Kiddie Pools and Stock Tanks

Ok, just a quick update.

Stock Tank / Vat #1 still very hard to see due to water coloration and duckweed. I netted out a bunch of Least Killies and only a few Endlers fry. I did not check the crayfish, that is for this afternoon. No tadpoles remain.

Pool #1 Approximate 50 Endlers fry and 20-25 Least Killie fry. One berried crayfish and 15 or so tadpoles left. The ramshorn snails seem to be thriving as well. I will be doing water changes and adding a few more Leat Killies and Endlers females that are pre-hit. I only have about 9 weeks left so stuff needs to pick up the pace.

Vat / Stock Tank #2 I am going to re-stock it this after noon. I feed off over 500 tadpoles and there are only a few left. The ramshorns are doing well and seeing that tadpoles are great chichlid and Belonasox food I am now hoping for more.

Pool #2 Five female Least Killies and enough mosqueto larva to feed a pet store. My indoor fish are getting really spoiled.

Note: The frog seem to have taken a break in breeding. Now that I see them as a food production machine I hope they get going again.

Quick note, it has been in the high 90s and will top 100 tomorrow. The water is staying in the low 80s. I will be adding a frozen milk jug tomorrow. Everything is fine.

I'm in St. Louis, MO the weather armpit of the universe! Acutally today we had storms. It rained for about five hours this morning and that seemed to perk everything up again. During the heat I did not lose one fish outside. Before I started the project I read enough to know that you need at least 12"-16" in depth to combate the heat and cold snaps. I did note my fish heading as deep as possible during the mini-heatwave. They still came up to feed but headed back down once finished. The rain had another effect, the frogs came back in mass to breed tonight. It was really noisy, Barking Tree Frogs earned the name, as they called back and forth. I can hear them from the kitchen as I type. Looks like the cichlids and Belonasox will be dinning on tadpoles in a few days. Not to worry, I brought over twenty tadpoles inside and still have at least that many I allowed to mature outside. Everyone of them has back legs and a few front legs. I think it will be a banner reproduction year for the frogs and hey, you can't beat the free food.

The Endlers have adapted very well to the outdoors and have recently been dropping fry like crazy. I'll guess by the end of July I'll have between 150-200 fry between both containers. I am finding the kiddie pools work better than the stock tanks likely because there is more floor and surface space. The Least Killies have been slow to adapt, funny thing is the breeder stock was purchased as wild caught. The crayfish have been very stealth and I expected the opposite. I'll be curious to see what I end up with come October when the season is over. NOTE: The livebearers are feasting on mosqueto larva and require very little additional food. I feed them mainly to get them in one spot to count.

UPDATE:

Vat #1-I noted a sudden explosion of fish fry. Unlike Pool #1, the Endlers and Least Killies seem to be keeping consistent numbers of fry between them. I'm guessing there are at least 50 fry between the two types of fish. I attemped to check for baby crayfish, but I came up empty on them again. I know they should be reproducing and will keep trying. I am getting a Magnum 250 H.O.T. next week and will use it to take the color out of the water so I can see better.


Pool #1- At least 60 Endlers fry and 30-40 Least Killie fry. The first batches of Endlers & Least Killie fry are almost large enough to begin reproducing. By the end of the month I should see another doubling or tripling of fry produced. At that point I will begin removing young males to make room. I have a hunch they may reach capacity in August and removing the males should provide some extra room. The Crayfish are still just the same and I have not obvserved the berried one for a week. I know she is alive, so I'll just wait and see. As for the remaining 20-25 Barking Tree Frog tadpoles, they are turning into froglets. So far I've noticed five and the rest are not far behind. More on this below.


Vat #2- Jacks are stocked. I expected them to run wild in the 175gal stock tank, but instead they are hiding in the rock formations. I have only noted them darting from one rock formation to the next. I tossed in two dozen feeder livebearers thinking that would make them give chase. There are still the same number of feeders in there as were placed there Friday afternoon. The mighty Jacks have stage fright!!!!


Pool #2- I have this pool filled and this week stocked a few Endlers and Least Killies to go along with the two Crayfish. I already see fish fry, type still unknowen. For some reason this pool is filled with Mosqueto larva and the fish are stuffing themselves senseless. I net out about 100 Mosqueto larva daily and feed to my indoor fish, Endlers, Least Killies, Meekis,Convicts, Belonasox, Leeris and corycats. The fish eat them in no time flat and are well conditioned.


Ok, about those Barking Tree Frogs. The first batch of tadpoles showed up in Pool-#1. I let many of them grow up but when I discovered their fish food value took out all but about 25. I also moved about 20-25 indoors for later release as my thank you to the frogs. I had an incident a few weeks later where the frogs spawned between 700-1,000 tadpoles in Vat-#2. I then discovered the fish loved to eat them and within 3 weeks they were all gone. I noticed early last week I could not see all the tadpoles in one of my tanks. I went on for two days and then got a ladder to look on top of the duckweed. No froglets or tadpoles up there. Two days ago I noticed a froglet in Pool-#1. I looked in my tanks last night and found four almost froglets. I then checked the tank where the tadpole disappeared and still could not find them. Today I noted two froglets hiding in the glass in another tank. I started looking around and discovered I have several tadpoles missing in action. I suppose I have tree frogs in my fishroom. Throughout the day and evening, I've removed six froglets from the fishroom tanks but none from the tank the tadpoles went missing in! Out foxed by nature again.

