Anyone try using goldfish in the stock water tanks?

Farmer Kitty

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I've heard using goldfish in livestock watering tanks is a good way to control algey. I was going to get some today as we have three tanks with floats and it's always a battle with the two outside ones and forgot. :(

Has anyone tried this?
 

Thewife

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I use them to control Skeeters!
I don't know if they help with the green slime?

The cow trough barely gets any green slime, but I don't know if it's because it's mostly in the shade, or because I rarely feed those fish?

My pond and lily tubs, get a lot of sun, even with fish in each of them, I battle green slime all sumer long!
 

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What do you do with them come winter? I know your winters are more mild then ours here. I've heard you can freeze them and then thaw them out come spring and they are alive? I thought maybe using a small tub we use in the summer for water tubs for small group of calves or a sick cow, etc and putting them in it with water and letting them freeze and then thaw naturally come spring?
 

Thewife

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Farmer Kitty said:
What do you do with them come winter? I know your winters are more mild then ours here. I've heard you can freeze them and then thaw them out come spring and they are alive? I thought maybe using a small tub we use in the summer for water tubs for small group of calves or a sick cow, etc and putting them in it with water and letting them freeze and then thaw naturally come spring?
I just let them freeze.
The ones on the back deck are in Iodine dip or acid wash barrels, cut in half. Last winter was colder than normal, they lived!

The one problem I have had, is when the lines freeze and the cows drink all the water down! The fish usually survive, but I am pretty sure a cow sucked down my neice's gold fish, the winter before last! We told her it swam away in the flooding.
 

laughingllama75

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Farmer Kitty said:
I've heard you can freeze them and then thaw them out come spring and they are alive?
Um, I know this was a serious question, but I can't help but :lol:
I think spiders are the only living creature that can "freeze" and come back to life.
Goldfish and koi can live in outdoor pnds in the winter, as long as they DON'T freeze. with the floats, does the water freeze? Also, if you use a tank heater, that would work too.

other than that, a lot of people just put them in a tank in the house for the winter.

My big thing with keeping goldfish in drinking water is the ammonia they produce. Goldfish are notoriously dirty fish. I know horse people and cow people use them, but I do not (kept them for years inside, know how gross they can be. dont want my animals drinking that).
 

Farmer Kitty

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That's okay Laughingllama. I know people who swear they freeze theirs when they go on long vacations or get tired of them and then thaw them out later. It isn't as though you can't get them cheap enough to try. :idunno
 

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I have found mine on their sides, in less than an inch of slime, stuck to ice!
They survived!
 

WildRoseBeef

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laughingllama75 said:
Farmer Kitty said:
I've heard you can freeze them and then thaw them out come spring and they are alive?
Um, I know this was a serious question, but I can't help but :lol:
I think spiders are the only living creature that can "freeze" and come back to life.

Goldfish and koi can live in outdoor pnds in the winter, as long as they DON'T freeze. with the floats, does the water freeze? Also, if you use a tank heater, that would work too.

other than that, a lot of people just put them in a tank in the house for the winter.

My big thing with keeping goldfish in drinking water is the ammonia they produce. Goldfish are notoriously dirty fish. I know horse people and cow people use them, but I do not (kept them for years inside, know how gross they can be. dont want my animals drinking that).
I have to interject here. Up here in the Great White North we have frogs, turtles, fish and snakes. If they couldn't hibernate during the winter months by "freezing" they wouldn't exist up here. Of course they don't exist up past the Boreal forest, but they still survive. So, with that, frogs, turtles, and snakes are able to hibernate like that and still be able to make it to spring time.

Gold fish though, that might be something different. I'm no fish expert but with gold fish, unlike the native fish up here, probably are not as likely to survive through the winter and so need to be netted and kept indoors for the winter. I could be wrong though. :idunno
 

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well, in MY OPINION....hibernating is different than freezing. I have a background in zoology, I was a vet tech for many years and I have been raising tropical and (used to) goldfish for many years. I had never heard of such a thing. That is all.......
Yes, I did say, goldfish can stand cold water as long as it doesn't freeze (thousands of people keep them out in the winter but the water HAS TO go below the frost line)
That said, I will remove myself from this subject. I feel an argument is not cool, and I love this board way to much to argue with any of you
 

Farmer Kitty

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Yes, let's not turn this into an arguement.

I do believe laughingllama75 is correct in saying that "hibernating is different than freezing". Last I knew, frogs and turtles dug down in the bottom of ponds, lakes, etc. to hibernate. Snakes find crevices, etc. to get below the frost line. Fish in lake, etc. go below frost line where the water doesn't freeze--That's why there is ice fishing. ;)

All of which is quite different from actually freezing a fish solid and then thawing it out.

We do not run the floats in the winter as these are poly water tubs filled with a waterhose, all of which would freeze solid in our winters. Instead it's a heater in the tank. I get to drag hoses in and out all winter and if I don't get the hoses drained I get to deal with frozen water hoses. :rolleyes: The one tank does end up empty sometimes in between fills. It can be full in the morning when I'm out doing chores and then empty by mid afternoon. Depending on the grouping for the little pasture and the pen in the barn that share the other water tub, I may be able to keep them in there for the winter and feed them. If there ends up to be a big group drinking out of that tub then I can have the same problem as the one outside. :/
 

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