Just caught some wild mosquitofish

[Pearl Trade]

i just went to my 4 inch deep ditch and caught 2 little mosquito fish. i put them in my brothers guppy tank

[Palor]

Straight from the ditch to the tank? If I was your brother I'd be really pissed. No telling what kind of introduced disease or parasites those fish brought to the guppies....

[Pearl Trade]

hes alright with it. i dumped out the ditch water to a bucket and then through the fish in to the aquarium

[squirt_12]

can we see some pictures???

[Futureboy]

Still not good for the fish

how are the fish reacting to being taken from there nice ditch and thrown into a tank which probably has dramaticly differant water qualities ?

[YaYgoldFish]

they wont live to see tomorow.

[cocoa_pleco]

they wont live to see tomorow.

100% right

[squirt_12]

Well then Pearl Trade shouldn't make it suffer and he/she should put them back in their natural environment.

[YaYgoldFish]

Problem is that they lived in probably hundreds maybe thousands of gallons with nothing but pure habitat + some pollution. But now their stuck in something (probably) 10 or 5g tank with bad filtration, fish theyve never seemed, chemicals. Its like if i took you, shoved you in a closet with a couple of kids. Good luck!

[YaYgoldFish]

Well then Pearl Trade shouldn't make it suffer and he/she should put them back in their natural environment.


BAD IDEA. Since they`ve been in chemicals and all the other crap, once they get into the ditch theyll die from stress and all the chemicals that got into the fish will be released into the ditch killing even MORE fish. Hes stuck with them...just not for long.

[Pearl Trade]

i read that the fish can survive all kinds of water. nad the ditch would have dried up any ways. its only about 2 feet around

[cocoa_pleco]

but still thats the circle of life, they naturally die from that. you should never mess with natural ecosystems

[Futureboy]

Fish can survive differant types of water yes but its the shock it causes that from being taken from one and dumped straight into a differant one that causes the shock to them and thats where the poblems start

And sure you may feel like your saving Bubbles there but i think of it as taking away the next birds meal

its nature dont mess with it get your fish from a LFS

[MeganL3985]

What are mosquito fish and How do they live in ditches?

[AquaQueen]

What are mosquito fish and How do they live in ditches?Yea I was thinking exactly that too... Never heard of them before.:confused:

[MeganL3985]

Heres a good article, if this is the same fish they're talking about....

http://www.lawestvector.org/MosquitoFish.htm

[Futureboy]

They look similar to female tropical guppies

they find there way into ditches after rainfall from overflowing creeks etc

well thats what iv been told

[cocoa_pleco]

yep, and for ornamental use you should have them only in outdoor ponds

[Dave66]

Folks, Gambusia sp. mosquito fish were one of the first fish kept in aquariums, back in the '20s. And yes, they got them from ditches, in fact, that's what they were known as before they were named to science and they discovered it ate mosquito larvae. That little ditch fish enabled the Panama Canal to get built. Those ditch fish do very well in tropical tanks after a few weeks in quarantine.

Dave

[Arkie]

they will breed heaps easy but just be careful what you put in with them as they are nippy. i put some in with my axolotl thinking it would eat them, the next morning i found that they had completely attacked the axlolotl so bad she died. they nipped of her gills and started to pick at her body. i felt so bad watching her die. id never put that fish into any of my tanks again.

[c_a_montes]

I tried this once -- got fish from the ditch and put them in our tank. I don't know what fish they were, but I'm positive they're livebearers. Guess what? The "ditch fish" were the only fish in the tank that survived! They even multiplied.

One caveat, though: I live in the Philippines. Keeping tropical fish here is easier .