UPDATE:

Well we have had yet another mini-heatwave and all he fish have made it through just fine. Not real comfortable I suppose but very much alive and well.

Vat -#1
I am starting to see a lot of Least Killie fish fry now. Guess it took a while for them to catch up to the Endlers. Counted at least 20. The Endlers fry seem to be winning the race over the Least Killies in all containers. A rough guess, on the low side would be 50 Endlers fry some of which are now sub-adults. I suspect in the next 2-3 weeks I may have to bit the bullet and thin them out some. I'll likely cull out the males. I know temporary fix than Bang fry explosion. I did attempt to scoop for baby Crayfish without success. I can't see the bottom, so they may be there and just really lucky. This week, no tadpoles in this Vat.


Pool-#1

Busy week in the pool. First, all the tadpoles are now froglets. They are hanging around the Vats and Pools. They are actually 1/4 the size of the tadpoles they morphed from. At this point they are not singing-Please Dear Lord make them wait until next year! They were an interesting and unexpected diversion. Endlers are taking charge with the first several batches of fry now reproducing. There are colse to 100 Endlers total. The Least Killies are making progress, I'd say at least 25 of them. I suspect the first batch or two of Least Killies will start reporduction in 2-3 weeks. If all continues it is not unreasonable to think 300 plus fish from this pool by the end of the season. Here again, I will need to cull males soon. The Crayfish are still moving around, but the heat has made them sluggish. I have not run into any baby Crayfish yet, but I have not really looked for them either. Time will tell. Pool -#1 has worked out very well and I originally thought it would be the least productive.


Vat-#2

All 7 Jacks are in there and still hiding, go figure! I have added about 50 feeder guppys and feed sinking pellets. OK, I know when the feeder fish follow the pellets down, they become part of dinner. I'll be curious to see how much growth I get out of the mighty whimpy Jacks.


Pool -#2 This pool had to be re-started and was just lightly stocked 3 weeks ago. The Endlers dropped fry the first day or two and now have done so again or different females did. The Least Killies have taken off and there is now a nice shoal of about 12-15. It looks like evrything is reproducing except the Crayfish, but they will need time. There is a walk under deck on our house and Pool-#2 is under it. With the heat, it seems to have done much better than the other containers due to shade. This pool is 110" x 72" x 18" deep. Next summer this will be a prime producer and I will try to get a better start on it. This pool also has a white bottom and is great for skimming mosqueto larva out of. I have frozen a lot of them and feed the inside fish with the larva daily. It seems all the fish love these things and it is free food. All the fish in the pool look ready to explode as they have an endless supply of superfood.


If you are interested, you should try this next summer. I think using what I learned this year will make the project sing even louder next year. I believe you could grow out cichlids, livebearers or just about any other fish. I scrubbed gouramis and corys due to a water chemestry issues with Pool-2 and Vat -2. I will set up the pools in mass at least 45 days prior to the weather becoming reasonable for stocking. Had I had an earlier start who know what the numbers would look like.

This weeks UPDATE:

Just a short note about our great Missouri weather. We staerted the week with a mini-heat wave and ended it with a serious chill! It is only 25 degrees!! The Endlers are wearing parkas.

Vat #1

With the crazy weather the Least Killies seem to be catching up to the Endlers. I counted approximately 25 Least Killie fry and approximately 50 Endlers. Only the Least Killies appeared to make forward progress this week. That could be because they are more tolerent of the warmer or cooler weather. I checked for crayfish again and found nothing once again. I did catch one adult and it has grown to close to twice the original size when stocked. I have to believe there are babies in the PVC forest on the bottom. Looks like another 60-80 days before we drain the thing and find out for sure what is in there.

Pool #1

This has been the most productive container by far. I counted approximately 25-30 Least Killie Fry and approximately 100 Endlers. Close obeservation did confirm that the first few batches of Endler fry are reproducing. I strongly suspect that is the same for the Least Killies, but smaller females reproduce far fewer fry than Endlers. I did observe the crayfish adults and did not really look for babies this go round.


