10 replies to this topic

[Joshaeus]

Hi all! A friend has a small fishless pond they are going to allow me to collect live food out of during the warmer months. How do I do that? Do I simply fill a five gallon bucket with water in the vicinity of plants or other cover live food critters would use? And how do I screen out potential fish predators? Thanks

[Doug_Dame]

The prime live food candidates I'd be looking for in a fishless pond would be (1) daphnia, (2) freshwater shrimp, (3) scuds, (4) mosquito larvae, and (5) possibly infusoria if you're thinking of raising fish fry with tiny mouths. If you're very lucky you might even find vernal fairy shrimp. (Which are interesting enough I wouldn't use them as fish food.)

 

Daphnia if you're very lucky you may see in the water in a cloud, but more normally the standard advice is to swirl an aquarium net in a figure-8 pattern to raise them up from the depths.Dump them into your bucket. Back home, you may need to to inspect the catch in a shallow (white?) container, and get rid of unwanted critters. A turkey baster is a useful tool, or you can use a piece of airline tubing (long enough to get to your mouth) as a pipette. If you wouldn't recognize daphnia in motion, the www is your friend. They're large and distinct enough you may be able to spot some in the pond water to know they're present, but swirl away even if you don't see them. There's some articles around on catching daphnia.

 

Freshwater shrimp and scuds (gammarus) will be on plants or in leaf litter, an aquarium net will again work for that, but you might want something a bit tougher, like a pool skimmer net, as sweeping through dense vegetation will wear out a std little aquarium net pretty easily. If there's floating plants, shaking them vigorously over your bucket may liberate bunches of small scuds. A kitchen strainer will catch the bigger ones.

 

Mosquito larva might be present in shallow, stagnant areas. I presume you know what the wrigglers look like. One of the good things about mosquito larva is that they will live in a fish tank until they're eaten. Or until they emerge from the pupa stage and become flying seekers of humans. If you get way more than your fish will eat, you could probably freeze them for later use. (In warm weather, a pupa will become a flyer in about 24 hours, so if you're keeping them, seeing pupa is a warning sign that immediate action by mgmt is needed, to maintain domestic tranquility and cordial relationships with neighbors. Also biting mosquitoes are a major disease vector for humans and animals, world-wide and in the U.S.) 

 

Pond water will have infusoria, just dip out some water. If you have a brine shrimp net, you could make a more concentrated solution.

 

Not many fish seem to eat tadpoles, in my experience. I wouldn't keep any with the idea they'd become fish food.

 

You can probably find an old copy of Innes's book on aquarium fishes for $1 at a thrift store or Friends of the Library book sale. Had a pretty long section on DIY food collecting, in the old days fish hobbyists had to be more self-sufficient. (My copy sadly perished in a garage flood thanks to Hurricane CantRemember, I'm overdue to find a replacement.) 

 

Be sure to INSPECT everything you collect, and I would tend to not just dump the pond water into any aquariums. You definitely want to avoid introducing any dragonfly larva, diving beetles, and probably water boatmen ... they're all predacious, and can & will catch & eat small fish.

 

Some fish parasites have lifecycles that include inhabiting f/w snails. So if you keep any wild snails, a very long quarantine in a fishless tank would be a good idea. Or just avoid the possible risk entirely.

 

Doing this from the shoreline without getting wet will be very limiting. Some ponds can be very muddy or soft-bottomed in places, don't wear your best shoes. Ponds with fishes may have a few lost fishing lures with hooks lurking around.

 

Wild waters always have the possibility of leaches. Give your wet parts an inspection after getting out of the water. I've rarely had any attach, but they're disconcerting, and finding them earlier is better than finding them later.

 

If you keep any interesting plants, check them carefully for unwanted hitch-hikers. 

 

But catching-your-own is always fun. HTH.

 

d.d.

[Doug_Dame]

Also .... don't be so absorbed in the fun that you forget to look around periodically for alligators that are more curious than you'd want them to be. (Not applicable in all areas.)

[Joshaeus]

I live in Maine, so alligators are a moot point. Doubt anyone has ever fished in this pond, but I will keep that in mind.

[Doug_Dame]

I knew you were in New England. But the nature (and intent) of a forum is that people from all over read it, and get ideas. 

[Joshaeus]

I knew you were in New England. But the nature (and intent) of a forum is that people from all over read it, and get ideas. 

AHHH...sorry. My bad.

 

Here's a question...my friend's pond is having an algae bloom right now with all the warm weather we have been having in new england. Would any live food critters be blooming to match?

Edited by Joshaeus, 06 February 2019 - 02:17 PM.

[Joshaeus]

To answer my question above...no netting the algae out of the pond revealed a bunch of dead insects and nothing else. Oh well...there's always spring

[CaptScot]

I live in Maine, so alligators are a moot point. Doubt anyone has ever fished in this pond, but I will keep that in mind.

 

Moose...watch out for the moose

[CaptScot]

if you want to breed live food, you have a few options once the mosquito wake up

 

The easiest one is probably setup a row of mason jars outside, one day at a time, regular tap or RO water, until you start seeing mosquito larvae. Once you start seeing them, stop adding more jars to the row. Dump the contents of the first jar into your aquarium, and refill with fresh water. Keep going down the line and repeat. Just make sure you feed the fish before the mosquito get too close to completing their metamorphasis otherwise you may produce mosquitos which isn't something you likely want to do.

 

That's literally the easiest way with least cost. The second easiest or perhaps easiest but a little more expensive way is probably to buy a small pond, and stock it with floating plants, gambusia or guppies or other small nano livebreeder or dace and minnows, and let them breed. Outdoors, you probably don't have to feed your feedstock much at all once it's been stocked/cycled, innoculated with beasties and naturalized.

Edited by CaptScot, 08 March 2019 - 03:17 PM.

[Matt DeLaVega]

That is a smart mosquito larvae plan. I like it.

[Doug_Dame]

Drop in one or two pellets/kibbles of dry dog food to help fuel an infusoria bloom ... mosquito larvae gotta eat too.