danios I have in my aquariums were spawned in media mixing pans outdoors like the ones you would use for mixing mortar.

There is a theme here. Hardy fish are usually the cheap ones. I would like to try some native sailfin mollies and bluefin killies. These are native to our area and should do well.

Put wire fencing over the top of the tank high enough above the water level that birds can't perch on the wire and eat you fish. I had a red shouldered hawk clean out a tank once.

Raccoons and the neighborhood kids are a real threat.

Outdoor Plants In My Stock Tanks - Above Ground Ponds

110 Gallon Stocktank - Above Ground Pond With Guppies, Mystery Snails, and Platies

I live in Tallahassee FL. I have three outdoor year-round Stock tanks. I have also used various other containers; Aquariums, Concrete Mixing Tubs, wading pools, and stock tanks. I have plants that have survived air temperatures well below freezing. I once had more than an inch of ice for a few days.

Plants that have worked for me so far are dwarf Sagittarius, duckweed, anacharis, and Amazon Frogbit.

Dwarf Sagittarius, will grow in any tank I have but works best if it has a little substrate. It grows to the top of the water no matter how deep blooms and will cover the bottom of whatever you put it in.

Duckweed is, well duckweed. It will cover the top of the outdoor tanks. I have had it two inches thick and scooped it out by the hand full. I finally got rid of it everywhere by adding some feeder goldfish. It took them a while, but they ate all of the duckweed.

Anacharis is picky about where it grows. I have some containers where it slowly dies and others where it grows but not what I would call well. I have one 100 gallon stock tank that I routinely pull out a bucket full. It grows slower in cool temperatures, but it still thrives in winter. It grows like crazy in the summer and blooms.

Amazon Frogbit did well for me year-round. It grew huge outside and had lots of flowers. Unfortunately, armyworms decided it was good to eat, and I could not pick them off fast enough to save it. My guppies would devour the caterpillars, even picking apar the larger ones.

Crypts grow very well in summer but will not survive our mild winters.

Amazon swords don't survive the winter but grow well in summer.

A few days ago, I added some huge Anubis I removed from a tank I had indoors because they were so big they were growing out the top of my aquarium. 

Guppies and Homemade Feeding Ring

DIY Feeding Ring - Guppies - 110 Gallon Stock Tank

This is my DIY feeding ring its made from 3/4 inch pvc. Because That's what I had on hand. It works really well and except for needing to tie it down to keep it from move I have no complaints. Commercially available feeding rings are flimsy pieces of junk that,  break sink, let the food get out, and fall apart in direct sunlight. I have a few of these in my outside tanks and have nade them from 1/2 inch CPVC to use in the indoor tanks.

I like feeding rings because they keep the food in one location. The fish soon learn to come there for food.  You get to see them eat and it mkes the lots eaiser to catch.

I uploaded these videos of my stock tank to YouTube a few months ago and forgot to publish them after they were converted. Duh

A few years ago a started a guppy pond in my garden using a 110 gallon stock tank. Much to my surprise it changed the whole garden. All sorts of critters were attracted to the water. Some examples" I now have a population of frogs that spawn in the tank. The are always a large number of dragonflies in the garden and mosquitoes are almost non existent. In the warmer months the garden always has birds. I'm hoping to start a larger tank in the spring. Here are a few videos of the tank I made a few months ago.

Last year I threw out buckets of frogbit almost every week. No frog bit this year. First it got attacked by aphids and the something started eating it. I'm betting caterpillars though I never caught them in the act. Last year I picked hundreds of them off the plants but they didn't show become a problem until it was well established.

This is the best feeding ring I have ever had. It's made frpm 3/4 inch PVC.

Guppies In a 110 Gallon Tuff Stuff Stock Tank

I started raising guppies outside last year. It's incredibly easy to do. You really don't have to feed them but I like to so I get a good look at them. I started out wit a tarp over a compost pile that kept getting full of water and mosquitoes that I put some guppies in to eat the mosquitoes. They grew fast and when I found the 110 gallon stock tank for sale cheap at Tractor supply I just had to give this a try. There is no filtration. The stock tank gets full sun and its full of plants. The only maintenance is keeping it full of water from the hose. If the water gets to green for me I let the hose trickle into the tank until it clears. The green water does not harm the fish but you can't see them if it gets to bad. This only happens in the spring before the plants get going.

 

Accidental Harbor Freight tarp pond on top of a compost pile

I put this blue tarp on my compost pile, hoping to stop weeds from growing in it. It didn't leak, and the rain-filled it up. Then the rains came and filled the tarp with water. The Mosquitoes took over. To control the mosquitoes, I added a few guppies. I added some duckweed for shade and to take care of the ammonia. The guppies proliferated, and their colors popped. When summer came, the water was to shallow and got too hot for the guppies, and  I moved the guppies to a 110-gallon stock tank I got on sale from Tractor Supply. The stock tank pond changed the character of my back yard garden and produced some great guppies.