"Zëbulon" wrote in message
...

[snip]

We agreed Gail has rosy red minnows.

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These minnows are great little fish for keeping the mosquito population in
control for those who don't want goldfish or koi, or who have small ponds.
There were two conditions where they didn't do well for me. One was a
pool out in the full sun that became too warm in summer. It was too far
from the house to aerate and I think the heat killed them as they did die
off one at a time. The other is the 3 barrels beside the iris bed. The
only thing I can think of there is the lack of aeration as the water
doesn't get all that warm in summer. It may have been lack of aeration
alone in both cases.

They did fine in a partially shaded, aerated and filtered in-ground 150g
pool closer to the house. I haven't found a dead one in there yet, but
their population is dwindling. It's the only pond that's not netted so
anything can get in there. One day I found a box turtle on the filter.
:-)

So far I haven't seen any turtles in my yard. I
think we're too far from the nearest creek to get
them. My 2 above ground (stocktank) ponds are
difficult for predators to access. I have seen
bullfrogs around the yard but I'm not sure they get
get into the stocktanks. The frogs I've seen in
there tend to be small green frogs of some sort,
or treefrogs.

The inground pond is about 300 gallons and has
intentionally easy access for wildlife. But even
that one still has a healthy minnow population.

It could be that the snakes - there are rat snakes in
and around my yard - keep the frog population
down. Whatever, I've been lucky in my ignorance!

Gail