As fate would have it, the tree frogs fell silent this week. I'm not too upset as we needed a break from the noise. Not to worry, by next week I'll miss them. My wife on the other hand will not miss them one little bit. As fate would have it, Pool #1 was invaded by some Leapord Frogs. I was curious if they had spawned but could never observe eggs. Friday I got my answer and yes they spawned. As the weekend wore on I observed more and more tadpoles. I scooped out approximately 200 of them Friday night and transplanted them to the Belonasox. My smaller Belonasoxs are eating like pigs. As the weather turned hot Saturday, the entire diameter of the pool and all floating objects were surrounded by an army of tadpoles. Tonight, I will transfer another several hundred to my cichlid vat and tanks. At last check the frogs were still there so who knows if they are finished or not. (TO BE CONTINUED)

Vat #2

On the suggestion of another fish person I added a few large female Gambusia as ditherfish to make the Jacks feel more secure. The Jacks are starting to take floating pellets, they just wait about 15 min. after I toss them in. Still a bit shocked that the mighty Jacks are so very whimpy. I may add two Comets if the Gambusia don't do the trick. Regardless, a tadpole dinner is coming tonight. I hope to overwhelm them so some of the tads get larger.


Pool #2


Pool #2 has been making consistent progress. Approximately 15 each Least Killie and Endler fry. The crayfish has been busy rearranging the PVC sections on the bottom. Don't know why they are doing that but it doesn't seem to be related to the amount of sunlight in one area or another. I guess I'll continue to attempt to figure it out. I am still getting a load of mosqueto larva each day for the indoor fish. The fish in Pool #2 don't feed as urgently as those in the other containers.

I am addingt two new cat litter pans to my container lineup. I'm hoping for mosqueto larva. If that works, I'll toss in some least killies and see what happens. I'm thinking I'll need to keep fish to just a few.

Just and FYI- I give each container of livebearers two large pinches of fish food twice a day. I did not feed them at all the first two month and the adults appeared well fed, mosqueto larva and other water needy insect eggs. The Jacks get about 20 floating pellets twice daily. I will tell you this, establish a feeding location for each container early. Getting the fish to figure it out afterward takes some time and could cause pollution.

Ok, it has been a while, I was on vacation but of course the fish weren't. First our weather has been as odd as could be. While I was away, the temps dropped and the night temps got into the 60's while highs were in the 80's. Totally not August in St. Louis. Now, it has been approximately 100 degrees in the day time and is still 80 a 1:53 a.m. It will be blistering hot the rest of the weekend.

While I was away, the fish were busy. Here is the update.

Vat #1-
Vat #1 sprang back to life a few weeks ago and started producing a lot of fish. It was really slow for a few months. Now the estimated count is 100 fish-2/3 Endlers and 1/3 Least Killies. I have not been able to find baby crayfish yet again.

Pool #1-
Pool #1 has been the top and most consistent producer. I estimate 150 Endlers and 60 + Least Killies. The Barking Tree Frogs are long gone, but the Leapord Frogs moved in. Before I left there were hundreds of guppy fry size tadpoles, upon my return they vanished. Every last tadpole is gone. Once again I brought some inside and have about 70 in a 20L. Again, no baby crayfish have been found. Not bad for a $17 investment.

Vat #2-
The Jacks are in Vat #2 and while I was away it turned pea green. The care taker reported, befor ethe green set in, that one pair was dominating half the vat. Within two days two of the smaller Jack were found dead. Looks like I have a pair. I am going to do a massive maintenance this weekend to get rid of the green. I'll update it next week. Not to worry, in the fishroom I have two tanks set up for paired Jacks. I did note the Gambusia are breeding like crazy. I suppose the Jacks can't see the Gambusia any better than I can see them through the green.

Pool #2
Pool #2 was a late starter. It began to take off and produce fry two weeks before I left and has continues full steam ahead. I estimate 65-75 fisn 2/3 Least Killies-1/3 Endlers. The only thing I can figure out that may have changed the dynamics is the pool is under a two story tall deck and doesn't get too much sun. Again, no baby crayfish, but the adult crayfish are doing well.


I'll continue to update as long as the fish are outside. The weather is supposed to get down right cold with night lows in the 50's. I may use the heaters or just harvest. Either way I'll post.

Time for a update:

Well the weather here continues to go from odd to strange and stranger yet. We have swung between the low 70s in the daytime to over 100 and the low 60s at night to the high 80s. What next snow? Actually next is another heat wave. Today it topped 100. Normally here it is hoter than hot during August and the first week or two of September. The temps have been wild since July. I figured I had about 3-4 weeks left after this week, but things being what they are who knows what the weather will do next. Despite the aggrivation, the fish have proven very resilient and have lived to tell the tail. With the odd weather comes a very odd weekly report.

Vat #1-Pool #1-Little change in numbers of fish. a few new fry but not enough to really alter my approximate totals. Once again, no baby crayfish to report.

Pool #2-Here is where it gets strange, the population of Pool #2 continues to explode. I would say 75-85 fish at this point and I noticed a few large groups of fry this evening. It seems the weather is having the opposite impact on Pool #2 than the other three direct sun containers. Still no baby crayfish to report.

Vat #2 So very green nothing but the gambusia at the surface are visable. Funny, it is so green the gambusia can't even find their fry to eat them. If you have ever worked with gambusia, that is out of the question as they are fry eating machines.

I was thinking today, when I get the fish out of the pools and vats what tanks to place them in. One problem here, I never thought out how I am going to catch these guys. Any wise or other ideas will be greatly appreciated.