Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

[blacksmith37]

I have about a 1000g pond "system". I put foam panels on it during cold spells and have a 70watt pump and sometime, a 150watt heater. The lowest I measured was 54F but I sure the water got a little colder than that , maybe 50F.
In the recent warm weather I tried to get more swordtails out . And I was very suprised to find 5 zebras with the 30 swords (about 50 swords left). The zebras spawned in my system last summer, and I got about 20 plus 6 breeders ( out of about 10 breeders) last fall (with 500 swordtails).

[guppymax]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

"put foam panels on it during cold spells " Do these panels float on the water or is there a airspace between? I also have swords, platys, mollies, and guppies outdoors with a cold frame fiber glass cover over a cinder block 1000 gallon plastic lined pond. These all have heaters. However, I have native mollies without the cover or the heater. They are inactive when it is cold but doing quite well and get active in warm spells. I have Gambusia afinis doing well in totes with no cover or heater!

I see other threads with other fish in simular circumstances.

max

[PlanB]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

I'd be very interested in seeing any pictures y'all might have.

[guppymax]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

Yes, pictures would be good! My ponds are more commercial than ornamental. They are functional not pretty. For me it is all about the fish and not creating eye candy to look at. I can take pictures if you are interested in that sort of thing from a systems point of view.

max

[guppymax]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.


This shows some of the cinder block tanks with and without covers.

This shows construction details for the stacking of the cinder blocks.

These are my quaranteen totes. Left is F. notalis Center and Right are G. afinis

[PlanB]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

Oh wow, I would love to have a facility like that (if I had room) to do proper koi breeding. How many partitioned tanks do you have and what's in all of them? What kind of pumps or filters to keep all of that running?

[guppymax]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

I have two 1/8 horsepower Gast blowers that carry two outlets each for over 100 glass tanks, one outlet each for over 100 totes, and one outlet each for a couple dozen 1000 gallon cinder block tanks. I like to use a lot of air per outlet to strip unwanted nitrogen compounds from the tanks. The cinder block tanks have some comet gold fish, koi goldfish, mollies, paltys, guppies and swords. The gambusia are in totes. Honestly it is too much water to keep up with if you do any fish clubing or anything else. I use box and sponge filters. I make box filters from undergravel filters for the CB tanks.

max

[blacksmith37]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

The foam floats on the water directly. It is foil faced urethane; home sheathing from builder supply shops. Polystyrene will water log (usually white with no foil). About 10% of the surface is open and the pump circulation keeps the oxygen supply circulating.
If I were 50 yr younger I would know how to post a picture .

[guppymax]

Re: Zebra Danios (and Swords) survive 50F.

Well I am 55 today and I learned how to post  a picture yesterday or was it the day before. I forget LOL. I hope you don't take offense at a young wipersnapper offering instructions that are probably not the best in the world LOL. We may have to get some of the kids to fill in the details. Basically you have to join a place called photobucket:

http://photobucket.com/

Then you resize your pictures so they are about 600 the long way by whatever that turns out to be the short way. Then you upload them to photobucket. Once they are there you can reply by first clicking Img then copying and pasting the url. Its something like HTTP.... then click Img again and enter to put the picture in there.

Thanks for explaining the insulation! They will have fun correcting my instructions!

max