Another fish question

[falconboy]

So as I don't hijack another fish thread, I will ask my stupid question here - I'm pretty sure I know the answer though.

I assume there there are no fish that we can keep in a pond that WILL eat mossie larvae, but WON'T eat frog eggs or tadpoles?

 

[Chrisreptile]

Ive been told Murray River Rainbows will eat the larvae but wont eat tadpoles.

 

[imalizard]

Australian Smelt: Retropinna semoni
Eastern Rainbowfish: Melanotaenia sp
Flyspeckled hardyhead: Craterocephalus sp
Blue eyes

Olive Perchlets Ambassis agaszii
Firetail Gudgeon and Empirefish are also good.
jollytails
flatheaded gudgeons

There's a few for you.

Im sure there are more but ive had sucess with these.

 

[Renagade]

wont your frogs/tadpoles eat the larve? or do you want both fish and frogs?

 

[christo]

So long as you provide plenty of vegetation and ideally some shallow vegetated spots where eggs and tadpoles will hang out but bigger fish won't, you should be right. I second the rainbows and smelts as good choices.

As far as I know tadpoles don't eat fish and frogs would be too slow to catch them even if they were partial to a fishy snack.

 

[cris]

Any of the smaller natives with small mouths(so they can eat stuff much bigger than mozzy larvae) will work fine. To my knowledge any fish with a large enough mouth will eat tadpoles, but plenty should live long enough to out grow edible size. If your buying them i would suggest firetail gudgeons. I personally have found rainbows kept my pond free of mozzies and tadpoles.

Tadpoles dont control mozzies although apparently they can egg the mozzies eggs.

 

[mysnakesau]

I have white clouds in my pond - they are breeding, eat the mozzies but not big enough to eat taddies.

 

[JasonL]

Most fish will eat eggs / tadpoles to a certain degree, even Rainbows, but some eat far less than others.

 

[JasonL]

I have white clouds in my pond - they are breeding, eat the mozzies but not big enough to eat taddies.

again, it depends on the size of the tads, tiny species of tadpole will be attacked by the smallest of fish.

 

[falconboy]

Thanks guys. Maybe it wasn't as stupid a question as I thought.

And for those who might seem a little confused, I'm looking to put fish in a pond and also hopefully attract frogs. Now although the chances of me attracting frogs AND have them breed is unlikely, I don't want any fish to eat the eggs/tadpoles if they do.

The reason I want them to eat mossie larvae is that any water lying around here takes no time at all to be covered in mossies and larvae.

Its frustrating - we already have water lying around, in a bird bath (never even seen a bird in it!) and in our old council garden bin, with a stuffed lid, which is full of water. We get mossie larvae, so at the moment there is a goldfish in it, which keeps it under control. But of course, no frogs other than the odd marsh frog now and again. They are around, this summer there have been frogs going off of a night one street parallel to ours, but none have come to our place.

I was at a clients place about 5 more streets away after rain, walk into their back room, hear frogs outside. 'Oh you keep frogs'. 'No, they keep us, they are wild frogs'. She has no more water around than us, and lives no closer to any natural water, so I don't get it. People who don't necessarily want them get them, we want them and don't. GRRRR!