Goldfish questions

**Miss.September** · March 31st, 2012, 04:50 PM

I have two large goldfish and a large black moore (black fish with the bubble eyes) in a half wine barrel in the backyard. They're about four years old, I guess.

They live a somewhat gloomy life out there, we had awesome plans for a nice pond feature, but it's failed dismally. It's covered in a tight wire mesh to keep DD and the dogs out of it and the plants that were in it just didn't survive - we tried numerous times, but the "pond" is in a completely shaded spot.

I feel a bit sad about them, just swimming around in a circle. I thought about rehoming them in the local lake, but the huge amount of ducks and swans on it makes me think that they won't last long. So do you think they'll survive in a farm dam? The dam has yabbies living in it, but these fish are larger than the majority of the yabbies (do yabbies eat fish anyway?). It only rarely has ducks swimming on it, and some calves and a horse drink from it. They're hardy fish, I probably only feed them once or twice each week and they've managed to survive DD's gestures of giving them things (sand from her sandpit, dirt, chalk - I've caught her drawing on the mesh and the chalk falls in).

What do you think?

**Babyluv** · March 31st, 2012, 04:53 PM

Is there reeds and other water plants they could hide in if predators came near them? They eat greenery too so they would be fine food wise.

**Miss.September** · March 31st, 2012, 05:08 PM

There are reeds to one side, plus the dam is 12 ft deep.

**Eenee** · March 31st, 2012, 05:11 PM

Nope don't do it, and I think it may even be illegal to release a goldfish into the wild. I guess this is exactly how the carp problem occurred now they are a huge problem to other fish species. And given goldfish are a type of carp it's a big no no.

**Miss.September** · March 31st, 2012, 05:17 PM

Ahhh okay. Thanks Em, I didn't even consider it from that angle.

Does it include private dams though? We dug it into our property ourselves when the land was bought. No overflow, no water running through it. Just a standard small farm dam for water for the farm stock.